Hey Everybody,

After a five year hiatus from building bikes in my garage I am finally looking to start building some frames again! I'm very excited to get started again, but I'd really like to alleviate on of my major pain points I found with building previously: Tube mitering. I have a junky mill/lathe combo machine (Grizzly G9727) now and I reckon it ought to be able to do some mitering, but what is the best way to jig up a tube for fast, accurate and secure mitering? I have always used a paper template and a file in the past, which has given me good results, but it is so very slow!

A few years ago I had my first shot at tube mitering on this same little mill and it was a mess, but my only tools were a basic machine style vice and a square tubing block. I was having a really hard time getting the mill centered on the tube, and I was also having a hard time getting the tube locked into the vice. I've been looking at the Cobra Miter Daddy and that seems like it could be a good solution as it is quite small and simple. What are some other good solutions?

Are hole saw bits for wood accurate enough? I see lots of people using them. Is there typically hand finishing to do afterwards still?

Thanks in advance for any thoughts and advice!