I've seen the aftermath of a linseed oil fire at an outdoor artists studio. He got this raw stuff from the local docks and was unaware of the chance of this happening. He got some raw caffeine years ago too but that was another story !
You can get cold-pressed or refined linseed oil from an art store but I would just use Purple Extreme lube instead, its a joy to work with and even cleans any oil or grease from your hands! It evaporates safely and leaves a nice soft residue.
See my previous post.

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www.wheelsmith.co.uk

Yes places like home depot and paint stores should have linseed oil. And even some larger supermarkets have it. I don't know if this is different in the US though, but I think home deopt and paint stores should have it overthere too.
Linseed oil can be used as paint medium, or carrier of tints and colours in paint and used to paint the wood on your house instead of regular wood paint. Years ago linseed oil was very common for painting houses and lately it has become more common to use again for environmental reasons becasue it's a pure vegetable oil without solvents. You can even drink linseed oil.

Yes, linseed oil is really just industrially-manufactured and boiled flax seed oil. I really wouldn't recommend drinking linseed oil, though, since it's likely not even close to food grade quality. It's likely that petrochemicals are used in the oil extraction process, whereas the stuff in the grocery store is cold pressed on clean machinery.

~Richard

I'm getting loads of questions about types of spokes, strength and typical usage so I'm going to put together a list of spoke types and their most practical uses.
I'm wondering if some of you guys over in the US could help out with the Wheelsmith spokes? I've got no idea as we don't get them here in the "Old World"

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Guildford/Woking is the home of F1.
We make loads of other stuff here too.

Looking for advice on rebuilding my Ambrosio carbon rims - the internal aluminium nipples had corroded necessitating a rebuild. I had to cut a few bladed spokes to release the heads. Planning to use some Sapim hex-headed nipples - is it worth fitting a washer under the head, inside the rim, or just put some grease the heads?

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Just ride

For aluminum nipples I like to use this stuff. It is specially developed to prevent corrosion between aluminum and SS on boats. It is a bit messy... lighter and cleaner lubes should be fine if you are using brass nipples.

I built my first wheels last year - on-one large flange track hubs, mavic open sport rims and no-name spokes from my LBS. They came out OK, but are not perfectly true or round, and I have no idea about tensions as I wasn't going to buy a tensiometer for my first set of wheels.

What I'd like to know is are there any alu rims that are easier to build than others? I remember a long time ago being told that the silver mavic rims were somehow harder to build than the CD ones. The final wheel had the same quality, but the build was harder with the silver rims.

I'd like to build more wheels, but it would probably help to start with an 'easy' set of components, if such a thing exists.

thanks, foz

The heavier and the higher a rim is, the easier to build in my opinion...

I find the DT Swiss and Mavic rims to be the easiest to build with. The double eyelets on the Open Pros (and the double-eyelet RR1.1) mean threading nipples is easy and the rims build up true laterally and vertically very easily. The rims respond predictably to changes in tension and trueness which is important when learning.

I find the DT Swiss Competitions to be the easiest spoke to build with: They're flexible enough that you can easily cross them but stiff enough that they don't have considerable wind-up under tension.

Hubs don't make a huge difference to the ease of build so long as you're dealing with good quality products but there are some factors to consider. High-low hubs can be tricky because the spokes coming from the low flange heading towards the high flange need to be bent, but other than that most hubs build up pretty similar. Some higher end hubs (like DuraAce) have relatively small spoke holes which can be tricky to thread the spokes through and seat the spokes correctly. Ultegra hubs have a larger diameter spoke hole and generally lace and tension easier.

So there is my answer: Ultegra hubs laced to Open Pro's with Competition spokes

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Wheelworks.co.nz
New Zealand handbuilt wheels

Seconded. That was my first build, still got the wheel with about 20K miles on it now.

Matt

I have a set of ultegra open pro and it has lasted about 10k miles. I have another hand me down set of dura ace open pro and it has lasted at least 20-25k miles maybe 30k ish. easy build with ultegra and has not true it ever. it's a training set so....

Not familiar with that rim, but if it didn't have washers originally then it probably doesn't need them now. The problem with washers is getting them on... especially if the rim is a mess of bladder material inside. But if you can figure it out, a thin washer will reduce friction and possible fouling of the threads with little carbon bits.

Outside of the spoke wrench I think a tensiometer is most important wheel-building tool to have. The truing stand is optional. If the tension is too low, then spokes will go slack and come loose, and if it is too high then the rim will likely crack around the eyelets. It is a good idea to at least borrow one if you can.

A cheap(ish) Park TM-1 is all you need. Once you reach the max you require, a good average tension on each side is whats required - but you do that by ear or feel if you want to do it quickly.

Once you get the hang of each spoke/nip/rim/hub/lube combo you get to know the tensions needed without a tension meter but that takes a long while or many, many wheels. I think a little TM-1 is a good investment. I still use one on every build and especially on carbon builds. I had a digital one but it lasted 13 months on a 1 year warranty - the TM-1 is still going strong.

On Mavic rims, Legs11 and I have both noted that Open Pros are a bit tricky nowadays - the tensions at the join need to be a bit weird to get the thing round and true and stay true after stress relieving. I've just rebuilt a pair of really old OP's and they didn't suffer from this. None of the Ambrosio alloy rims suffer from it either and they are much quickier and easier to build with - also last longer and I think are more responsive to ride. Not easy to get right now though.....

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www.wheelsmith.co.uk

That's interesting - I've built a handful of these recently and didn't have any problems. Presumably mine (sourced in NZ) came from a different, perhaps older, batch.

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Wheelworks.co.nz
New Zealand handbuilt wheels