In article <
[email protected]>,
[email protected] says...
>I have been building wheels for about 10 years. I'm don't consider
>myself to be an expert or any great wheel builder, but what I build, I
>ride and it works.
>Recently, I bought a set of pre-built wheels from Performance because
>they were exactly what I would have built for myself, and they were
>cheaper than what I could have done it for. They are your
>garden-variety Ultegra 9-speed 32 hole hubs, laced 3x with DT 14/15 DB
>spokes on Open Pro rims.
>Over the first couple of hundred miles they went slightly out of true
>so I trued them up and using a Wheelsmith tensiometer and the
>recommended 80 to 110 kgf as a guide (I typically shoot for right
>around 90-95), I brought the wheel back into true and with consistent
>tension across all the spokes.
>Over the next couple of hundred they went out of true again and I
>noticed that some of the spokes were detensioning noticeably (non-drive
>side predominantly). I repeated the aforementioned process to bring
>them back into true and tension. Shortly thereafter, broke a spoke.
>A thousand or so miles later, I broke another, some time later,
>another. Today, I broke number 5, all in the course of one year and
>5000 miles. They have all been on the non-drive side of the rear wheel,
>and have been trailing spokes (on these particular wheels the spoke
>heads are facing out on the trailing spokes).
Since you have a tensiometer, did you check to see that the spoke tension
was even all around? Uneven tension will cause the wheel to go out of
true. The snapping spoke are probably due to fatigue failures because the
wheels were not stress-relieved.
>Generally speaking, is a non-drive spoke more apt to break from too
>much tension or too little?
From not being stress relieved.
>What significance is there (if any) that these are all the same side
>and orientation?
They were all not stress relieved.
>What can I do besides tear them apart and re-do them? I have
>considered detensioning the whole wheel enough to expose a few spoke
>threads, use a few drops of Loctite 242 and then retension the wheel as
>I normally would, but I would like some opinions on "my choice" of
>tension that I build into a wheel (mentioned above).
Loctite is not necessary on a properly built wheel. Also, if the spokes
are fatigued, the loctite is not going to help. Most spokes will probably
fail in the near future. You can try stress relieving now, but be careful.
Wear gloves and eye protection. Keep in mind that a spoke may break when you
stress relieve, so point the spoke head away from anthing that might get
damaged by a spoke end that snaps.
----------------
Alex