[sanjuro]

I just taught a friend how to build a wheel, and it took about 4 hours.

I rarely build a wheel in one sitting, but I think I can get it done in less than 2 hours.

To speed up this process, I was wondering if I could skip intermediate truing, so I would tighten spokes from lacing to maybe 80-90% of the finished spoke tension, then true, round, and dish at that time. After that, I would continue tensioning and truing process until the wheel was completed.

Right now, I usually have 2-3 truing sessions before I reach near-full spoke tension, and I wonder if it is a waste of time?

 

[Dartman]

I've found that trying to keep the wheel true while bringing it to tension is faster. I start by only giving each nipple 1/2 turn leaving the flats in the same orientation on each one so the wrench finds them quickly. I keep and eye on the radial and lateral true as I go and try to keep the wheel close to true by skipping nipples that would move it in the wrong direction. This seems to weed out the variance in spoke lengths. I am starting to get a "feel" for tension and only check with a tensiometer when I think I'm close. I can do a wheel in well under 2 hours.

Mike

 

[Westy]

I think that could pose more problems than it solves. It is fairly easy to true side to side wobble later in the build but if the wheel gets out of round it takes enough turns of the nipples that you almost have to start over. Maybe as you build true just for roundness until the tension gets built up.

 

[Dartman]

Good point Westy. Keeping it round as you build tension saves alot of headaches later. Lateral true will pretty much take care of itself.

Mike

 

[Mike B.]

I'm with Westy. We build a lot of wheels, all by hand, and there are several truing sessions between stress relieving. We always work off the bottom, making the wheel round then work the sides but never letting the lateral true or dish get too far out in the process.

Initial tension/making it round > stress relieve > check and fix and roundness > stress relieve > tension to 95% dialing in dish and true > stress relieve > final tension > stress relieve > one last tension/true/dish/roundness check. Repeat the obvious stuff as needed. You'll know you're over tensioned if you stress relieve the wheel and it stays out of true in the last places you pushed.

We work with the Park professional stands with the dial indicators which makes fine adjustments very evident. From lacing to taping, there is probably less than an hour in each wheel. If you don't build every day, then 2 hours seems reasonable enough to me.

 

[-dustin]

damn, i wish i could spend so much time building that i'd get my times under an hour.

 

[sanjuro]

BTW, I read in the Bicycle Retailer, there is a new wheelbuilding machine in Taiwan which can build 60 wheels in an hour.

 

[Chunky Munkey]

STRESS RELEIVE

Initial tension/making it round > stress relieve > check and fix and roundness > stress relieve > tension to 95% dialing in dish and true > stress relieve > final tension > stress relieve > one last tension/true/dish/roundness check. Repeat the obvious stuff as needed.

Let me get this staight...

Initial tension/making it round > drink a beer > check and fix and roundness > drink another beer > tension to 95% dialing in dish and true > slam another beer > final tension > say "aah what the hell" one more... > one last tension/true/dish/roundness check. Then repeat the obvious stuff as needed, as in, Screw it, one more for the road.

Did I get that right?

 

[Dartman]

STRESS RELEIVE


Let me get this staight...

Initial tension/making it round > drink a beer > check and fix and roundness > drink another beer > tension to 95% dialing in dish and true > slam another beer > final tension > say "aah what the hell" one more... > one last tension/true/dish/roundness check. Then repeat the obvious stuff as needed, as in, Screw it, one more for the road.

Did I get that right?

Yeah I'm pretty "unstressed" after building a wheel...

But seriously, stress relieving is for the spokes... http://www.sheldonbrown.com/wheelbuild.html#seating

 

[peter6061]

BTW, I read in the Bicycle Retailer, there is a new wheelbuilding machine in Taiwan which can build 60 wheels in an hour.

When I toured the Cannondale factory a couple years ago they had a woman who's job was to feed spokes into hubs and thread them into the correct nipples. A machine fed the nipples to the rim, so all she had to do was line up the proper hole on the rim with the machine. It seemed she could lace a wheel in under 5 minutes. From there, the 'untensioned' wheel rolled down a ramp to a machine that 'grabbed' it and started tensioning each spoke. It was amazing to watch. This machine tensioned and trued the wheel similarly to a person hand truing it. It rotated the wheel and checked for round, and side to side. When the wheels finally emerged from the other end, they had been stressed and trued a couple times. She was knocking out about 20 wheels / hour.

I can't even comprehend a wheel being built in a minute, unless this machine has the ability to build multiple wheels at once.

My best time is somewhere around 35 minutes, but usually I'm between 45 - 60. I don't build as many as I used to when I worked at a shop. Now, it's just personal wheels and wheels for friends, so I'm down to maybe 1-2 / month.

 

[-dustin]

the term stress relieving seems to be a bit off...i think what most people consider to be stress relieving is more along the lines of de-spoke wind up-ing. anyone else agree, or am i off my rocker?

 

[Mike B.]

I think you're probably right that most think of it as removing wind up but that is not true. It has more to do with seating the spokes in the flanges and permanently deforming the spokes but yes, some wind up will come out at that point if you haven't removed it during spoke tensioning. The reason it works to tell if you're overtensioned is because the extra tension on the spokes from pushing or squeezing them together is like a simulated load while riding and the rim will basically warp if it is overtensioned.

 

[sanjuro]

After some reading your good advice, I decided to tension focusing mostly on round. I realize instead of a formal tension, true, round, then repeat, if I just tenson and true at the same time, I was able to get to 80-90% tension in less than 30 minutes.

 

[Ascentrek]

To speed up this process, I was wondering if I could skip intermediate truing, so I would tighten spokes from lacing to maybe 80-90% of the finished spoke tension, then true, round, and dish at that time. QUOTE]

I used to do it like you did.

If you have a tensiometer, try tensioning the spokes by force, never truing it. After I get the spokes in the wheel, I start by going about 30% of the 100% tension. Adding and releasing tension as I go around. The Wheel will true itself in 90% of the cases. Hops can be removed after the 30% 'leveling' stage. Next, simply add a defined turn (full, half, quarter) on the next go-around, note the tension increase. Add or subtract tensions to equalize all spokes using a tensiometer. Complete the increase to 100%. Verify and equalize spoke tenstions within 5% of each other (obviously will be different if a rear wheel). True.

Its an odd process, but it takes under an hour. It also makes the wheel extremely strong (when spokes are within 5% of tension). You don't need to true the wheel during this process until the very end. If all spoke tensions are equal, then the wheel should be 'true'. You'll have to do some fine tweaks at the end.