Right, something a bit different. I've had a recent interest to get into wheel building, or at least learn the basics of truing and lacing.

Does it need skilled hands or a mastery of the dark arts? I don't know but its worth a try, especially after seeing a few of you build your own from scratch.

Anywhere to start looking and tools needed to start? I've got an old, out of true, 700c wheel I'm tempted to have a play about with to see if I can fix or rebuild. And I'm hoping to build something for the hardtail that's a bit more durable.

I kind of get the idea with tension and the front wheel, but the asymmetric back wheels are way over my head...

Get the Roger Musson e-book http://www.wheelpro.co.uk/wheelbuilding/book.php He describes how to build your own truing stand, apart from that the only tool you really need is a spoke key. Then it's patience.

First things you need are a truing stand and a spoke key. This is a pretty valuable piece of kit anyway because just about any amount of riding on any surface will eventually knock a wheel out of true. It's slightly less of an issue for disc brake wheels but still worth paying attention to for keeping your wheels lasting a bit longer and keeping the riding a bit easier.

I'd recommend getting these anyway so you can save yourself a bit of money and ballache through servicing your existing wheels. That'll include working on your old 700c wheel and lacing in any broken spokes. From there, it's an easy step to decide if you want to build wheels.

Ultimately building wheels isn't complicated and, as long as you can count to four, you're off to a pretty good start. However, at the start it is a time-consuming, patience-sapping endeavour. Well worth taking up though as it's a brilliant excuse not to go out riding in shitty weather and want to avoid the even more galling prospect of doing housework or hanging out with that risible bunch of scum that you've not been able to disown as family yet.

+1 for the Roger Musson book - it's comprehensive and easy to follow. Best £9.00 you will spend...

As Roger explains in the book - rear wheel dish (or disc brake dish on front wheels) isn't actually that complicated, making sure you get the right spoke lengths (calculator on his Wheelpro website) is the key to success.

I've built the stand to the designs in his book, also use a dishing gauge and a basic spoke key - and I'm now building wheels for mates and a few "paying customers" - good fun, and quite therapeutic too if you like that kind of thing.

enjoy!

you lost interest in old chains and inner tubes then?

The Bicycle Wheel by Jobst Brahnt, is an excellent book.
A bit techy, as goes into loading stresses and all manner of stuff like that. Very informative non the less.
The best way, I reckon is to start as had been said before, with trueing jig, dishing tool and decent spoke key, is to copy the lacing pattern of a wheel you have and then play around with it.
Basically as long as you turn each spoke nipple the same amount as the rest of them you ain't gonna go far wrong. Then it's just fine trueing, tensioning and re- trueing.
Yeah...... enjoy!

Apart from a truing stand and spoke key there is a third "must have" tool, a dishing stick. I got the Jobst Brant book from my local library (remember them?), but that was pre internet.

All you need to know is on Sheldon Brown http://www.sheldonbrown.com/wheelbuild.html

With Torino Nice on the horizon I bit the bullet and decided to learn a new skill and built a dynamo front.
Getting the info for the right spoke length was easy, many calculators out there and finding the flange diameter of your chosen hub is a visit to the manufacturers website, as is the rim ERD (effective rim diameter)
Knowing I had a 32 spoke hub and matcing rim, selected a lacing pattern (for me this was finger in the air stuff with a little research) opted for two cross lacing for strength (and guess work)
once all the bits turned up, including a different colour spoke pair to point to the valve stem, it was a matter of lace it up, realise that two cross isn't one cross, undo it all, faff about getting it all so that each spoke was in the right hole, with the right one over/under each neighbouring spoke.

No lie this took me a while as I was working from zero knowledge and a couple of vaguely understood internet sites, maybe 3 hours to do it, undo it, understand what I'd done wrong and learn.

Once I had the lacing pattern sorted, I started from the valve stem and went sequentially around the rim undoing the nipple for each spoke until it disconnected then reconnecting it with two turns of the spoke key, all the way around knowing that each nipple was the same number of turns down it's thread, round and round first one turns, then as things tightened up, one turn, half turn, quarter turn, every full rotation flexing the paired spokes to let them settle against each other..

I didn't have a truing stand and as it was a disk braked bike no brake blocks to help true it, so I set the wheel spinning and braced a finger against the fork and let my fingernail do the measuring, found the bit of the rim most out of true added 1/2 a turn to that nipple and released the ones either side 1/4 turn.

Kept at it gradually working on the most out of true parts little by little it got fairly close to true.

Being my first crack at it I then took it to my LBS for a once over, paying the truing rate rather than the build ate and got a good bit of feedback on where I'd over tensioned/undertensioned it.

I'll not hesitate to build another and do more research, use dedicated tools, but most usefully I know I can get a wheel to a fairly rideable state if I have to do field repairs.


tldr, do it, worst case scenario you pay LBS to build, best case you learn a handy skill

My tip is leave the nipples parrallel to the rim an 1/8 of a turn won't make much difference but it makes it a lot easier to do a solid full, half or quarter turn without forgetting where you started.

I keep meaning to get a dishing stick but get by without one.

I learnt from some videos about 9-10 years ago, and the jobst brandt book too. Don't have a dishing tool, just a cheapo stand and spoke key. I used linseed oil for the nipples, dries nice n sticky.

I've probably built 50+ wheels for myself and friends since then. got it down to about 40 minutes I guess. It's a skill I'm very glad I have.

For spoke lengths, I've been using this: http://lenni.info/edd/

Using the old wheel (and the bike forks for a stand) I started playing about trying to straighten it out, paying attention to lacing and what tensions what. Loosened all the nipples to start, didn't do too bad just to figure out how it all works.

Better get some literature on order than, and even if I dont build my own just being able to sort a buckle or fix a spoke has got yo be useful.

Next question, as I really don't have a clue, how do I work out what parts I need and what's worth what?
All i know is ill need 26" rims and something to fit a 10spd cassette and 9mm QR axle, that's about it

Hi
We use these folk Alf & Teressa Webb, Webbline (tools) [urlhttp://www.webbline.co.uk/store/c9/Wheel_Tools.html][/url] They also run The Bike Inn training school. Cheapish good quality tools, Along with Wheelpro's book, Alf produce a video which is worth purchasing, They have built 1000's of wheels for pro's, tandems, faties etc. You will get superb support and what they don't know, well.

Paul.

whitestone wrote:Get the Roger Musson e-book http://www.wheelpro.co.uk/wheelbuilding/book.php He describes how to build your own truing stand, apart from that the only tool you really need is a spoke key. Then it's patience.

+1 also, I had never built a wheel before reading this ebook, I have now built 4 wheels that have been strong and remained true.

Another vote for the Mussen ebook. I learnt to build wheels on a city and guilds bike repair and maintenance course done for fun many years ago (content included single pivot side pull brakes And rebuilding a 3 speed Sturmer aw hub!)

I'd not been near fettling a wheel for years except for a bit of truing, and the ebook was a great refresher but i thibk, and as earlier comments concur, it's a great introduction