apollodriver

hello dear community,

have you ever thought of a comparison of two well known systems in jigs:_

what about the discussion of the pros and cons and the difference between Arctos jig and joe Roggenbrucks Jig

i recently came across a discussion of two different jigs: the arctos-one and here we take tanner w as a model - and on the other side - the jig of
Joe Roggenbruck - from cobraframebuilding.com


first of all here the Arctos type: - made by tanner W.:

https://www.instructables.com/Bicycl...-Building-Jig/

and second: the frame-jig of Joe:

https://www.cobraframebuilding.com/creator/resources

Look forward to your ideas and thoughts

unterhausen

Wouldn't you say that the Joe Creator frame fixture is an Arctos style fixture? I thought about making an Arctos style fixture but I never liked having aluminum behind the head tube
Doesn't Arctos still sell them

on edit: okay, I thought I know what an arctos fixture looked like and I was wrong. I think people call the Creator style fixture an Arctos style fixture sometimes, the creator design is not fully original. I am somewhat conflicted about the way the head tube holder on the arctos has been added. You would need to really make sure that it was attached without an angle to the other parts of the fixture. But extrusion sometimes has a twist, particularly in the big sections like both these designs use. So both designs may have issues with that and the fixture would need to be checked.

apollodriver

dear unterhausen,

first of all': many thanks for the reply - great to hear from you.


guess that youre right: a comparison between the general concepts of both is not that much fruitful since there is not that much of a difference.
Joe Roggenbruck - created the Cobra jig to be slightly easier to set up since there's only one angle adjustment instead of two,

Well - i though of course the measurements on the Arctos (and let us say here: tanner W) are a bit more "real" whereas the measurements on the Cobra are somewhat to be declared as "derived".

i guess that both are very very close in their concepts.


Well - dear unterhausen, i am very glad that we can discuss everything here - even the comparison of the two approaches -

a. cobra-creator - by joe roggenbruck and #
b. arctos based style - by tanner W.

have a great day

duanedr 

It rubs me the wrong way that you refer to it as "by Tanner W". He just published instructions on how he copied someone else's design and didn't really add any value or innovation. Credit should go to the guy who designed the actual Arctos jig. Real Arctos jigs are available from Simple Bicycles in Portland OR.

bulgie 

And that guy is Gary Helfrich, correct? I mean I don't know for sure that Gary designed the jig, but for a long time Arctos was a one-man operation consisting of just Gary. He's maybe better known as one of the co-founders of Merlin, the American titanium frame makers, not the earlier British firm of the same name that made steel frames.

Before Merlin, Gary worked for Chris Chance, and it was Gary who convinced Chris to give TIG welding a try. Some o' youse might be too young to remember, but before Fat Chance, it was "widely known" that you can't TIG weld lightweight steel bike frame tubing. It was considered something suitable only for BMX bikes, sidewalk bikes and such. Gary practically single-handedly "invented" TIG welded steel lightweight bike frames, and Chris Chance got them more or less accepted by the bikie world. It was considered revolutionary at the time.

Before that Gary was a roadie for Aerosmith. Interesting dude!

Mark B

niknak

I think the Cobra frame jig looks great. I would have bought one if it was available when I was frame jig shopping.
- optional plumbing for TIG weld backpurging
- ability to hold and locate seat and chain stays (necessary if you build frames with round not tabbed dropouts)
- great torch access
- rigid head tube with only one angle to set
- all moving parts slide smoothly with no racking under weight (the Anvil frame jigs I've used had this problem)
- full customer support with replacement and add-on parts available

I've never used an Arctos jig but have used Anvil, Bringheli, and Sputnik jigs. I think the Cobra is only bested by the Sputnik and Engin's Process jigs.

duanedr 

Your knowledge is more reliable than my 'having heard it somewhere'. The way I look at it, Gary is closer to having contributed something to the design than Tanner so we'll go with Gary. It's a step in the right direction anyway.

unterhausen

Does anyone know where all the Anvil parts went?

A couple of people have a lot of them, but I haven't heard if they are selling them.

niknak

They come up for sale from time to time on the Framebuilding Tools and Supplies Facebook group.

unterhausen

I haven't seen the parts that Don sold in bulk come up there. Of course, the FB algorithm is awful, so maybe they just aren't showing them to me.
I really wanted to get another blade alignment tower for my fork fixture. I just didn't want to buy a couple of hundred pounds of parts to get one. I guess I'll have to go back to my original plan of making one

duanedr 

The group he started to sell a lot of his leftover stock is still alive (I'm eyeing a set of Max MTB tubes for a gravel bike). You might post there to see if anyone has anything available from those batches.