wheelbuilding for the first time

epistolize said:

i've never built a wheel from scratch before, but it's a skill i know is
really good to have. my brother has built wheels from when he used to
bmx, but he also wrecks a lot of stuff (i know that doesn't sound
good!!).

but seriously, i would like to have built my own wheel and be able to
do my own truing if needed.

only thing holding me back at the moment is being frightened about
messing up and losing loads of time and money.

so i guess the question this post poses is: is it recommended to just
try to build a wheel by yourself with no supervision, just going by
manuals, online tutorials and general advice when doing so for the
first time?

Thats what I did.

I did a 48 spoke, 4-cross pattern for my DX. I didnt follow Sheldon
Browns manual, cause it confused em a little, so I found another guide
that was much more simplistic, and had great pictures.

It didnt take me too long to do, and tensioning/trueing the rim wasnt
too hard either.

More than anything, its just a tedious thing to do, but if youre
patient, and have a bit of time to sita round, its fun to do, and its
worth it to learn.

In fact, i need to true my coker wheel again. Muni on a old steel rim,
and a standard skinny hub doesnt work too well.

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Hey mate,

Right, my advice is practice. If you are unsure that you are going to
get it right first time, use old components for your first build.
Having said that however, it is difficult to actually ruin anything, at
worst you will have to undo it all and start again. I have done that
before, the annoying thing about wheelbuilding is you rarely notice
you've gone wrong till the end 😠
Use online guides, print them out and have them to hand while you are
doing it. Once you have done a few builds you will get to know the
sequence and gradually you will no longer need the guides.
Wheelbuilding is easy, you just have to do things in the right order.
Once you've build the wheel, you will have to true it. This takes time
and patience, I normally put the built up wheel in a frame to check how
true it is. You can then see were the high and low spots are and which
way ou need to pull the rim.

A good guide that I have always used is one by 'George French'
(http://www.gsportbmx.com/tech/guide_wheelbuilding.php).
People always say about 'Sheldon Browns'
(http://sheldonbrown.com/wheelbuild.html) guide, but to be honest I
find that one confusing.

Hope that helps mate, you should have asked at the weekend, I could
have given you Edd's wheelbuilding 101!
Any questions, just ask. If you are going to buy a new wheelset, let me
know when you've got all the stuff and we could arrange it so I could
come and show you how to put it all together.

Edd

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Just go for it, my first wheelbuild was my airfoil 36er 4-cross, got it
laced right first time but it took about 4 hours to get it straight, I
would reccomend sheldon brown's guide, just go very slowly and check
over and over again at every stage. Worse case, get it laced and take
it to a bike shop for the final trueing and tensioning if you can't get
it straight, it will reduce the cost from £25 to about £10 so still
worth doing.

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Dave

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i see- cheers!

i think i'll give a couple of trial runs with some other wheels. i'm
not going to get a completely new wheelset, but i may get some new
spokes (black or purple). i know it takes time and patience but i think
it's better to know how and be able to do as much as you can for your
own uni.

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Eddbmxdude said:

A good guide that I have always used is one by 'George French'
(http://www.gsportbmx.com/tech/guide_wheelbuilding.php).

Edd

I have read a lot of wheel building in the last. Newer seen something
like that wheel before. A 4 cross did not mean that spokes cross over
and under each spoke. A 4 cross is under - under - under - over. (In
wheel builders world). A 3 cross is under - under - over. But maybe the
wheel get stiffer with this design? But to me it looks strange and the
spoke did not go in a straight line.

+-------------------------------------------------------------------+
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unijuul said:

I have read a lot of wheel building in the last. Newer seen something
like that wheel before. A 4 cross did not mean that spokes cross over
and under each spoke. A 4 cross is under - under - under - over. (In
wheel builders world). A 3 cross is under - under - over. But maybe the
wheel get stiffer with this design? But to me it looks strange and the
spoke did not go in a straight line.

Ah yeah. He does that because he reckons it makes the wheel stronger
against landing sideways, which would also be handy for trials
unicycling. Not sure if it actually works or not though, its how my
wheels are all laced.

George French said:

With the hub twisted and the next set of spokes ready to go in we can
look at the pattern. This pattern is refered to as 4-cross. This means
that each spoke crosses four others that come from the same flange. If
you look at the picture you can see that this first spoke will cross
one spoke with the flange still inbetween. To further enhance the
ability of the wheel to resist grind impacts etc I wil be building this
wheel "interlaced under the third". Normally wheels are built
interlaced under the fourth. So if you look at the spoke that I am
holding it would go under the fourth (last) spoke it crosses. Instead I
will be "weaving" this spoke under the third crossing and then over the
forth.

Once you tension the wheel, all the spokes pull straight.

Edd

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unijuul said:

I have read a lot of wheel building in the last. Newer seen something
like that wheel before. A 4 cross did not mean that spokes cross over
and under each spoke. A 4 cross is under - under - under - over. (In
wheel builders world). A 3 cross is under - under - over. But maybe the
wheel get stiffer with this design? But to me it looks strange and the
spoke did not go in a straight line.

He says he built it "interlaced under the third" (over, over, under,
over) because it apparently makes it more resistant to damage from
grinding. I've never seen a wheel built that way either, and it does
look a mess, but then I'm not into BMX.

Rob

EDIT: Edd's already answered while I was reading the article.

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oh and also, what i don't understand is spoke length and what double
butted means.

in the udc website theres a lot of stuff for calculating spoke lengths,
but i'm not certain what rim i have. i know i have the 05 KH/onza
splined hub which has 36 spokes.

selecting the correct size seems quite a complicated business...

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unijuul said:

I have read a lot of wheel building in the last. Newer seen something
like that wheel before. A 4 cross did not mean that spokes cross over
and under each spoke. A 4 cross is under - under - under - over. (In
wheel builders world). A 3 cross is under - under - over. But maybe the
wheel get stiffer with this design? But to me it looks strange and the
spoke did not go in a straight line.

This wheel is laced incorrectly. 4-cross means that each spoke crosses
four others on the way to the rim. For any crossing pattern, spokes
should cross over the first n-1 spokes, and under the last spoke. I
can't imagine any real benefit to this spoke lacing, and there are
several disadvantages.

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tholub said:

This wheel is laced incorrectly. 4-cross means that each spoke crosses
four others on the way to the rim. For any crossing pattern, spokes
should cross over the first n-1 spokes, and under the last spoke. I
can't imagine any real benefit to this spoke lacing, and there are
several disadvantages.

He says it's done intentionally that way (interlaced under third)
because it apparently makes it less prone to damage when grinding on a
BMX. I don't know if that's actually true, but that's his reason.

Rob

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I'm getting ready to build my first wheel (after helping out on the
build of my new 36" wheel) and besides the Sheldon Brown tutorial I
decided to pick up the book _The_Bicycle_Wheel_ by Jobst Brandt. It
includes not only the "what" to do but the "why" to do it. A very nice
treatment of the subject.

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epistolize said:

oh and also, what i don't understand is spoke length and what double
butted means.

As far as selecting spoke length goes, you should find someone with the
proper tools to measure it. I'v built a couple of wheels and it's a
real bummer when you get it all laced and half of your spokes are
sticking out an inch from the rim. Now I'v never ordered any spokes
from udc so I'm not sure how that would work. Usually I have to go to
the bike shop and get them cut. Double butted spokes are just
reinforced and the ends and slimmed out in the middle (to save weight).
But the gains are minimal.

My only tip would be: Make sure all your nipples are threaded evenly
before you start to tension. When your truing it, always tighten.
ALWAYS! Don't back off any nipples to try and even it out. Be
patient, it's easier then you think.

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Double butted spokes are not only lighter but tend to last a longer time
before breaking. The center part stretches more on impact so the wheel
is not as stiff laterally as a wheel built with strait gage spokes but
the spokes are less likely to fail at the bend (where spokes almost
always fail).

UNIdentified said:

epistolize said:

My only tip would be: Make sure all your nipples are threaded evenly
before you start to tension. When your truing it, always tighten.
ALWAYS! Don't back off any nipples to try and even it out. Be
patient, it's easier then you think.

This is mostly true when building your wheels but if you throw a
wheel out of true from riding I would disagree completely. You should
try to keep overall tension in a wheel to within a 10% variance (less
if possible) and there is such thing as over tight.

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epistolize said:

oh and also, what i don't understand is spoke length and what double
butted means.

in the udc website theres a lot of stuff for calculating spoke lengths,
but i'm not certain what rim i have. i know i have the 05 KH/onza
splined hub which has 36 spokes.

selecting the correct size seems quite a complicated business...

If you are just planning on doing this to change the spokes, then the
simple answer seems to be to take out a spoke and measure it, then
order ones the same length.

STM

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saskatchewanian said:

Double butted spokes are not only lighter but tend to last a longer time
before breaking. The center part stretches more on impact so the wheel
is not as stiff laterally as a wheel built with strait gage spokes but
the spokes are less likely to fail at the bend (where spokes almost
always fail).

The lateral strength of a wheel is based on the spoke tension and the
hub flange diameter; whether the spokes are butted or not makes no
difference.

Butted spokes stretch more under tension, so it may be that bad
wheelbuilders don't put enough tension into wheels with butted spokes,
which would make the wheels more prone to lateral failure.

I don't think it's true that butted spokes are less likely to fail at
the elbow; failures at the elbow are the result of fatigue cycles,
which are largely a function of spoke tension and spoke line.

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A 3 cross wheel: it crosses over one, over another, and under the last
spoke, where the spoke gives the wheel strength. the spokes dont weave
through each other like over, under, over, under. on a 4 cross wheel
you would have over, over, over, under.

What makes the wheel strength:
* number of spokes
* flange to flange distance
* flange diameter (circumstance), a bigger flange and the spokes will
go wider out and spokes are shorter
* 3 cross / 4 cross: Here it is much discussion.

4 cross:
*Is heavier (longer spokes)
*It can be difficult to change a broken spoke. If you have big nipples
a spoke can hit a nipple because of the bright angle

A spoke has it best angle when it hit the tangential to the
circumstance of the flange. I am not so god in English to describe it.
But When the spoke go 90 degrees out from the circle of the flange it
is strongest. If you compare a 36 spoke wheel 3 cross with a 4 cross it
is very little difference of the tangential to the circumstance. A 4
cross has maybe a better angle out of the flange but longer spokes and
maybe hit a nipple on its way. It is the spoke cross nearest to the rim
that gives the wheel strenth. It is also not much difference where the
cross spoke is on a 3 cross compared to a 4 cross.

*At last it is the wheelbuilder that is the most important. :-)

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A bigger flange also get a longer weight arm for the spoke to the hub
(more power), you also get a better angle of the spoke on a 3 cross
wheel with big flange than a 3 cross wheel with small flange.

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unijuul said:

A 3 cross wheel: it crosses over one, over another, and under the last
spoke, where the spoke gives the wheel strength. the spokes dont weave
through each other like over, under, over, under. on a 4 cross wheel
you would have over, over, over, under.

Yes, that's the normal way, but the writer of the tutorial linked to
says he built his wheel interlaced under the third spoke (over, over,
under, over) because he believes it makes the wheel less prone to
damage when grinding. He's still only going under one spoke, it's just
the third one instead of the fourth. Strange, but not a mistake - he
did it for a reason that he explained in his tutorial.

Rob

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rob.northcott said:

Yes, that's the normal way, but the writer of the tutorial linked to
says he built his wheel interlaced under the third spoke (over, over,
under, over) because he believes it makes the wheel less prone to
damage when grinding. He's still only going under one spoke, it's just
the third one instead of the fourth. Strange, but not a mistake - he
did it for a reason that he explained in his tutorial.

Rob

It may have been intentional, but it was still a mistake.

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