I got a new fixture. I feel guilty just saying that. After all, it’s cooler not to have fixtures and use files, or make your own. I know, but I gave in to the inner tool whore. I’m trying to streamline and quicken my process so I can actually make bikes for people one day and not lose much money doing it. So anyways, yep, I got a new fixture.
I got an Anvil main tube mitering fixture (which should really be called an All-tube mitering fixture). It will help solve my keeping-tubes-in-phase issues (keeping tubes perfectly in phase while mitering so that little to no filing needs to happen after the coping on the mill). This will actually save me money over time by reducing the # of tube-rejects I create. On each frame, i go through one or two tubes MORE than I should because I cut them too short, file them too short after cutting them too long, and some variations on that theme.
The fixture is awesome, it’s huge, and it’s heavy. It barely fits on my mill (that will be remedied in the coming months I hope!). I had to raise the mill’s head to the very top of the round column so that it would fit. The clamping v-block mechanism is sweet — no dents on 0.035″ tubing and I cranked it all the way down just to test. It can fit almost any type of tube other than round – i.e, ovalized, tapered, or both like with unicrown blades and chainstays. And it fits tubes down to around 14mm diameter. Good purchase me thinks.
The phase indexing mech is what I’m mostly psyched about. Seeing the miter fit on the dummy tube and then marking the cut on the mill will be damn cool. I’ll likely rant more about this fixture later when I have more than an hour’s time on it. Here are some pics of the new toy over the weekend.
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