I’ve avoided this until I have two to cut but as I’ve reached that point (aren’t carbon road forks LIGHT!!) I need advice. I’ve got a hacksaw so I assume I just either need a guide or something like a pipe cutter? Both are alloy steerers, nothing too exotic.

If you’re confident with a hacksaw just put forks in a vice and saw away.
A proper saw guide makes things easier or an old stem clamped to the steerer helps. Clean up the rough edges with a file. Cut doesn’t have to be perfectly straight but it looks better if it is.
And remember measure twice. Measure again and then cut!

I bought an icetools guide and for £20 it was well worth it.

Workshop is 400 miles away so sadly it needs to be stuff I can do in a flat (declining to tell Mrs Atlaz about all the bits of metal obviously) or sitting on the street outside. Saw guide or find a cheapo stem then.

My LBS just cut mine this morning, fitted the crown race and SFN for nought….not much use to you though!!

seriously I’d consider getting your LBS to do this…they have the right tools and it won’t cost much..£20 max
could save allot in tears if you don’t have the right gear

EDIT just read the above – ‘400 miles’ 🙁

For obvious reasons it has to be dead straight other than that cut away!
Maybe knock up some sort of guide out of timber

ummm it does not have to be straight in any way.

Pipe cutters are such a joy to use that you find yourself looking for tubes to cut.

zippy kona, can you recommend a decent set?

these any good?

For obvious reasons it has to be dead straight other than that cut away!

Surely headset preload comes from the cap sitting on the spacers, not the steerer itself? In which case, as long as you’re not cutting it like a straw that comes with a kids juice box then I’d imagine a little uneven isn’t a big problem

get ones of these for £18.

http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/Models.aspx?ModelID=10222

I only thought i would use it once but have cut various forks with it.

I used a pipecutter a few years back and the cutting wheel failed – lead me to believe you can get different strength/grade cutting wheels depening on if your cutting copper tube ot steel pipe

I guess I had a copper tube cutting wheel? – never looked into it much beyond that

I think Atlaz is cutting a carbon steerer so a pipe cutter wont work.
I use a junior hacksaw- nice fine blade- and an old stem as a guide. As has been said measure twice cut once

colnagokid – Member
I think Atlaz is cutting a carbon steerer so a pipe cutter wont work

atlaz – Member
I’ve avoided this until I have two to cut but as I’ve reached that point (aren’t carbon road forks LIGHT!!) I need advice. I’ve got a hacksaw so I assume I just either need a guide or something like a pipe cutter? Both are alloy steerers, nothing too exotic.

I find clamping a jubilee clip around the steerer is a cheap and effective guide.

It’s the measuring rather than the cutting which is important – it’s only a bit of alloy tubing after all.

I’ve cut steerers with a junior hacksaw, forks resting on a kitchen chair and using my knee to steady it all.
Just measure accurately, cut approximately square and finish with a file – job done

Jubilee clip might be a good call. I have a problem also in that I’ll be going to a DIY shop asking for things in French. I speak good French but the words for tools etc are new to me 😛

Wish me luck. Road forks first as they’re PX jobbies for 50 quid, Rebas second.

“ummm it does not have to be straight in any way”

If you cut the steerer off-square and use a park tool star nut setting tool to fit the star nut inside the steerer.. then its going to be off-square inside the steerer as when you finally drive the tool hard down, the tool butts up to the off-square cut of the steerer.

Moving on… you fit the fork and put the top cap on. You tighten it down to find it contacting the stem or spacer off-square. This often causes problems with the pre-load either at the time of fitting or problems later on during riding. I remember a King headset not playing ball because of this problem with a poorly cut fork. It had to be removed and filed up as square as possible. Once sorted, everything went together a breeze.

More recently i noticed tight spots in a newly fitted (open ball) headset because of the off-square cut/squint star nut in the steerer. You wouldnt have thought it would have made much of a difference but it was so bad that it couldnt have gone out the shop the tight spot was that bad. Again,straight cut steerer solves the problem.

On rock hard steel steerers even what is known as the best pipe cutters cause a flat lip on the outside of the steerer at the top. They might cut fine with their so called hardest cutters but they soon give up. The lip they leave once cut still has to be filed off or it will tear o-rings when fitting the final headset parts. A plumber recommended a cutter to us and he too had problems cutting a marzocchi steerer with a fresh wheel under what he would consider the right pressure/tightness to cut with. He thought we were tightening it up too much but the marz steerer soon had the last laugh! More bother than what they are worth. A good guide,fresh blade and a good file is the best.

How do some of you people manage to survive life?

Its a **** metal tube, get a saw and cut through it. FFS!

I’m wondering the same about you. But not for the same reason.

I cut my first steerer a few weeks ago. I got a £7 pipe cutter from B&Q (like the one in toys19 post)and it was simple,clean cut. Just file the lip down (took seconds using the file on a leatherman). Really was straight forward.

martinxyz, which lbs are you?

..and mine was a marzocchi steerer