Grindhouse

Last night I spent a couple hours putting holes in my new clubman bars to run the wires through. Who knew steel was so hard to cut through! I tried using a drill press, but since I had to lower the bit with one hand, I could only hold the bars with the other. I couldn't hold it steady enough. I tried putting it in a vice and using a cordless drill, but didn't make much progress. So, in desperation, I whipped out my trusty Dremel.

I used a heavy duty cut-off wheel to carve a square hole in the bars. Then I used a grinding wheel to make the ends round. The tubing used in the bars is much thicker than I was expecting for $18. The first hole I did was one of the ones at the hand controls. These get covered up by the controls so nobody can see how bad I butchered them. I used this first one to perfect my technique. The other two went much smoother now that I had a process. It still took a long time though. Finally, I used one of the small sanding drums for the Dremel to clean up the holes and remove all of the sharp edges. I will have to remember to coat the edges of the holes with something to keep them from rusting.