Building great wheels takes skill and quality tooling.
Carefully balanced spoke tension is the critical ingredient in building a long lasting wheel. Some builders don’t use a tension meter, or compromise on the costs. Without an accurate, calibrated tension meter a builder has no way to be sure of the tension they are building to – and it’s vital to get this right. Be sure that your builder has accurate tension meters and a means to calibrate them.
Pre build
- Components selected, choose correct spoke lengths
- Verify and record tensions required
- For an unknown spoke, calibrate the tension meter for this spoke
- Check / re-measure components
- Confirm ERD
- Confirm hub measurements
- Check rim join
- Check hub bearings
Lacing
- Lace wheel
- Different ways / standards of measuring ERD mean that at this point spoke length should be re-confirmed to be correct
- Cold set spokes at J-bend
- Lubricate nipples / spoke threads / spoke eyelets
- Spin wheel to lubricate spoke threads throughly, allow time for oil to penetrate
- Start to bring up to tension
- Check relative tensions by “note” of the spoke
- Aim for consistent tensions before starting to look at truing
- Check calibration of tension meter
- Measure initial tensions after spoke threads just gone out of sight – initial sense check to get some idea of parameters
Truing / tensioning
- Truing starts after initial consistent tension reached – constant checking and adjustment of trueness in the following dimensions:
- Radial
- Lateral
- Dish
- Regular destressing after any adjustments
- Keep checking / adjusting relative tensions
- Aiming for accuracy of 0.1mm lateral / 0.2mm radial / perfect dish
- Radial is often affected by the rim join, in both carbon and aluminum rims. This may not possible to correct to more than 0.2 mm accuracy
- Bring rims up to final tension according to manufacturer recommendations
- Destress and check trueness
- Check relative tensions
- Measure final tension
Post build
- Record build parameters
- Final trueness checks – radial / lateral / dish
- Final tension checks – all spokes measured with tension meter
- Clean and polish
- Fit rim tape if required