Cutting carbon bars

tonyride

Don't piss off the red guy
I have 2 carbon bars I want to shorten. I don't have a vise or one of those fancy pipe/bar clamp guides a vise grabs on to for using a hand saw to cut them. I do have a bike repair stand and a Dremel with round cutting blades. Would clamping the bar to the stand and use the circular blade to cut the ends work? I know breathing carbon dust is very bad so I'll be doing it outside with a mask on. What do you think? Anyone tried it?
 

rick81721

Lothar
I have 2 carbon bars I want to shorten. I don't have a vise or one of those fancy pipe/bar clamp guides a vise grabs on to for using a hand saw to cut them. I do have a bike repair stand and a Dremel with round cutting blades. Would clamping the bar to the stand and use the circular blade to cut the ends work? I know breathing carbon dust is very bad so I'll be doing it outside with a mask on. What do you think? Anyone tried it?

I just used a hacksaw. In the garage - no mask. Very little dust.
 

Rocksrgood4u

Well-Known Member
I always use a fresh hack saw blade- not a carbon blade, the metal type. And use masking tape and your cut won't flake as much. Pull saw towards you and go slow.
 

tonyride

Don't piss off the red guy
So I shorted both of my carbon bars over the weekend using RyanP and Zack's recommendations and noticed a couple of things. I used a pair of old grip collars as guides, 32 TPI blade, and a spray bottle of water. I did all the cutting outside when it was windy at the time which turned out to be quite beneficial. So one of the things I learned is that I suck at sawing. Even with a collar as a guide I managed to angle the cut into the collar. I was wondering why the cut moved along quite well at the beginning but half way down it just seems like I'm sawing away and it's barely getting any lower. That's because I was cutting into the collar so I was sawing through carbon fiber and aluminum. Before I start cutting I sprayed the bar and blade with water to wet them down to avoid carbon dust flying and hovering around because you don't want to breath that stuff. I also had a mask on. I would stop and spray the bar and blade 3 or 4 times and while doing that I realized the other thing which is how fine the carbon dust is. Because of the water some of it clumped up on the blade so I was able to examine it a bit and imagined without water all that fine dust would be all around my face. Having wind constantly blowing helps with the health safety aspect too but when the wind changes direction I had to as well because I'm not certain the water would soak up all the dust.
 
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Crabryder

Well-Known Member
To be safe -> Abrasive cut-off wheels only (chop, miter saw and dremel) on carbon bars, seatpost etc. Any fiberglass,kevlar,carbon and graphite are fiber woven and resin cured and can fray and separate with toothed style blades. Diamond rod hacksaw blades(tile saw) are about as far as I would push it. - again just to be safe on those $200 Enve bars
 
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