I can ride my bike with new handlebars

After getting some real miles in on the Shovelhead over the last month, I came to the conclusion that the drag bar on 8" risers wasn't gonna be enough to get the riding position that I wanted.  

Right around the same time, I noticed that the bars that were on my chopper when I crashed last year weren't so much bent as twisted.  As long as I cut the bar in half and put it back together, it would be perfectly re-usable.  Add to that my affinity for sleeved bars and risers, and the concept began to take form.  After figuring out how I wanted everything to be situated, I got to cutting up some metal.  The riser posts are 1" .120 wall tube, the sleeves are all 1.25" .120 wall tube.  I used some 1/2"-13 flange nuts that were cut down on the lathe enough to slide into the 1" tube for bolting the whole mess down, too.

I didn't want any welds showing on the finished bars, so I decided to plug weld all of the pieces together (with the exception of where the risers meet the handlebar).  I drilled out and de-burred all of the sleeve pieces to prepare them for welding.

Then came the easy part.  I slid everything together and burned in some big 'ole plugs.  In retrospect, the welds were too big and I made too many.  I erred on the side of overkill for this set, but I'll probably go a little lighter on the next set.

After the riser posts were welded, it was time to fish-mouth (or cope, or notch, or whatever).  I have a notch and whole saw set, but the "chop-saw method" on the band saw was much quicker and more precise.  Definitely gonna be doing it this way from now on.

Once the risers were cut and cleaned up, I went ahead and ground down the welds and mill scale before bolting them to my welding table to set the handlebar at the proper angle.  The final angle ended up being perpendicular to the risers so that I would have the right amount of turn-down at the ends when installed on the bike. 

I got lazy on the picture taking around that point, but some welding, grinding, dremel-ing, filing, and painting took place.  The paint looks like shit, but I'm gonna run it for a little while until I'm either ready to send out a bunch of stuff for powder coating, or get set up to do it at home.  More likely the latter.

I've ridden around with them for a few days now, and am proud to say that I nailed it on the height and width.  These bars have made quite obvious, though, how terrible the riser bushings in my top tree are.  Anyway, that's how I built my new handlebars.