DIY Wheel building

[Leonard]

OK, so my next dumb question is where do I get 272 and 274 spokes? Pref DT Swiss or some other decent brand. 18 of each. No one seems to have these things.

Let me check if I can get some Pillar double butted ones for you.

Will pm you if I can get them.

[Pipsqueak]

Let me check if I can get some Pillar double butted ones for you.

Will pm you if I can get them.

Found some in Durban at Good2Go. Thanks for the thought though.

[nickelass]

I have built total of 9 wheels so far, mainly because of swopping hubs and rims on my bikes , and a couple of things I have observed.

I take way to long! I could never do this for a living .

To me the vertical trueing is harder than the lateral trueing.

Back wheels are much harder.

I did stress relieving (maybe not good enough) but I do a couple of rides on my finished product, then true again, as the tension released, the wheel can go out.

Its great to ride on your own built wheels !

[Pieterg]

YouTube should sort you out !!!

[kosmonooit]

What I found when you tend to spend ages trying to get radial perfection is that it's worth just leaving it for a few hours or a day, then you will have a fresh approach and it's just a matter of a minor tweak of a nipple here or there. There is also the matter of spoke tension but I go by tone.

[droo]

I have built total of 9 wheels so far, mainly because of swopping hubs and rims on my bikes , and a couple of things I have observed.

I take way to long! I could never do this for a living .

To me the vertical trueing is harder than the lateral trueing.

Back wheels are much harder.

I did stress relieving (maybe not good enough) but I do a couple of rides on my finished product, then true again, as the tension released, the wheel can go out.

Its great to ride on your own built wheels !

 

Wheels usually go out of true after a new build because of one of three things - either spoke tension is too low, the spokes have wound up and release when you ride them, or the outside spokes haven't been bent around the hub. Stress relieving stops spokes from breaking due to fatigue after a few years, but will do nothing for the other issues.

[Pipsqueak]

This is kind of a nerdy question, but what the hell. 

 

I've got a few different sets of hubs now, and I've noticed that the flange distances and flange diameters are quite different. Hope flanges are quite close together compared to Stans or Novatec hubs, and I wondered what effect this has on the strength and durability of a wheel - especially a 29er wheel.

 

Surely larger flanges which are further apart would result in a stronger wheel? 

[Lance Stephenson]

Read all the material you can find, watch all the video clips you can, it all helps to give you a grasp on what goes into a wheel build.  It takes years to get the "FEEL" for it though, choosing the right spoke for the person/application and the right tension for the person/application/product.  Ask a pro, get the to part their knowledge with you, teach you the subtleties of building a great wheel.  Until you have built 100 wheels, in my opinion, you've only assembled them!

[Captain Fastbastard Mayhem]

Read all the material you can find, watch all the video clips you can, it all helps to give you a grasp on what goes into a wheel build.  It takes years to get the "FEEL" for it though, choosing the right spoke for the person/application and the right tension for the person/application/product.  Ask a pro, get the to part their knowledge with you, teach you the subtleties of building a great wheel.  Until you have built 100 wheels, in my opinion, you've only assembled them!

Listen to this guy. Only one of 2 guys  in the S Subs that I'd trust to build a carbon wheel properly. 

[Captain Fastbastard Mayhem]

This is kind of a nerdy question, but what the hell. 

 

I've got a few different sets of hubs now, and I've noticed that the flange distances and flange diameters are quite different. Hope flanges are quite close together compared to Stans or Novatec hubs, and I wondered what effect this has on the strength and durability of a wheel - especially a 29er wheel.

 

Surely larger flanges which are further apart would result in a stronger wheel? 

Generally speaking, the bigger the distance between the flanges, and the larger the flanges are, the stronger / stiffer your wheel build will be when it comes to lateral forces. This is because the wider / higher creates a more pronounced angle (less acute) than on narrower / lower hub flanges. 

 

However, in the real world, things like materials, flange thickness, machining on the hub and so on come into it, and a hub with a wider and / or higher hub flange setup may lend itself to a wheel build that is less stiff than one with a hub that has slightly narrower or lower hub flanges. 

 

EDIT: Hence BOOST. Wider spacing between flanges (even just 3mm per side) = stiffer *potential* wheel build when compared to 142 / 135mm hub setups. 

 

Potential, because as I said a lot more goes into it than just the width of the hub. 

Edited March 4, 2016 by Myles Mayhew

[Pipsqueak]

Generally speaking, the bigger the distance between the flanges, and the larger the flanges are, the stronger / stiffer your wheel build will be when it comes to lateral forces. This is because the wider / higher creates a more pronounced angle (less acute) than on narrower / lower hub flanges. 

 

However, in the real world, things like materials, flange thickness, machining on the hub and so on come into it, and a hub with a wider and / or higher hub flange setup may lend itself to a wheel build that is less stiff than one with a hub that has slightly narrower or lower hub flanges. 

 

EDIT: Hence BOOST. Wider spacing between flanges (even just 3mm per side) = stiffer *potential* wheel build when compared to 142 / 135mm hub setups. 

 

Potential, because as I said a lot more goes into it than just the width of the hub. 

Ya sure, I get that. 

 

One of the reasons this is interesting is that some cheaper hubs, like Novatec, have wider, higher flanges when compared to say, Hopes. In an area where you'd expect tight conformity, there's actually quite a bit of variation.