I don't know if this belongs in this forum or in framebuilders, but I thought I'd start here and see what happens.

Recently, I've been wishing for various handlebars that don't seem to exist, and this has led me to kludgy "solutions" involving bar ends and bolted-on appendages. I've been wondering what it would take to either modify existing bars (I mean bend, not just cut - I know how to use a hacksaw! ), or to make new ones from scratch.

I'd be most interested in working with alloy bars, to save weight, but would consider prototyping in steel if that turned out to be a lot easier to work with. So the questions are:

What sort of tubing do you start with? What tools do you need to bend it cleanly? What's the technique?

Anybody done this?

Thanks!