Urban Velo #6 - Bicycle Culture on the Skids

Wheelbuilding 101... Continued

the truing stand and continue to hone in on making it true in both the horizontal and vertical directions as explained in the sidebar. Repeat the process of pushing down on the rim and truing it again until there is no change in the true of the wheel after setting the spokes. With spokes that are the of the correct length, the threads should disappear into the nipple and the end of the spoke should end up approximately even with the outside edge of the nipple.
That’s it! Almost. If you built the wheel in a truing stand that is centered for proper dish or in your bicycle frame, it should be dished properly. Contrary to popular belief, you don’t need a fancy dishing tool to check dish. Place the wheel with the axle on the ground, with one side of the rim touching the ground and the other against a wall. With a pencil mark where the upper edge of the rim touches the wall, flip the wheel over, and check to make sure the rim meets the wall at the same point. If so, the rim is centered about the axle. If not, adjust as necessary by evenly loosening spokes on one side of the rim and tensioning spokes on the other by about 1/8 turn at a time until it is dished properly.

Once you are satisfied with your work, place a rimstrip on and call it a day. Now you know how to build wheels, save money and impress your friends.

Resources
Websites
Sheldon Brown’s Wheelbuilding Page – www.sheldonbrown.com/wheelbuild.html

DT Swiss Spoke Calculator – www.dtswiss.com

Damon Rinard’s Spocalc – www.damonrinard.com/spocalc.htm

Books
The Art of Wheelbuilding – Gerd Schraner

The Bicycle Wheel – Jobst Brandt

True Dat
True is a measure of roundness, left to right and up and down. Both of those variables need to be brought into check while making sure the rim is still correctly dished. Just keep checking each parameter and work slowly and it won’t be a problem.

HORIZONTAL TRUING – Checking roundness right to left. For a spot on the rim out of round to the right, tighten the spokes leading to the left hub flange and loosen the spokes leading to the right around the deformation.

VERTICAL TRUING – This ensures the rim is centered about the axle. Tighten spokes around high spots, and loosen spokes around low spots. This has to be done around relatively large spans of spokes, generally groups of 4 or 6 at minimum.

Check true around the whole diameter of the rim in ¼ turn increments, making small adjustments to deformations to gradually make the wheel round.