The topic of these handlebars came up a while ago. Since I have a Lauterwasser handlebar, a mandrel tube bender and some 7/8" 4130 tube I figured I might also have some usable tooling. After committing to the filth that goes with bending dies (lots of oil on this stuff) I found the required die sets and went to work.

My tube bender is partially home made. The original must have been for smaller tasks because it broke nearly every time I tried to use it. Eventually I replaced the entire drive system with a giant bicycle type chain. Here is a film of it bending a 2" diameter tube (sound is mandatory for this one)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/frankth...7623874107330/

As you can tell, it's a monster.

With this type of project, you can tell how 99% of it is going to go. (1) waste a lot of material (2) use a lot of time (3) Fail.

Steel handlebars made in the 30's would have been made from different material (We know people are trying and failing to make this in mass production so they can figure this out themselves) that is easier to fabricate so I wasn't too confident.

I ended up blowing through 24' of tube and finally getting something I liked. The center is sleeved on the inside, full-pen welded and will get another 1" sleeve brazed on the outside.

The end on the grip bend has a pretty big ripple that I am not stoked about. They ended up within 1/4" of the original profile. Nice-


IMG_4003 by frankthewelder, on Flickr

IMG_4004 by frankthewelder, on Flickr