Framebuilding Kits
Upfront: The Rough Stuff NW blog that I started with John Speare is finally getting some new posts this week. If you are looking for Pacific NW ride reports keep an eye out there in addition to this blog.
I’ve been knocking around the idea of selling some basic kits for building framebuilding jigs for a little while now. My first foray into that is now on the blog (notice the new “Store” button near the top) and at http://tools.alexwetmore.org. I have two items listed so far: a Frame and Fork Alignment Gauge that I make on my tiny CNC mill and a fork fixture kit that is made using a mix of CNC and manual operations.
I have a dilemma with the fork fixture kit. I’m trying to decide if I should go down the route of offering full kits (as that one is listed) where all parts are included and the item can be assembled in under an hour. The other option would be to sell only the unique and hard to find parts in the kit, and provide the buyer with a shopping list and sources. The latter option I could sell for less money (saving the purchaser) because I wouldn’t need to manage so much inventory, ship large boxes, or count out bolts and nuts as I assemble the kits.
If the fork kit were sold with only the unique parts it would include:
- The axle clamp assembly. The buyer would have to thread two holes, cut apart some webbing, and do a little cleanup with a file.
- The piece of 80/20 which has been modified into a V-block. I do those on the bandsaw and clean them up on my mill, they actually take a fair amount of time each to make.
- The 4 pivot plates, which are my own design and not available from 80/20. I’d also include the shoulder bolts that tie them together because I already bought a big box of them.
- The piece of extrusion that holds the cross bar for supporting the fork legs. It has a 1/2″ hole drilled into it which must be done a drill press or milling machine to be accurate.
- The toggle clamp and mounting plate for the steerer clamp. The toggle clamp that I use isn’t the easiest one to find, so I can save the buyer a lot of hassle by including it.
I could sell that, including shipping in a USPS flat rate box, for $100 (maybe a little less, I’d have to time myself in making one). The buyer would need to order about $60 worth of items from McMaster Carr and 80/20 to complete the fixture and total assembly would take a bit longer. In comparison I think I’m going to need to sell the full kit for $250 complete to make it worth my while, so the total savings would be around $100.
In the long term I’d like to offer subassemblies that can be used for building a full frame fixture and publish free plans on how to take those subassemblies and a shopping list from 80/20 to build a well thought out fixture. The fork fixture is way for me to test the waters. My overall goal here is to provide kits at an affordable price point to hobbyist and amateur builders (such as myself), pay off some of my expensive machines, and hopefully not spend so much time in the process that I still enjoy doing this work and maintain free time for hanging out with Christine and riding my bike. We’ll see how all of that goes.
Alex, this is great work. And yes, by all means, offer only the unique parts. As you say, you save yourself operational costs: you cannot and will not beat McMaster-Carr at their game, ever.
But also, by focusing on the diversity of your “parts catalog”, you free yourself up to offer the parts in an _a la carte_ fashion, for folks who may want to use them for stuff you didn”t think about (like a jig specifically for a particular whacky cargo bike they invented, or whatever). This is very good work; best of luck!
Hi Alex
Yes I think offering the parts + plans makes sense. I”ve slowly been building an interest in frame building and one of the “barriers to entry” was the jigs so this would really hit the mark. I”m also outside of the US so anything that cuts down freight costs is a win.
Alex,
I”d probably be interested in the “unique” parts, too. I”ve got most of the 80/20 pieces lying around (I shopped using the list you published earlier), and even bought a dummy axle from Anvil, but I haven”t gotten around to finishing it off. Your offer dovetails perfectly with where I left mine off. Keep us informed of availability.
Having just built three forks on one of Alex’’s jigs last week, I must tell you it’’s a fine tool.
Easy to load, and un-load, with the fork parts during assembly. My build process requires a lot of this parts in parts out business, so anything that makes this easier is welcome. My other fork jig takes a bit more time to load and un-load, so it just seems to draw out the tedious parts of the process.
Kudos to Alex for a smart design at a very nice price!
Hi Alex,
I”m very excited about your for fork jig. I vote for the kit version to keep costs down. Thanks for offering help to new framebuilders
Always enjoy visiting your site. But every time I do, I”m reminded that I”ve missed several stories. Is there a way to subscribe to your site so I get email notifications of your latest articles?
Alex, great idea to sell the kit with just the unique parts. As I live in Germany where I could get the profiles from different sources than 80/20, what dimension should the profiles have?
If this will match profiles available here, would you sell and ship also to Europe?
Greetings,
Theo
You can subscribe using an RSS reader, just like most blogs. I don”t think there is an option to have an email for each post though.
Theo: If you have access to a bandsaw or milling machine then the metric Bosch 40 profiles could be used. You”d need the bandsaw or milling machine to cut up a section of 40×120mm profile to make the V-block. I use 15 series profiles (1.5″) and they are 2mm smaller but all of the hardware is compatible between those two profiles and the slot widths are the same.
I know that an Australian builder who is interested in the jig checked and they are able to get the SAE dimensioned extrusions from 80/20 in their country. You might also check into that.
I”d personally prefer to do it all with metric sizes, but it is a lot easier to get SAE-sized 8020 in the US.