I relied heavily on DogFeather design site to get miters for dropouts, bracing and the SS to ST calculator was awesome and easy.
The site is down / gone, does anyone know what happened?
AND is there another miter template calculator out there that works (I can’t find one)?
cheers,
Ryan H
Yucca Cycles
Rattlecad is pretty good. I use it all the time for mitres.
I used it all the time when working with paper templates, but somewhere last year (or even earlier) it became useless to me as the prints were not in the correct scale. Tried all sort of stuff but in the end I couldn’t get it to work. I went to Tube Coping Calculator then, which works, but not even close to Dogfeather. Now I am using a mill and just bought bikecad, so that’s how I fixed the issue.
I did download the website files from Dogfeather as I realised I would be f*cked if it ever got taken down, but I don’t have the knowledge to get it working offline. But I’ll gladly send it to you if you want to take a crack at it.
Ah, i forgot about Rattlecad! Thanks for tube coping calc idea.
BikeCAD of course is great but doesnt do dropouts yet. Also cant seem to get it to do CS bracing.
I happen to have saved some dogfeather printouts from like 2 years ago and occasionally one of them is close, but that’s not a good plan.
I hope that guy is ok!
Thx, guys
After Dogfeather became unreliable, I started using metalgeek. Seems to work fine. Tube Coping Calculator
Mark Beaver
Tamarack Cycles
I am really curious about this mythical DogFeather calculator. Does anyone have details about it? How did it work? Who owned it? Does anyone have any example templates?
There are some real software engineers in this community, I’m sure we can make a 2023 version.
The metal geek coping calculator is a very basic example. I was never happy with the printing resolution of the dog feather calc, and used metal geek until I got bike cad.
I don’t know who needs to hear this, but don’t fight it any longer. Buy bikecad. it’s amazing.
its Aus$850!! i have rattlecad and am a draftsman/designer by trade so can get by without that investment.
You seem to be getting on just fine without it! I was thinking of beginners with nothing but big dreams and a set of files…
Haha. yeah I can definitely see how good it would be to use and I have used the free version a few years ago. It has some really good functionality that would be a handy time saver. When i have some spare disposable I’ll might look into it as a step up from rattlecad.
Sorry, it’s time for me to bail on the forum.
Depends on the hobbyist.
The software engineer in me starts to think…
First of all, I am glad this topic has some others thinking along same lines - was hesitant to post. Myth? No, sir, Legend! And by Legend I mean full reality. I have used it for a few years while I hand-drew and hand-mitered every frame. DogFeather was spot on with very basic inputs. I do have BikeCAD now but the dropout miter function doesn’t exist yet (and I don’t see a bracing miter?). I would be glad to give examples of templates printed by the mythic/legend/reality DogFeather.
@Matt and Daniel_Y yes please someone work on this! I am neither a software person nor an engineer. I actually have tried multiple times to contact Mr. Corney of DogFeather, but he has not responded. I have emailed and talked to him on the phone several times in the past which = personal concern.
At any rate, a more basic miter calculator of a miter based on, say, a dropout’s diameter, whether flat or round (an assumption, yes, but it works 90% of the time), the SS/CS diameter, and the approach angle of the stay would be a tremendous service to the community for any engineer and software-minded folk. This is IMO.
thanks again
The part that I am most rusty is the geometry math but I have asked some smarter people than me.
It would be nice to have a small (aka simple) website where you input your diameters and angle and get a paper template, either PDF or PNG to print. That would be the first step imho.
Also, what was DogFeather website?
^this
In theory, I’m supposed to have the skills to solve this geo/software problem. In reality, I bet highschool kids these days can easily do it.
Anyways, an example or a contact would be helpful. I am having trouble visualizing what this legendary DogFeather did 
If you mean DogFeather.com, it seems it is out since before 2011, I cannot see before 2011 but I can tell you that in 2011 that website disappeared.
Or is it under another domain?
I am quite confident I have used Dogfeather.com until 2 years ago at least. I didn’t know I wanted to build frames in 2011, so it definitely existed after that. 
Concerning Bikecad: I just bought it last week after having drawn all my frames in Progecad or Autocad so far, and I love it. We are working on a range of standard frames and it saves so much tweaking stuff in Bikecad and having lot of parts in the library to fit. I have just scratched the surface of the possibilities and it is already worth the € 500,-
Next project would be to use Daniels Fusion tutorial to draw a parametricly adjustable full suspension frame…
So I’ve only ever mitered a handful of (carbon) tubes and none of them with any of the tools mentioned above. My approach would be with fusion 360 and then use the exact flat plugin to get a printable template.
It would be easy to design a parametric surface model that we share here and then everyone can adjust dimensions in a table and fusion will adjust the 3D model. Not sure if for you the additional work this would represent would be justifiable by a 3D preview of the build or not, and I’m not sure if all of the above can be done on the free version of fusion 360.
Daniel_Y - attached are what I could find. I never took a screen shot, only saved a few templates.
The tabs show the options he had, and each one had a visual example and explanation of how to use it. There was one specifically for SS to ST joint that was AMAZING and way simpler than trying to get the many data points (which aren’t ever published) for the SS tubing in BikeCAD. I could describe dog feather’s inputs for that if needed in more detail…
the site was DogFeatherDesign.com, by L.B. Corney
I hope this helps.
