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Shop Tour: Co-Motion Cycles Part 2 – CNC Machining

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Co-Motion Shop Tour CNC Lathe

In Part One of our Co-Motion Cycles shop tour we showed you the brazing and welding of their frames.  We also made mention of the fact that Co-Motion strives to make as many parts in-house as possible.  In the second installment of our shop tour we will highlight some of the machines used and the parts created.

Pictured here is one of three CNC machines that reside at the Co-Motion facility.  Zach at Co-Motion says:

“This is the Mori Seki CNC lathe with live tooling.  This is where we make all our turned parts including fork steerers (single piece uni-crown design), head tubes, BB shells, seat collars, and eccentric BB shells.  We also do some full tube mitering for our most popular stock tandem sizes.”

Click through for more hot CNC action, including video of this machine doing its thing…


Co-Motion Shop Tour CNC 1

Here is another one of the CNC machines.  This is the  Okuma vertical CNC mill used for prototyping, making shop fixtures, and it cuts the stainless steel dropouts.

Co-Motion Shop Tour CNC Bit Storage

Machine bit storage.

Co-Motion Shop Tour CNC Bits

Multiple CNC bits used for machining.

Co-Motion Shop Tour Front Fork Dropouts

Co-Motion Shop Tour CNC'd Drop Outs

Speaking of dropouts, here are some freshly machined pieces that are heading to the tumbler.  There, they will be de-burred and have their edged smoothed out.

Co-Motion Shop Tour Fork Disc Tabs

Co-Motion Stainless Steel Rear Droput

Here is the finished product in a polished stainless steel option.  Expect to see more of this at NAHBS.

Co-Motion Shop Tour Stainless Steel Tubes

Dropouts aren’t the only items made using stainless steel at Co-Motion.  Here is a box of mitered stainless tubes off the lathe that will end up becoming max adjust stoker stems.

 

Co-Motion Shop Tour Stainless Steel Stem

This is the complete max adjust stoker stem after making it’s way through the polisher.  So shiny!

Co-Motion Shop Tour Injection Molding 1

Co-Motion routes the disc brake cable along the down tube, and because of this, there were no stock cable guides that worked well on the frames.  So, they traded for an injection molder, cut dyes for the parts, and began producing their own.

Co-Motion Shop Tour Injection Molding 2

Co-Motion Shop Tour Injection Molding 3

Above are the finished plastic cable guides made using the injection mold process.

Co-Motion Shop Tour Wheel Rack

Co-Motion doesn’t make any of the parts for the wheels they use.  However, they do build up the majority of the wheels in house using a lacing machine and a hydraulic tensioner.  The tensioner is a very similar machine to the one used by Rolf Prima (scroll down for the video.)

For our third and final installment, we dive into the world of paint and polish so stay tuned.

 

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Stephen
Stephen
11 years ago

“complete max adjust stoker stem”

That’s phallic.

This place rocks. I’m looking forward to the next installment.

Jason
Jason
11 years ago

I like our speedster tandem, cool to see how it was made.

Devin
11 years ago

I like it, but the main problem with coping tubes like that is the cope has a 90 degree angle relative to the tube, instead of “in-line” with the mating tube. Although they’re more expensive, a 5-axis laser cutter (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Hp_DPEapzg minute 8 to see tube coping,) is a better choice for production tube coping (and you can do mating tabs!) Mega fast and perfect mating copes.

Sly
Sly
11 years ago

Amazing how they miter the Tandem tubes in the cnc, very nice machine.
The time it saves and the improved accuracy, these guys are not messing about. Thumbs up.

Will
Will
11 years ago

Devin —

The laser cutter is undeniably cool, but I wonder how much of an issue heating of the material would be. I know that laser ablation has a huge effect on the characteristics of a material, but I don’t know how the higher intensity/shorter duration lasing would change the steel.

Devin
11 years ago

Will,

excellent point. Overheating the incredibly thin steel alloys most high-end frames are built from these days = recycling bin, however, the duration and hyper-localized action of the laser should pretty much allay any concerns.

Tom
Tom
11 years ago

We have a Speedster and it is quite cool to see how some of it was made. I noticed the Injection machine was made in Newbury, Ohio. That company is only 10minutes from my home!

Slow Joe Crow
Slow Joe Crow
11 years ago

I really like the front dropout with the integrated disk brake tab.

Psi Squared
Psi Squared
11 years ago

Hmmm. I wonder if “hyper-localized” is like, uhm, “focused”….

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