Shortening a control bar

[honda900]

I have a Cabrinha Powerdrive 121control bar and would like to shorten it from its current length of 55 cm to 50 cm. Does anyone have experience with this? It looks like the bar ends are only held on by a rivet. Is there any glue holding them on as well? Thanks for any info.

[tungsten222]

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[Miltsface]

if you aren't able to rivet it, you can use a stainless flat head bolt and a tee nut. won't look quite as nice, but it will work. I did that with an old bar and it worked fine. use lock-tight to make sure it doesn't unscrew at an inopportune time.

[scklandl]

is that a carbon bar?

Ive heard carbon is a bitch once you cut it. The fibers start to fracture and weakens the whole damn thing. Do a little search engine homework cuz dis has been covered b4. But you can probably get away with it even if it is carbon by RE-sauturating the cut ends with epoxy , it may be compromised but probably not by much.

[switch313]

i ride small bars and have many times considered cutting them, but the bottom line is i wouldnt trust my work, can you imagne boosting in 30 knots and one of the bar ends coming off?? companys like b3 do small bars sepeate and you can allways find old ones on ebay for like 30 bucks just change the center line and reattach lines in the right place, the kite will fly the same. well better- i find it you fly oversheeted a little (when unhooked) with a small bar there is more control and less chance of oversteer.......

[OzBungy]

I too am looking for advice about shortening a Cabrinha carbon bar. Judging by the lack of responses to this thread there's not a lot of knowledge out there.

I've got the ends off and there are aluminium inserts inside the carbon to hold the rivets, stop the carbon splitting and keep water out of the bar. I can reuse most of the parts but the aluminium pieces are epoxied in and too hard to reclaim. I guess I could make some new bits but it's starting to sound like a lot of work just to have a shorter bar.

[Ivel]

get a SS bar. they're easy to cut down and have a decent center hole and nice bar ends
i ride a 17" and a 12" bar .
just unscrew the endpiece, chop it, then epoxy the end pieces back on and then screw it in place.
it can be done with any bar that has removable endpieces.
make sure you cut it even amounts on either side or the kite will fly funky

[OzBungy]

Thanks for the tip. Your mention of putting the ends on with epoxy inspired me to think that I can replace the aluminium inserts with a plug of epoxy putty and a couple of stainless self-tappers instead of pop rivets.

[hapa13]

Cabrinha bars are actually pretty easy to shorten. I've done it at least a dozen times for both personal setups as well as friends.

1. Secure the bar in a vice (wrap it in something to prevent damaging the EVA).
2. Drill out the existing rivets.
3. Crack the seal of epoxy that's holding the end on by twisting it.
4. Determine how much shorter you want to go and mark accordingly.
5. Using a sharp razor blade, cut away the appropriate amount of EVA to expose the bare bar.
6. Premark where the new rivet holes will be based on lining them up with the old ones. This part is sort of important to keep the bar ends properly squared up. Using a ruler or straight edge is all you need to keep things straight.
7. Cut the bar based on your particular measurements
8. Drill out your new rivet holes.
9. Epoxy the bar ends back on.
10. Pop 2 new rivets in the ends.
11. Now just run your lines out to a tree or fence post and double check to see that everthing lines up and looks/feels normal. All 4 lines need be dead even at full power. Nothing is worse than an out of tune bar. Oversheeting kites suck! Done.

It's worth noting that the shorter the bar gets, the slower the kite will be to respond to steering input. True wakestyle riders will generally want the shortest bar possible since you don't want to kite moving at all when unhooked (i.e. Cabrinha finally makes a stock 40cm bar this year and it rocks!) If you're into boosting, megaloops and down the line wave riding, then a bigger bar will make those moves easier.