WTB Henry James Access 65

[timto]

Any leads would be greatly appreciated. If one is collecting dust out there lets get in touch. One must be happy to ship to me in Vancouver tho!

[Doug Fattic]

Tim, I'm going to sell my Anvil Master (before the Journeyman) for $2500. You probably remember it when you were here. It won't ship easily because the legs on the base were welded on after I got it and now they take up a lot of space.

[timto]

Hi Doug i`ll send you an email direct with some questions ok? Meanwhile here is some silver pull I managed to get last night...

thanks for the heads up.

[timto]

Looks like Doug's offer won't be feasible to ship. Someone jump on it!

in the meantime still looking! Thanks

[NBC]

doug,

could you possibly post pictures of your fixture ?

thanks

nathan

[Doug Fattic]

photo[2].JPG

Tim, loved the clean, crisp shorelines!

Nathan, this picture wasn't posed as a sales shot – in other words getting it all cleaned up with a blank background. I was just wanting an overall view of a fancy lugged frame a student made in one of my classes. The Anvil was just a nice structure to hold it. His lug designs were cut out of blanks. However it lets you know what my fixture looks like. It has tubing going to the cones for purging but I take them off if I'm not tig welding.

[NBC]

doug, thanks for posting that image :)

sorry for hijacking the post too !

i'd certainly be interested in your fixture, though i have a few questions (please bear with me, i've never owned a jig before)

1, how old is it ?
2, does it have a measurement scale on the arm for the headtube holder ?
3, what are you selling this with in terms of accessories, if any ?
4, would you be able to ship this over to england ? ! (probably makes sense to cut the stand up, and weld back together over here !)

thanks in advance

nathan

[Jake Rosenfeld]

(probably makes sense to cut the stand off, and weld a new one together over here!)

thanks in advance

nathan

fixed :-)

[Doug Fattic]

Nathan, I'm not sure what kind of fixture meets your needs but this one's primary advantage is the ability to tig weld in the fixture. That is what it is well designed to do. It is not what I'd prefer if I was doing lugged construction. It would also work well if one is fillet brazing tubes and stays to the bb bracket shell (instead of using a lugged shell with sockets). My experience has been that unless one is buying an expensive fixture (like $4000 or more) it is not likely it was machined accurately enough so brazing the rear stays in the fixture will exactly center a rear wheel. This is because errors in stay length are magnified by the ratio of the width of the hub to the radius of the rim. In other words a mm of difference in chain stay length puts a tire about 3 mm off of center. This is why I cringe when I see home made fixtures that obviously aren't machined carefully being used to braze on rear triangles. It is possible of course to use a true wheel and a straight edge with a movable point to accurately braze a rear triangle outside of a fixture. It takes longer of course but it is a precise method. Because most of my students aren't going to spring for a big bucks fixture after class I don't use this Anvil (or my Bike Machinery Hydra) much in class. The only time I do is in my shorter 2 week class when a student is struggling to get done on time and the Anvil can speed up putting on the rear.

To answer you questions 1) It is about 12 years old. I don't use it much because I have fixtures of my own design laser cut and etched out of stainless steel. These type of fixtures don't wear out but can get some cosmetic damage on the black anodizing (although mine has very little). Don (the maker) has made revisions over the years. Some of them to economize manufacturing procedures and others based on user feedback. 2) it does not have any measuring scale on the arm that holds the head tube. If one wants to locate where the bottom of the head tube should be they use the scale on the body of the fixture and BikeCad. 3) It doesn't come with any accessories except it has both a 132 and 137 rear dummy axles for both road and mountain bike spacing. Don offers other widths for sale. It does have argon fittings for back purging. 4) I don't have time to figure out how to ship this fixture. Sorry. There are places that package stuff for you/me but it would add hundreds to the cost.

Don Ferris of Anvil is one of the smartest guys in the bike industry and has many different types of fixtures he sells around the world. Anything he makes is a quality product. Americans have really benefited from his machining combined with his framebuilding expertise. A separate subject thread of fixture philosophy and design would be a good idea. It is a big subject. And to have a fixture do what I want it to do is why I have my own made.

[NBC]

really a shame that you can't ship it easily, doesn't seem like fixtures seem to change hands much !

thanks anyway

nathan