I recently installed a towel bar that is just a little too long (currently 24", needs to be 22"). It is a metel towel bar (hollow center) and I wasn't sure what tool I needed to use to safely cut the bar?

 

I use a small tubing/pipe cutter...but a hacksaw will work. Just clean the burrs off after.

Welcome to the Forums....

 

You should not have to cut. If the towel bar is 24" then the brakets should be spaced 24" Pics would help.

Mike NJ

 

My guess is they are trying to replace an old towel rack with a new towel rack but use The old brackets. That would be "you need to go to Vegas" luck if it worked. You have to use the brackets that came with the new towel holder at the proper distance.

 

A third option for cutting is a jig saw with a fine toothed, metal cutting blade.

 

Ray -- I read the OP differently. I got the impression that they had a space problem. Since on most towel racks the bar fits into the bracket and is hidden I would just use a hacksaw to cut it to the desired length and a bit of emery cloth to remove any burrs.

 

I've come across this problem many times when replacing towel bars in a bathroom. The problem is that the old towel bar "posts" have deeper and/or shallower recesses for the towel bar to fit into, and so the result is that you don't know how long to cut the towel bar for the new posts to fit into the existing holes in the bathroom wall.

The way to deal with this problem is to measure the new towel bar length. It'll typically be 24, 30, 36, 42 or 48 inches in length. Suppose that measurement was 36 inches.

Then put the new posts on the new towel bar and measure the distance between the set screws in the posts on each end of the towel bar. It helps if you back out the set screws on each post a bit so that you can hook your tape measure on one set screw on one post and read off the dimension from the same side of the set screw on the other post. Suppose that measurement was 36 1/4 inches. You now know that the posts have to be set 1/4 inches wider than the length of the towel bar. Or, that the towel bar has to be 1/4 inches shorter than the distance between the posts.

Now, measure the distance between the screw holes in the wall that attach the posts to the wall. Deduct 1/4 inch from this dimension (according to our example) and cut the towel bar to that length.

Now, when you fasten the new posts to the existing screw holes in the wall, the towel bar will be cut to the right length to fit between those new posts.