Please call my mistakes out: Planning to build my first wheelset

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takolino
Posts: 340
Joined: Sun Nov 13, 2016 9:11 am
Location: USA, SF Bay Area

by takolino

Alright, I'm probably offering more info than was asked for so stop reading if it's irrelevant.
I've been building wheels for the last 10 years, mostly for myself and have built at least 20 sets of wheels. (I know it's not that many but just wanted to offer a home mechanic's perspective) Iv'e built j bend and straight, crossed and radial, triplet rear, MTB, road, disk, non-disk, single speed, vintage, and recently Berd spokes. Keeping track of a bunch of parameters while building a wheel can be hard. Just lacing a wheel requires focus and truing can be considered an art. I've built a couple of undrilled wheels using spoke threads and a magnet. Not overtly difficult but tedious. Not worth it to me anymore since I still use rim tape to get the tire beads snug on a rim. I'm assuming you've already read a book on how to build a wheel but no amount of reading will beat actually practicing with a real wheel. I like @Eurostar's idea to dissassemble/assemble an old wheel. Or build a cheap backup set. Go through the motions. Get a feel for spoke twist. It takes a bit of experience to "feel" how much to untwist a spoke. Blades are easier because you can see the twist but use a spoke holder like the Park one. Definitely needed at high tensions. I've never built with Carbon-ti but 11 speed hubs are quite assymetric. There could be very little leeway in terms of tension balance left to right. LB rims have decent max kgf so you should be ok. With 28h, I think CX-rays (Aerolites) should be fine. Calibrate your tension meter if you can. Park tool seems to read high. If you plan to build many wheels, you can make a spoke tension calibration jig for pretty cheap. I made one out of 2x2 and a digital hanging scale. I use it to "calibrate" every time I build a set of wheels. Works well on all kinds of spokes, even for Berd spokes. Pick a target tension, set the spoke to that tension and get a reading on the tool. Use that as the target reading.

Like @Eurostar said, light weight premium parts tend to have a narrower margin for error. Building with more robust, cheaper parts may be a good idea. My first wheel build was using American classic track hubs and alloy rims using sigle butted spokes. I broke a spoke, then another, both at the j bend to find I had the spokes oriented towards aero blade clearnce slots. I had to rebuild the wheel to correct the orientation and never broke another spoke. Was a good lesson for the beginner.

by Weenie


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