Midnight Oil has undergone some changes in the past couple months (I'm Midnight Oil). I have asked my partner/website guy Nathan to remove the store all together. Unfortunatley, I won't be building bars anymore. Lots of reasons for changes, but lets just say that I re-arranged my priorities in life and now Midnight Oil is for enjoyment. Stuff like the Bars being discussed here I was doing because I had enough people want me to build them, But I was never really "into them". Same with a couple other peices I did. I am now only doing sheet metal work, no more bars, frame jobs, ect. I'm a sheet metal guy and that's what I enjoy, so that's what I'm going to do.
Now, I'd like to spread some light on how things work in the "real world" as to what goes into a set of bars like these (or anything hand made for that matter) and why stuff costs money. First off, look at the design of the bars. See how the vertical tubes have a gradual curve to them? Well if you don't have one of those fancy tube benders that roll the tubbing through 3 dies for long sweeps (which cost a few thousand bucks) then you have to do it another way. Me, I made a wood/metal buck with that gradual sweep in it to bend the tubing against. But to get the tubing to bend against it and stay, you need to heat it with a torch...evenly. So besides the small cost of the tubing, now your using gas (which cost money). After you've taken the time to bend two exactly the same, you cut a couple other pieces to length for the bottom and the grips. Then you notch the tubing at THE correct angles and weld them up. Not done yet. Now you machine a couple plugs to fill in the open tubes at the oppossite ends of the grips, weld them in and file the welds nice and clean. Then you make two gussetts and weld them in, bla bla bla. Remember your running a business here, the object is to make a living, not 20 bucks, and you've just spent the better half a of a day to get this far. Then you want the holes in the tubes like I was offering... OK, measure and space out where the holes will be drilled so that they are all even, then cut all the little sleves that are going in the holes and de-bur them, fit them in the holes and grind the extra material away before you weld'em up nice, and now you've got pretty much a day in building one set of handle bars, and they're not even Chromed yet. So a day spent, gas used for the torch, the welder, and materials... You need more than a $100.00 profit for a days work in the real world, or you last about 10 seconds bfore your out on your ass looking for a job. Everyone looks at the hand made stuff and says "Well shit, I could do those myself for a quarter of the price"! Yep, you could, but your not counting the hours it took to actually do it and do it nice. I made sight tube kits that I sold also for about $50.00, and I once say someone on here say, shit what a rip off, is about an hours worth of work for me and a couple bucks in materials. NO shit pal, except when I'm building them for a living and my shop rate is $50.00 an hour and I just spent an hour making it and have a couple bucks in materials ontop of that hour, then I didn't even get my shop rate out of that little peice. If I was building it for myself in my home garage then great, I did good, but if I just spent an hour on something I'm suppossed to be making a living at and only made 20 bucks, well then the land lord ain't gonna be happy come the end of the month.
This country used to be proud of it's craftsmenship, now with all the TV bullshit, everyone thinks they can do it themselves or that it's atleast as easy as it looks. They can buy a cheap stamped out un-semetrical tank made in China out of the V-Twin catalog for $150.00 and then expect to get a custom one built by a shop for the same price because they don't know what it takes to get the finished product. I think the other bars are ALL a bit pricey, knowing that they are made not just one at a time, but in larger runs, but if you want them you have two choices in life, buy it, or build it yourself. I started out just to say I'm no longer doing the Weekend Benders, but got off on a rant, so sorry about it. I'm now only doing work that interest me, not trying to cover the entire market. Mark.