Lets see some homemade Sissy Bar set ups

[me]

ok well it isn't even close to done, i found this scrap grounding rod (steel thats copper plated) i wasn't sure wether to make my sissy bar big or small but the free material decided for me and well shes a medium girl.

this is moch up, fender isn't even cut yet (or even on the fuckin bike haha) and i haven't welded it to the fender yet or made brackets but i got some cool ones in mind.

i used a harbor frieght hydrolic bender i have to bend it most of the way, then i heated it up and put my wieght on it to bend it the rest of the way.

note for anyone making there own bar and heating it up on concret...DON"T!!! i piece of sidewalk blew up in my face today...scared the shit outta me...just from a little blow torch.

i gotta shave about a half inch off one side to make it even

[jeffo]

Dried concrete can contain pockets of water inside them. Heat them up water boils turns to steam and pop. I didnt think that one up myself.

[MadDog]

Dried concrete can contain pockets of water inside them. Heat them up water boils turns to steam and pop. I didnt think that one up myself.

That was definitely on the test in welding class.

[rustrocket84]

It's called spalling.

On the other end of it, Seeing pictures of the sissy bars is going to help me out significantly. I've tried a couple of times to heat and bend rebar, since it was free and I had a shitload, and none of it came out worth a shit. When I get some more metal and the time to start working on the bike again I'll take some pictures of what I get done.

[jeffo]

RE-bar huuummm its funny you should mention that.

[jeffo]

[jeffo]

[Guest]

Awesome photos, Jeffro. Thanks for sharing them. I'm having the damnedest time screwing up a solution for mounting my sissy bar. I hope to start working on it next week.

If I do, I'll post the photos in the SpartanKiller project thread in the American Bikes folder.

[10watt]

Here's a sissy bar I designed for my nightster. I wanted something I could take off or swap out depending on what I was going to use it for (girlfriend or backpack or whatever). I bent up the bar by clamping (yes it melted the rubber clamps) it to a piece of plywood... heated it up with some map gas and bent it... then I bent the angles on the lower part of each bar. It slides into a tube on either side. The tube was special ordered and is just a little larger than the half inch bar. The tube is welded to a plate which fits between the fender and fender wacha-micalums. I designed the plate and tube set up with cardboard and then in a design program. Sent it to my dad (a design engineer) who hooked me up with some CAD files. Had a local machine shop make them up. Added a little rattle can black to everything and there you go. Not the easiest or cheapest way to go but it's super clean.

[jeffo]

"Awesome photos, Jeffro. Thanks for sharing them"

Yeah but I took a trip to the interwebs principles office before I did it.

[jpswino]

Its a little tiny one but serves the purpose of keeping shit on the back when needed.
I used old fender struts, cut them down, bend up the top piece and welded them together. Finish with black powder.

[REV]

http://www.chopcult.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1709

so there needs to be a specific sissy bar thread for every kind of sissy bar. " let see your ______sissy bar. I wanna see some fucking tech, with all respect to Bill and everyone, this site has become a place where the people who are too scared to post on other boards can come here and post any kind off silly shit that they want, well thats open forum and belive me Im no hiprocrite I participate too (in all the stupidity) you want to post then be prepared for the opinions

i guess the other forums are for "real bikers" and shit too huh? i get tired of hearing about how people who look for inspiration are some how lesser people, how guys who have newer bikes arent as cool etc. not everyone owns every tool harbour fright sells. and some people are new to the scene. hell, i went from enduros to a gz250 to my iron. i want to chop it up just like 99% of everyone else here is, just starting with something newer.

let people ask about shit. how else will they learn?

[jeffo]

In your quest for "inspiration" did you read the part where the moderators asked to knock that shit off.
Because I was pretty sure this thread was mostly back on track. that is until now.

[jeffo]

I usually start with some round stock the problem is that it has that bluish scale covering it, not very conducive to welding and it will also be difficult to get that scale out of the tight bends and corners once you start bending things up, fortunately for me I have a lathe so I can chuck up a piece of stock and spin it and clean off the scale. This servers 2 purposes 1 it knocks off the scale but also it lets you polish up the steel it really helps out your chromer because once again it is harder to polish inside the tight bends and it gives you a better final result, its not a perfect polish I'm just trying to meet my chromer half way.


If you don't have a lathe and you have access to a 1/2 or 3/4 chuck drill then cut off your length of round stock probably about 5 or 6 feet depending how long you want and spin it that way (yeah the loose end will flop around a little but you should be able to get buy, and also please don't use zinc plated or coated rod when you weld on that shit it puts off poisonous gas.

[jeffo]

So this time I started with the lower part of a flyright fender mount my buddy wanted a sissy bar instead so I just decided to extend what was already there (the black painted part).

So I usually slide the 1/2 solid down inside of 2 pieces of 1/2 black iron pipe mark the center of the rod and leave an opening of about 2 inches between the ends of the pipe, heat with a torch (mapp gas) and bend. It makes a nice tight bend like you see. I also have some pre-curved pieces I used to make an arch between the two halves.

as this piece is not structural you can get in there and blend in the welds really good, I'm leaving the rest to the chromer. the welds that attach the new piece to the old piece I left alone to make sure the welds hold.