The dream is over and I have to sell my Bringheli frame fixture. I never used it and it sat in my garage for a few years, and now I’m moving and I’m not planning to haul this dream with me.
Everything on the jig works fine, it’s just coated in a layer of surface rust. Has 130mm and 135mm QR rear dummy axles, 1-1/8" headtube cones, and BSA bottom bracket cones.
Farr Frameworks still has some upgrades available for this jig, so it can be made into a super functional piece of equipment. FARR Tools — FARR Frameworks
Located in San Francisco, CA. Asking $850, but make me an offer.
Sure, imo these fixutres have a couple of annoying flaws out of the box which Todd’s enhancements address.
The stock bringheli headtube fixture is a mega pain to take the frame in and out of the fixture. It forces you to reposition/lose your headtube datum each time because you have to lower the pucks and thru-bar down enough to walk the headtube out of it. Before the Farr my solution for this was to set the lower puck while the bar was flush in the lower support, never move the lower puck once its set, and just lower the thru-bar and then reposition it so its flush again in the support. But this doesn’t always work, especially with larger headtubes or if the headtube falls in the lower portion of the fixture.
The Farr upgrade removes the bar and allows the top and bottom pucks to move independently so the lower puck always stays in the same place, its also quite a bit easier to set HT angle.
The stock bringheli rear end uses a proprietary dummy axle that is larger diameter than the anvil standard and uses a hole/bolt in the middle to secure it. Not a deal breaker if you can make your own axles but definitely nice to be able to use the same standard as everyone else. (other tool builders will make axles in the bringheli style, Alex Meade for instance). The Farr rear end uses the anvil style axles, which makes it super nice to quickly move chainstays/dummy axles in between the frame fixture and other mitering fixtures. The Farr upgrade also adds a horizontal chainstay length reference, without it you must measure true chainstay length from the center of the bb post to the center of the DA which arent in the same plane, so not a very accurate setup.
I dont have experience on any other style of jig, but I will say that both the stock rear end and the Farr are not the most rigid setups. Its pretty easy to jam chainstays in there that are slightly too long and wind up flexing the fixture leaving the rear axle out of alignment.
The BB post is my next qualm. Its just two floating pucks on a shaft which makes centering a BB shell, not difficult, but definitely not something you can just walk up and load into the fixture. Its also easy to forget, when switching between BB sizes as theres no indication as to how its currently setup. I have to mark a centerline on all my BB shells then measure over from the main flat surface. Which leads me to another issue… Theres a hodge podge of different metric and US hardware/measurements throughout the fixture, and the centerline of the rear axle/BB/HT is 8.5"(215.9mm) off of the plate… what is that?
Its on my to-do list to make some sleeve/pucks which slide over the BB post to accurately locate different BB shells without having to measure.
The seat tube holder does not have accommodations for bent/offset seat tubes, however you can remove the side pieces from the seat tube cone holder and rotate it so it at least sits flush in a bent/offset seat tube.
At the end of the day, there’s nothing wrong with these fixtures, they will produce a straight frame, it just takes some time to get things setup. I got this setup guide from Dave Anderson years ago which was extremely helpful with dialing in my setup process.
I did have to really bother Todd (Sorry Todd) to get him to make a run of these enhancements, and when he finally caved he made it sound like that was the last run of them he was ever going to make.
Wow, thanks @Swood for the super in-depth review of this jig. I learned a lot from that!
It sounds like Todd has 2 of the upgrades for this jig left, and definitely doesn’t plan to make any more. If I were to keep this thing, I’d definitely shell out for the Farr bits.
@anyone, let me know if you want more info or better pictures, happy to facilitate!
It looks like UPS shipping would be less than $100 (I just did a quick quote from Oakland, CA to Chicago, IL to get that number) if you’re interested in the jig. Also, price open to discussion.
Let me know if anyone has any questions or interest!
