I got the paypal... the new bar is 1/8th wall. I am also stuffing it with a solid rod inside for ~ 2 inches on either side of the welds. The break tests we did on the 1/8th wall broke next to the weld even without the rod stuffing. And they took tremendous force before they broke, and they bent a lot too before breaking. You should never see that sorta force even in an accident. The older one I made was 3/16 wall... the funny thing is... even after we stuffed the thing with a rod inside and welded it up when we did manage to break it... it still broke at the weld. Also it bent less... far less under more force. AKA brittle... but much higher failure force. I belive that 3/16 is just too much for the welder we have. It penetrates 1/8 fully wihtout doubt. I think the new method is better than the old one... mind you even the old way takes far more load than a stock one will take... cos a 6ft pole and a 240lb guy at the end of it will turn the stocker into a bungee cord. Anyway I will take back all the old ones and send new ones to anyone that wants it free including shipping out at my expense, but you'll have to ship it to me at your expense... Or I'll give $8 (1/2 of what I paid my welder for each handlebar complete) to anyone that has the old bar.. and include instructions for any local welder to weld it up to where it wont fail at the weld, so they can take it and get it done... So this is like a formal recall... please let me know what you want to do. Of course I can fix the old one and send back to each one that wants it instead of the new one. Lemme know...
Cool.
Srinath.

eh, send me one of those new suckers... stronger than the stockers and 1/3 the cost of the SMs. if i snap one of those, i'm sure i'll have other things to worry about.

send one out when you get a chance!  

Also I am not going to paint these... and grind them down either... the welds are not too ugly anyway... that paint covered up the thing and those guys ground down the welds to the point of nothing in some cases for the smooth looks.
Cool.
Srinath.