Bike shop with a pipe cutter?!

4

Hey, looking to chop down some MTB bars and don't want to use a mini hacksaw again (not the tidiest finish).

Any one know a bike shop near Dublin City centre or suburbs that could cut them down? I've tried a few already but they were just going to use a hacksaw too..

cheers

_sparkie_

'on track' on cook street have a jig for cutting bars down, you still have to use a saw but it gives a perfect finish.

seamus

If you don't have any joy with this, there are other options.

A pipe cutter for steel/aluminium is insanely expensive because they're solid metals. A plumber's pipe cutter won't work as they're designed for the much softer copper pipes.

Here's what I did for a chromo fork steerer.

First off, you need to mark the cutting point accurately, i.e. perfectly concentric around the pipe. For the steerer, I clamped the stem on at that point and then use a Sharpie to trace around the edge. For a set of bars, you could clamp on one of the brake levers, or a clamp for a light or something.
Here you can just barely make out what I'm doing:


The biggest problem with cutting initially is having the blade slip, so you should put some masking tape on at the point where you're going to cut. Of course, if you've made the mark on the bare tube, you'll lose your mark.
So put some masking tape directly above and below the cutting mark. It's surprisingly easy to do this accurately.
Then another piece of masking tape over the mark (overlapping the other two pieces of masking tape). This will allow you to indent the masking tape along the mark, giving you an accurate line on which to cut:



Of course, I've just realised that you could put the masking tape on the bar before you mark it, but I like my way better

For cutting it, use a good hacksaw with a 2mm blade. I.e. one of these not one of these. The latter blade will flex and bend and it's much harder to keep straight an accurate.

Cut it strong and smooth, don't try to get through it as quickly as possible, focus on keeping the blade straight. It really helps if you have access to a clamp to keep the bars rigid while you cut.

If you try to cut through the entire pipe from one side, then you will veer off course as you progress through the pipe. Cut through it from all four sides. So start cutting until you can see through the metal. Then flip it over and do the same on the other side. Then flip it 90 degrees and start cutting again, and so on. This will give you the straightest cut. I actually don't have any pictures of the finished steerer on mine, but it's almost perfectly straight. there's a slight hump on it which I could easily file down if I was bothered.

Use a file just to remove any harshness and hangers-on from the edge of the bar. The ends of bars are typically tapered, so if you want it perfect you could give it a good filing. But since the ends are covered by plugs anyway, I think it's a waste of time.

Hermy

seamus wrote: »

A plumber's pipe cutter won't work as they're designed for the much softer copper pipes.

I have used a plumbers pipe cutter to cut aluminium handlebars without any problems.

seamus

Good to know, cos they're dirt cheap.

Hermy

Also, the cutting wheels are replaceable so it could be useful for marking a steel tube before cutting with a hacksaw.

Morgan

seamus wrote: »

A pipe cutter for steel/aluminium is insanely expensive

They're not that bad:
http://www.bike-components.de/products/info/p1958_Speedcutter-.html

http://www.bike-components.de/products/info/p1959_Speedcutter-Stahl-Schneideraedchen-5er-.html

el Bastardo

Hermy wrote: »

I have used a plumbers pipe cutter to cut aluminium handlebars without any problems.

Yeah, and if you look here you'll see that one guy used pipe cutters on his bike suspension fork steering tubes (which aren't made of copper either).

seamus

I stand corrected!

Wish I'd know that two weeks ago...FS

NeedMoreGears

I have used a grinder with a metal cutting disk and it gave a pretty nice finish. You'll need to be comfortable using one and safety gloves & glasses are a must as I know from experience that little bits of metal in your eye are not much fun. You'll also need to remove burrs/sharp edges with a file afterwards.

As Seamus says "First off, you need to mark the cutting point accurately, i.e. perfectly concentric around the pipe" - measure lots, cut once.

4

thanks for the replies, looks like I'm in the market for a pipe cutter so