It’s not all bike frames and parts at the Philly Bike Expo. Jarrod Bunk caught up with a couple of framebuilding fixture-makers at the show and the first one we’re showcasing is the Creator Fixture Frame from Joe Roggenbuck of COBRA Framebuilding.
Cobra Framebuilding exists to enable hobby and professional small and medium scale framebuilders. To that end, we make a podcast, YouTube channel, and we also of course design, manufacture, and sell the tooling needed for that work.
It started about 11 years ago when I got into framebuilding. I wanted to have a shop and make beautiful bicycles with my own hands. Over the years I got more and more interested in the tooling side of things and made more and more of it for myself. Eventually, I started to produce a few tool offerings for other builders, too. At this point, I’ve been doing this work full time the past three years and I hired a full-time employee this year. We both have experience fabricating bicycles from start to finish.
Our tools are built with care and intention to help address the needs of the small and medium-scale bicycle fabricator. We sell some products to industry veterans and some products to complete newcomers. Many podcast listeners and YouTube subscribers don’t even build bicycles, but it provides a window into this world.
Photographed by Jarod is The Creator Frame Fixture. This is possibly the most central tool in framebuilding. The framebuilder loads discrete components of a bicycle frame (tubes, bottom bracket shell, dropouts, etc) and through welding, brazing, or epoxy bonding, they unify the parts to create the whole. The variables used to set the fixture can be derived easily with Bike CAD software and the fixture sets up in under a minute.
Great emphasis in the frame fixture is placed on ease of use, accuracy, rigidity, versatility, welding access, and excellent customer service and support. The Creator can be configured for argon backpurge which enables Titanium construction. Adapters for every headtube and bottom bracket standard are available and custom specs can be produced as well. The design of the fixture permits an enormous range of potential frame geometries in its stock configuration and can be custom-reconfigured for even more capability.
Head on over to COBRAframebuilding.com to see more!