Truing Stand

On 6/7/2021 9:17 PM, pH wrote:
On 2021-06-07, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 6/6/2021 10:08 PM, jbeattie wrote:

It was hard to screw-up 120mm/36 spoke wheels on SC Mod 52 or other robust rims of the era.

Apart from instruction from a friend and shop owner and the Wright pamphlet and later Jobst's book (which I bought at Cupertino Bike Shop immediately after its release), practically all my cohorts built wheels -- and we all hung out at the same shop owned by Mr. Wheel Guru, who ran twice-weekly shop rides (races) -- and half of them worked for brand-new Specialized Bicycle Components and lived and breathed bike stuff. I knew Phil Wood (his son was a friend), so that's the direction I went after probably '75/6, although I had some racing wheels with Campy hubs Anyway, wheel building was a thing back then -- as it was on this NG during Jobst's tenure. Now is wheels in a box. Things change.

And I'll bet that "wheels in a box" came about largely due to the
development of automated wheel building machines.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EITEQLn8SUE

Thank God for engineers!


Peter White of Peter White cycles is still building wheels and I'm sure our
Mr. Muzi gets to go home and lace a rim or three while watching TV once in
awhile (that's why my bike shop owning friend said he used to do).

Now I feel like taking a spare front wheel down, taking it apart and
building it, just for fun.

pH


I haven't built a wheel outside the shop since the day I
started working here. And I don't own a television.

--
Andrew Muzi
www.yellowjersey.org/
Open every day since 1 April, 1971

On Tuesday, June 8, 2021 at 5:50:27 AM UTC-7, AMuzi wrote:
On 6/7/2021 9:17 PM, pH wrote:
On 2021-06-07, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 6/6/2021 10:08 PM, jbeattie wrote:

It was hard to screw-up 120mm/36 spoke wheels on SC Mod 52 or other robust rims of the era.

Apart from instruction from a friend and shop owner and the Wright pamphlet and later Jobst's book (which I bought at Cupertino Bike Shop immediately after its release), practically all my cohorts built wheels -- and we all hung out at the same shop owned by Mr. Wheel Guru, who ran twice-weekly shop rides (races) -- and half of them worked for brand-new Specialized Bicycle Components and lived and breathed bike stuff. I knew Phil Wood (his son was a friend), so that's the direction I went after probably '75/6, although I had some racing wheels with Campy hubs Anyway, wheel building was a thing back then -- as it was on this NG during Jobst's tenure. Now is wheels in a box. Things change.

And I'll bet that "wheels in a box" came about largely due to the
development of automated wheel building machines.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EITEQLn8SUE

Thank God for engineers!


Peter White of Peter White cycles is still building wheels and I'm sure our
Mr. Muzi gets to go home and lace a rim or three while watching TV once in
awhile (that's why my bike shop owning friend said he used to do).

Now I feel like taking a spare front wheel down, taking it apart and
building it, just for fun.

pH

I haven't built a wheel outside the shop since the day I
started working here. And I don't own a television.

I own a bunch of TVs. And as a matter of fact, going back to the obsolescence thing, the TV in my bedroom -- an older Vizio LCD -- died the other day, so we went to Costco and bought a cheap replacement, and then I felt guilty about dumping a 42" LCD TV, so I opened the back and found a burned-out resistor on the power board, like a half-watt .15 ohm (brown, green, silver, gold), which is not an easy resistor to find on the interweb. A burned out resistor could also mean up stream problems, so I just bought a NOS power board for $39. I popped that in, and it works like a charm. That TV can go in the guest bedroom -- or to someone who wants a TV and not into a landfill (yet). Maybe it can be my Zwift TV -- if I had Zwift and a smart trainer. My trainer is stupid, but I never say that to its face.

-- Jay Beattie.

On 6/8/2021 10:50 AM, jbeattie wrote:
On Tuesday, June 8, 2021 at 5:50:27 AM UTC-7, AMuzi wrote:
On 6/7/2021 9:17 PM, pH wrote:
On 2021-06-07, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 6/6/2021 10:08 PM, jbeattie wrote:

It was hard to screw-up 120mm/36 spoke wheels on SC Mod 52 or other robust rims of the era.

Apart from instruction from a friend and shop owner and the Wright pamphlet and later Jobst's book (which I bought at Cupertino Bike Shop immediately after its release), practically all my cohorts built wheels -- and we all hung out at the same shop owned by Mr. Wheel Guru, who ran twice-weekly shop rides (races) -- and half of them worked for brand-new Specialized Bicycle Components and lived and breathed bike stuff. I knew Phil Wood (his son was a friend), so that's the direction I went after probably '75/6, although I had some racing wheels with Campy hubs Anyway, wheel building was a thing back then -- as it was on this NG during Jobst's tenure. Now is wheels in a box. Things change.

And I'll bet that "wheels in a box" came about largely due to the
development of automated wheel building machines.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EITEQLn8SUE

Thank God for engineers!


Peter White of Peter White cycles is still building wheels and I'm sure our
Mr. Muzi gets to go home and lace a rim or three while watching TV once in
awhile (that's why my bike shop owning friend said he used to do).

Now I feel like taking a spare front wheel down, taking it apart and
building it, just for fun.

pH

I haven't built a wheel outside the shop since the day I
started working here. And I don't own a television.

I own a bunch of TVs. And as a matter of fact, going back to the obsolescence thing, the TV in my bedroom -- an older Vizio LCD -- died the other day, so we went to Costco and bought a cheap replacement, and then I felt guilty about dumping a 42" LCD TV, so I opened the back and found a burned-out resistor on the power board, like a half-watt .15 ohm (brown, green, silver, gold), which is not an easy resistor to find on the interweb. A burned out resistor could also mean up stream problems, so I just bought a NOS power board for $39. I popped that in, and it works like a charm.

I went that route with our previous flat screen TV, first replacing some
bulged capacitors, then paying Ebay for a used power supply. Then paying
$20 to our county's recycling program to dispose of it responsibly.

And that's the problem with ever-more-computerized appliances. Some evil
voodoo practitioner stabs a needle into a model of your device and the
curse can never be diagnosed, let alone cured. It's why I'll never have
electronic shifting.

Our most-used music playing device (radio, CD, cassette tape) is now
wonky. CDs play each track over and over because the "Repeat" function
won't turn off. Hitting "Volume Up" changes the radio station, etc. But
a repair shop charges $80 to get it in the door and look at it, with no
guarantee of fixing it. :-(

--
- Frank Krygowski

On Tuesday, June 8, 2021 at 5:46:44 PM UTC+2, Frank Krygowski wrote:


And that's the problem with ever-more-computerized appliances. Some evil
voodoo practitioner stabs a needle into a model of your device and the
curse can never be diagnosed, let alone cured. It's why I'll never have
electronic shifting.

In my case Di2 proved to be so incredible reliable and low maintenance that I will never return to mechanical shifting for no other reason than this. I have 3 Di2 bikes. The only thing I have to do is charge the battery now and then and even the battery proved to be incredible on all three bikes and it is only 500 mAh. A couple of weeks ago I got a 'Di2 battery running low' warning on my Wahoo headunit. I could not even remember when I charged that battery for the last time so I thought lets see what will happen if I just continu to ride. After 5 rides of around 3 hours I gave up. It still shifted. I just charged it.

Lou

On Tuesday, June 8, 2021 at 11:44:15 AM UTC-7, wrote:
On Tuesday, June 8, 2021 at 5:46:44 PM UTC+2, Frank Krygowski wrote:


And that's the problem with ever-more-computerized appliances. Some evil
voodoo practitioner stabs a needle into a model of your device and the
curse can never be diagnosed, let alone cured. It's why I'll never have
electronic shifting.
In my case Di2 proved to be so incredible reliable and low maintenance that I will never return to mechanical shifting for no other reason than this.. I have 3 Di2 bikes. The only thing I have to do is charge the battery now and then and even the battery proved to be incredible on all three bikes and it is only 500 mAh. A couple of weeks ago I got a 'Di2 battery running low' warning on my Wahoo headunit. I could not even remember when I charged that battery for the last time so I thought lets see what will happen if I just continu to ride. After 5 rides of around 3 hours I gave up. It still shifted. I just charged it.

Lou, my experience with Di2 is like yours. Shifting is fast and quiet and 100% reliable. The only thing you have to worry about is that the battery lasts so long you might forget to charge it since you may not need a charge for 6 months. The set-up is so easy that anyone that can use a computer can do it in a couple of minutes and the initial alignment only requires a pretty coarse adjustment to put it in the middle of its range and then it works perfectly from then on.

I was having troubles with remembering which lever to push to do what since they are so close together so I set it up so that the large lever is for "faster" and the small levers is for lower gears. I thought this was my own memory weakness but the group I bought from Team CCC was set up exactly the same.

On Monday, June 7, 2021 at 8:21:48 PM UTC-5, AMuzi wrote:
On 6/7/2021 8:06 PM, wrote:
On Sunday, June 6, 2021 at 6:57:27 PM UTC-5, jbeattie wrote:
On Sunday, June 6, 2021 at 3:45:12 PM UTC-7, wrote:
On Sunday, June 6, 2021 at 3:01:37 PM UTC-7, pH wrote:
On 2021-06-04, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 6/3/2021 8:17 PM, AMuzi wrote:

BTW I do most truing 'in the bike'. I only occasionally build wheels now
(when employees are 'too good' for some jobs and some customers). The
result is the same. Although a stand with good lighting can be more
convenient it's not essential.

I built my first wheel riding in a VW van during the long drive to the
airport for our first overseas bike tour. I used the inverted bike frame
as the truing stand.

Those were the days!

Did you use Jobst's book to do the lacing, Robert Wright's "Wright-built"
technique or are you just a super-genius who figured it out on his own?

I got loand the 'wright built' pamphlet by a coworker and used it to do the
lacing on my rims. I never used Jobst's published technique, but it look
like his way would have avoided the spoke weaving I had to do for the last
course of spokes.

The tensioning process was always tough...getting the 'hop' out.

I always took care to turn each nipple the same amount before tension began
being appreciable, but, still....

I ended up with a good result but I sure don't feel like natural.

How many spokes were your wheels? As a Clydesdale I do 40 in front and 48
in back.
I was originally shown by a bike builder in Hayward. In those day wheels were 36 and/or 32 spokes. The idea of the weaving was to keep the spokes from pinging against one another if they were done that way. Once you got the hang of it you didn't even have to look at it. You would cut the spokes the proper length and then tighten the nipples up to three threads from tight and then take a half turn on every spoke until you have them as tight as they would go, which wasn't very tight on a 36 spoke wheel. If you had a hop in the wheel you did something wrong.

You must be remarkably big if you need anything more than 36 spoke wheels.
Cut the spokes? WTF? Did you have a Phil spoke thread roller?

-- Jay Beattie.

I was confused by that comment too. I always just order the right spoke lengths, minus a couple millimeters to account for stretch. Spokes come in 2 millimeter increments I think. Sapim or Wheelsmith or DT.


"right spoke lengths, minus a couple millimeters to account
for stretch"
We use stainless drawn spokes here which don't. How many
miles do you get on those pasta spokes?
--
Andrew Muzi
www.yellowjersey.org/
Open every day since 1 April, 1971

Thought it was common knowledge to round down on spoke calculators. I know you want the spoke end to be at the bottom of the slot in the nipple when its completely laced up tight. Not sticking up into the slot. In theory might run out of threads on the spoke to tighten it. There is some spoke stretch, hub hole deformation, rim eyelet bulging occurring during the tightening process.

Below is from the Park Tool website. I don't know how much those numbers are. But guessing its quite a bit. I'm sure the stainless steel used in spokes is not impervious to everything. Its not Superman. So it will stretch and break with enough force. I'd guess every rider on this forum has broken stainless spokes on rides.
"Most rims have suggested ranges from 100 to 120 Kilograms-force, or 980 to 1177 Newtons."

On 6/8/2021 3:40 PM, wrote:
On Monday, June 7, 2021 at 8:21:48 PM UTC-5, AMuzi wrote:
On 6/7/2021 8:06 PM, wrote:
On Sunday, June 6, 2021 at 6:57:27 PM UTC-5, jbeattie wrote:
On Sunday, June 6, 2021 at 3:45:12 PM UTC-7, wrote:
On Sunday, June 6, 2021 at 3:01:37 PM UTC-7, pH wrote:
On 2021-06-04, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 6/3/2021 8:17 PM, AMuzi wrote:

BTW I do most truing 'in the bike'. I only occasionally build wheels now
(when employees are 'too good' for some jobs and some customers). The
result is the same. Although a stand with good lighting can be more
convenient it's not essential.

I built my first wheel riding in a VW van during the long drive to the
airport for our first overseas bike tour. I used the inverted bike frame
as the truing stand.

Those were the days!

Did you use Jobst's book to do the lacing, Robert Wright's "Wright-built"
technique or are you just a super-genius who figured it out on his own?

I got loand the 'wright built' pamphlet by a coworker and used it to do the
lacing on my rims. I never used Jobst's published technique, but it look
like his way would have avoided the spoke weaving I had to do for the last
course of spokes.

The tensioning process was always tough...getting the 'hop' out.

I always took care to turn each nipple the same amount before tension began
being appreciable, but, still....

I ended up with a good result but I sure don't feel like natural.

How many spokes were your wheels? As a Clydesdale I do 40 in front and 48
in back.
I was originally shown by a bike builder in Hayward. In those day wheels were 36 and/or 32 spokes. The idea of the weaving was to keep the spokes from pinging against one another if they were done that way. Once you got the hang of it you didn't even have to look at it. You would cut the spokes the proper length and then tighten the nipples up to three threads from tight and then take a half turn on every spoke until you have them as tight as they would go, which wasn't very tight on a 36 spoke wheel. If you had a hop in the wheel you did something wrong.

You must be remarkably big if you need anything more than 36 spoke wheels.
Cut the spokes? WTF? Did you have a Phil spoke thread roller?

-- Jay Beattie.

I was confused by that comment too. I always just order the right spoke lengths, minus a couple millimeters to account for stretch. Spokes come in 2 millimeter increments I think. Sapim or Wheelsmith or DT.


"right spoke lengths, minus a couple millimeters to account
for stretch"
We use stainless drawn spokes here which don't. How many
miles do you get on those pasta spokes?
--
Andrew Muzi
www.yellowjersey.org/
Open every day since 1 April, 1971

Thought it was common knowledge to round down on spoke calculators. I know you want the spoke end to be at the bottom of the slot in the nipple when its completely laced up tight. Not sticking up into the slot. In theory might run out of threads on the spoke to tighten it. There is some spoke stretch, hub hole deformation, rim eyelet bulging occurring during the tightening process.

Below is from the Park Tool website. I don't know how much those numbers are. But guessing its quite a bit. I'm sure the stainless steel used in spokes is not impervious to everything. Its not Superman. So it will stretch and break with enough force. I'd guess every rider on this forum has broken stainless spokes on rides.
"Most rims have suggested ranges from 100 to 120 Kilograms-force, or 980 to 1177 Newtons."

A typical spoke stretches about half a millimeter at full tension.
That's just the spoke. The slight compression of the rim and the spoke
bedding in to the hub might add a bit of apparent stretch.


--
- Frank Krygowski

On Tuesday, June 8, 2021 at 12:40:40 PM UTC-7, wrote:
On Monday, June 7, 2021 at 8:21:48 PM UTC-5, AMuzi wrote:
On 6/7/2021 8:06 PM, wrote:
On Sunday, June 6, 2021 at 6:57:27 PM UTC-5, jbeattie wrote:
On Sunday, June 6, 2021 at 3:45:12 PM UTC-7, wrote:
On Sunday, June 6, 2021 at 3:01:37 PM UTC-7, pH wrote:
On 2021-06-04, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 6/3/2021 8:17 PM, AMuzi wrote:

BTW I do most truing 'in the bike'. I only occasionally build wheels now
(when employees are 'too good' for some jobs and some customers).. The
result is the same. Although a stand with good lighting can be more
convenient it's not essential.

I built my first wheel riding in a VW van during the long drive to the
airport for our first overseas bike tour. I used the inverted bike frame
as the truing stand.

Those were the days!

Did you use Jobst's book to do the lacing, Robert Wright's "Wright-built"
technique or are you just a super-genius who figured it out on his own?

I got loand the 'wright built' pamphlet by a coworker and used it to do the
lacing on my rims. I never used Jobst's published technique, but it look
like his way would have avoided the spoke weaving I had to do for the last
course of spokes.

The tensioning process was always tough...getting the 'hop' out.

I always took care to turn each nipple the same amount before tension began
being appreciable, but, still....

I ended up with a good result but I sure don't feel like natural.

How many spokes were your wheels? As a Clydesdale I do 40 in front and 48
in back.
I was originally shown by a bike builder in Hayward. In those day wheels were 36 and/or 32 spokes. The idea of the weaving was to keep the spokes from pinging against one another if they were done that way. Once you got the hang of it you didn't even have to look at it. You would cut the spokes the proper length and then tighten the nipples up to three threads from tight and then take a half turn on every spoke until you have them as tight as they would go, which wasn't very tight on a 36 spoke wheel. If you had a hop in the wheel you did something wrong.

You must be remarkably big if you need anything more than 36 spoke wheels.
Cut the spokes? WTF? Did you have a Phil spoke thread roller?

-- Jay Beattie.

I was confused by that comment too. I always just order the right spoke lengths, minus a couple millimeters to account for stretch. Spokes come in 2 millimeter increments I think. Sapim or Wheelsmith or DT.


"right spoke lengths, minus a couple millimeters to account
for stretch"
We use stainless drawn spokes here which don't. How many
miles do you get on those pasta spokes?
--
Andrew Muzi
www.yellowjersey.org/
Open every day since 1 April, 1971
Thought it was common knowledge to round down on spoke calculators. I know you want the spoke end to be at the bottom of the slot in the nipple when its completely laced up tight. Not sticking up into the slot. In theory might run out of threads on the spoke to tighten it. There is some spoke stretch, hub hole deformation, rim eyelet bulging occurring during the tightening process.

Below is from the Park Tool website. I don't know how much those numbers are. But guessing its quite a bit. I'm sure the stainless steel used in spokes is not impervious to everything. Its not Superman. So it will stretch and break with enough force. I'd guess every rider on this forum has broken stainless spokes on rides.
"Most rims have suggested ranges from 100 to 120 Kilograms-force, or 980 to 1177 Newtons."
It is nearly impossible to calculate spoke length so closely that the spoke ends exactly at the bottom of the spoke driver slots. You install the spokes using a spoke driver and then you predictably tighten the spokes up so that they all come to tension at the same time so that you don't have any bounce in the wheel. https://www.ebay.com/itm/19419427197...AOSw9zdcXz~ e

The way wheels are built today is that the spokes have a square head on what used to be the slotted end and these are installed on the end of a machine driver. The wheel machine then is set to the point where all of the nipples are sticking out of the rim and it still requires a man to start the spokes into the ends of the nipples. This requires a bit of bending of the spokes and knowing how they have to overlap.

The machine is engaged and it pulls ALL of the spokes down to the same torque in a matter of seconds. If the rim doesn't have any flaws, the wheels are perfectly straight and round. The Chinese appear to be the only one's selling a large enough market to invest in this machines but perhaps some companies like Reynolds have the quantity to afford these machines. The latest pair of carbon wheels I've received are so accurate that the truing stand can detect no misalignment of hop at all. https://www.ebay.com/itm/22320534897...4AAOSw7NNUCnKe

As an aside, in the process of setting the nipples through the spoke holes, occasionally they lose a nipple inside of the rim. This requires them to start again. But that nipple is often missed and left inside the aero rims. So when it is rotated it will rattle around in there. It is easy enough to get out. You only need to hold a spoke hole at the very bottom and shake the wheel and they will normally fall right out. But sometimes they are missed and wheels get delivered with a nipple rattling around inside of the rim.

On 2021-06-08, AMuzi wrote:
On 6/7/2021 9:17 PM, pH wrote:
On 2021-06-07, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 6/6/2021 10:08 PM, jbeattie wrote:

It was hard to screw-up 120mm/36 spoke wheels on SC Mod 52 or other robust rims of the era.

Apart from instruction from a friend and shop owner and the Wright pamphlet and later Jobst's book (which I bought at Cupertino Bike Shop immediately after its release), practically all my cohorts built wheels -- and we all hung out at the same shop owned by Mr. Wheel Guru, who ran twice-weekly shop rides (races) -- and half of them worked for brand-new Specialized Bicycle Components and lived and breathed bike stuff. I knew Phil Wood (his son was a friend), so that's the direction I went after probably '75/6, although I had some racing wheels with Campy hubs Anyway, wheel building was a thing back then -- as it was on this NG during Jobst's tenure. Now is wheels in a box. Things change.

And I'll bet that "wheels in a box" came about largely due to the
development of automated wheel building machines.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EITEQLn8SUE

Thank God for engineers!


Peter White of Peter White cycles is still building wheels and I'm sure our
Mr. Muzi gets to go home and lace a rim or three while watching TV once in
awhile (that's why my bike shop owning friend said he used to do).

Now I feel like taking a spare front wheel down, taking it apart and
building it, just for fun.

pH


I haven't built a wheel outside the shop since the day I
started working here. And I don't own a television.


Wow. No TV here, either. Do videos on the computer (computah for Jeff)
count?
When I go to my mom's where the tv is always on, it seems to be like
watching sausage being made. There are some Startrek reruns at night and I
do like trying to find ones I haven't seen yet.

pH