Kelly Handlebar Problem Solving- Opinion Poll

[Jesse McCauley]

I'd love to get some caber insight into an ongoing effort to complete these Kelly bars.

Once upon a time another caber harvested the Kelly nut & toothed washer from this set and it was left with a modern chrome nut & no washer to secure it.

This one piece bar style of Kellys is new to me but I appreciate the design so I wanted to try to get it right as I could.

I found a damaged solo Kelly bar section courtesy of Reed in NJ and had it shaved down to what I felt like was a safe thickness/profile. I also sought out an appropriately sized / threaded and aged nut, this is what I came up with.

All that to ask, what do you think?
Look acceptable? Suggestions to improve?

I'm going to do a little salt water aging to the fresh cut metal eventually but aside from that I don't know how else to improve the curb appeal of this monkeyed with set of Kellys.

I am considering an aged acorn nut, but that may look silly I don't know.

Thanks in advance for any constructive criticism, doin the best I can with it.

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[mongeese]

Cut the nut so it meets the bolt-then lathe a bevel in outer edge.

 

[Rambler]

I agree, reduce the nut thickness so that it is flush with the bolt end.

 

[willswares1220]

Interesting set of bars!
A precision, machine shop surface grinder or milling machine should work fine for an accurate dimension on the backside and yet leave that front surface of the nut intact and aged. Any worn patina ed nut you may choose to blend in.
I'm positive, those were my bars at one time and yes, I did use the original nut and washer for another set of adjustable Kelly's I had, that didn't have the original nut & washer intact.....If I would have kept them, I would have done what you're doing right now.

 

[Jesse McCauley]

I also thought a more slender nut would finish it off, looks like it's time to find a more finely suited machine shop.


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[barracuda]

Just a personal preference, but I like to see those kinds of bars with an oversized wing nut out front. It gives the whole apparatus an airplane/propeller look, and allows for hand adjustment during rides.

 

[boardhoarder]

I also thought a more slender nut would finish it off, looks like it's time to find a more finely suited machine shop.

@Jesse McCauley - I had an adjustable set of bars with a similar predicament, so I went down to my local hardware store and bought a "jam nut", which is usually about half as thick as a regular nut- worked just fine! An .80 cent solution to the problem.

Should be easy to find at just about any hardware store in various sizes and thread pitches.