Well after really looking around for matching highway bars for my PrimeApes and only finding the Yaffes to be somewhat close, I decided to fabricate my own. The Yaffes are a little too rich for my blood and not quite the same look, I'm a bit **** about that kinda stuff. So after puchasing the 1 1/4" DOM tubing, gathering a few flat steel scraps for the brackets and already having a tubing bender, off to work I go. This is the first time I've taken on a project quite like this for my bike in the way of fabrication but it's been really rewarding to see it coming to fruition. As of now they are mounted and functional but still need to do final clean-up and get them powdercoated. I started by pulling the HD bars off and made the mounting brackets and matched the angles of the bends as closely as I could. Then, after making the matching bends, I mimicked the tops of the LAC PrimeApes as closely as I could giving it a little bit of "straight" after the bend, as opposed to the sharp curve right at the end on the Yaffes that are already being sold. Cutting the correct angles, especially at the sharp point seemed to be the hardest part but taking my time proved to be invaluable. They came out perfect in my eyes! One thing I did to truly make it custom to me was to weld "tabs" for the highway pegs instead of using brackets. They are positioned perfectly just for me and no one else but really cleaned up the look from the front and one less place for squashed bugs to collect, I always hated having to clean all around those brackets. I may also drill and tap a spot to put a cruiser caddy on in yet another effort to keep the clean look going instead of mounting it with bracket it comes with. I only use it on multi-day trips anyway and don't want to mess up the finish by taking it on and off all the time. This way it's just one hole and a bolt that gets screwed on and off here and there. Still not sure if I want a threaded hole that may rust over time though, we'll see... Hopefully LAC will start making these as I think they really compliment the handlebars well. I asked them to start selling them but couldn't wait. Well there's my recent project, saving up now for a FM 107" kit.

 

... and some more pics...

 

Not bad, did you look at the santee bonanza bar?

 

I did, but really wanted to match the LAC handlebars as closely as possible. The Santee's have the curved top and gussets at the top points. Nice looking bars but just didn't match well enough for me. I know you're out there LAC, you need to make and sell matching highway bars. They'd sell like hotcakes to existing PrimeApes owners. I've already had a few ask me to make them a set but I just did them for myself. I reserve my spare time for RIDING! :-)

 

Excellent work.

I love my tubing bender, makes these projects possible with very little effort.

 

Thanks, you're right, with the right tools you can make just about any job easy.