Wheel building.

[SteveD]

Welcome back Lonnie...sort of! I found this today...

http://agwalker.com/wheelbuilding.html

[Zombie Master]

That's an excellent article!

[Rob]

Thanks for that!
Somewhere on my computer is a copy of the picture from the cover of one of the magazines this article appeared (?).
I didn't see it in the thumbnails on my phone (small).

[Airbear]

Very timely - thanks Steve. There will be some re-spoking in my future. Y'know, when that is the next thing to do.

[Wobbly]

That is a good, clearly written article. Probably the best I've seen. Unfortunately, it only covers /2 (and similar) wheels with straight-pull spokes. There's a world more to know before you set out to make wheel lacing your career.

[sprints@pldi.net]

It saves alot of time and trouble is you lay the brake drum flat on the table and block the rim up the dimension of the offset. Start with spokes finger tight so as not to lift the drum and alter the offset. If you do it carefully the offset will already be established when you're finished with the last spoke - the just tighten them around the rim 1/4 turn at a time with your spoke wrench, and it will be amazingly true before you put it on a jig for final truing

[Ken in Oklahoma]

Lonnie's article is indeed the best I've ever seen. Having said that you can do an acceptable job of building a wheel by figuring it out how to do it yourself. That is to say, the end product needs to have the rim concentric with the axle and the rim located left and right with respect to the hub. And you get there by shortening or lengthening the overall spoke lengths as required for the rim to end up concentric with the hub--and with the spokes at the proper tension when you are finished by tinking' (hammering) the spokes with your spoke wrench as you go and hearing the pitch as you go.

This operation can be tedious and initially frustrating, but you can get there. Periodically you spin the wheel and note the wobble and eccentricity of the rim by spinning it and seeing how much 'wobble' you have to deal with. And, of course, you have to get there by working with the 'triangles' formed by the spokes and the rim, while at the same time adjusting the lateral runout (left and right) and the eccentricity of the rim relative to the axle.

Is it worth it? To be sure it's not an easy journey and is frustrating. The degree of the reward is a function of one's personality (or perhaps one's plain old stubbornness). Perhaps the best part of the whole exercise is to witness yourself 'growing'.

End of pep talk.

Ken

[Roy Gavin]

http://www.billymegawatt.com/uploads/6/ ... rkshop.pdf
There is a good guide to wheel building here, particularly if you need an offset.

[Zombie Master]

Good stuff! Printer is running.

[Chuey]

If I may contribute a little bit, I work on the roundness of a wheel from the very beginning of the truing process.
Each spoke has an independent effect on a wheel. That may not be so true if the wheel has a flat spot. A flat spot can leave a spoke with no tension at all.
Adding tension (tightening) a spoke has the effect of moving the rim to the side the spoke is on and it moves the rim toward the hub.
If you have say, a six inch section of the rim that is coming too close to the "up/down" indicator (as opposed to the "side to side" indicator), you can add a bit of tension to all the spokes in that section to move it closer to the hub.
I would not buy spokes other than the spokes that Buchanan's sells. They have very strong and well make nipples. I have built a few wheels for people who provided spokes from other sources and the square wrench flats of the nipples are MUCH more delicate. It will be worth every penny to have the stronger nipples. This is even more true for a beginning wheel builder as they may do more back and forth tightening/loosening in the process of learning.

I hope that helps someone.

Chuey