Fork Jig/Fixture Hall of Fame

First up is Marc Pfister's, made mostly from 8020 aluminum extrusion.
A nice, simple design, but I don't like having to rely on manually aligning the thing every time it's set up. Others on Frameforum have taken issue with the accuracy of the McMaster-Carr alu V-block Marc uses.

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Thanks to Jon K of Jonny Cycles, there's several pictures of his old Bringheli jig attached to this Frameforum post.



















plus several in-progress pics from his list of completed frame projects:







This is my favorite of what I've seen so far. I can probably get most of the materials from various scrap bins, and I don't imagine the machining will be terribly hard.

edit: another couple pics of a different version, thanks to Anderson Custom Cycles.

edit: according to Jon's "for sale" post to the Fb's list, the Bringheli has the following specs:
Works with 1" and 1 1/8" steerers, but the scale to set the rake only works w/1".
Max fork length (center of axle to top of crown race seat): 445mm
Rake: 0-87mm

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Ahren Rodgers, who also works in the Jonny Cycles space and makes some of the Velo-Orange frames, has a more deluxe jig, incorporating an Anvil dummy axle:



Again, more from the Jonny Cycles archives:







More complicated than I'm looking for, but cool regardless.
According to the original post, this was made by Matt Sheridan of Seven Cycles.
Ahren is part of the Madison Framebuilders group, and also does work under the Banjo Cycles name.

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Chris Irlam has a nice simple design over at his blog. He's also put plans up on Frameforum.

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edit:
No discussion of commercially-available fork jigs would be complete without mentioning the Anvil Fork Fixture. It's $850 and it shows. Pics here.

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edit:
Just found a couple photos of Doug Fattic's jig over at Nate Knutson's photosite:


2 comments:

Marc Pfister said...

Hi Ethan, thanks for the link.

"A nice, simple design, but I don't like having to rely on manually aligning the thing every time it's set up."

You don't. You only have to align it if you move the v-block fore and aft.

If you mount the v-block on a spacer of 8020 #3030 extrusion to give you more backside access ( pretty much a must if you're used a lugged crown and not just tacking), you can use joining plates on the sides of the spacer block and then you can move the position of the v-block without having to realign it.

The key element to my design is that it can be built with just a drill press, something which is key for the bare-bones home builder.

Anonymous said...

!you made me remember to search in how Brian Baylis did it better......!