How hard can it be ?

[neptune]

I was wondering how hard it would be to learn to build bicycle wheels . There are probably a lot of bike shops now that will not do the job . After all , a high percentage of cheap bikes today do not last long enough to need this service . I have trued wheels in the past with some degree of success . I once changed a rim , by taping it alongside the old one , and transferring the spokes across . I worked well enough to do the job . One job I would like to do is re-spoke the wheels on my pedal bike . The bike is less than a year old and the cheapo spokes are allready corroding , so I would like to fit stainless ones . To all you guys who can build a wheel , how did you get started , and how many failures did you get on the way ?

 

[flecc]

A number of forum members have now done it successfully, and there are some online tutorials on how.

I'm sure some will post with links and their experiences of wheel building.

 

[Scottyf]

I built my own wheel.
Just sat there with a guide on you tube doing it in stages. Took a couple of hours to get it correct and broke two spokes in the process.

Its quite theaputic though fetting it correct. I didn't use a stand but a fixed point on the bike.
Hasn't needed truing since and its the rear wheel with a motor.

So it can be done. But it takes patience. Its one of those jobs that can be fustrating but if you take your time and your in no rush it seems to be able to be done by simpletons like myself.

There is a knack to doing correctly and fast. But as a common 1 cross pattern on a 36 hole wheel its pretty easy I think.

This was with thicker guage spokes to and a hub motor which is much heavier than a standard hub.
I think doing a standard hub would be much easier.



Attempt it... If you bodge it you can still get somewhere local to do it.
Nout wrong with trying to do it yourself. Its hardly rebuilding an engine ;-)

 

[jerrysimon]

My build thread. I am self taught (with lots of help from forum members here) and up to about a dozen builds now, albeit simple small wheel symetrical hub builds. I still very much consider myself an amateur. As stated its not that hard, though I found the first one quite challenging more in that it appears harder than it actually is once you have started and done it. The tendancy for me was to become obbsessive about all the detail when the whole process mimics happiness in real life, which is about balance and compromise. In fact there are many similarities about building wheels and leading a happy balanced lifestyle. Ok I am rambling lol

Unfortuanately there is also a lot of black art rubbish surrounding the process as well.

Huge sense of achievement and satisfaction from doing it though.

I have just built my first radial wheel and tested it successfully this weekend

One of the biggest challenges I found was getting the spoke lengths correct, though again plenty of help and calculators on line to help you do that.

Checkout some Youtube vids.

Regards

Jerry

 

[neptune]

Thanks for all the words of encouragement . What I will do is find a half decent wheel in the scrapyard , take it apart and reassemble it . I have worked with tools all my life , and have rebuilt engines years ago . I would guess that it is more like basket making than engineering . I would think that if I get it spoked correctly , a local bike shop would true it up if I cant manage to do that .
ADDED LATER One thing I have often wondered about wheels . I have seen people tighten loose spokes on a bike without removing the tyre and tube . I would never risk that , as I would be afraid of a spoke end penetrating the tube . Any opinions please ?

 

[flecc]

I have seen people tighten loose spokes on a bike without removing the tyre and tube . I would never risk that , as I would be afraid of a spoke end penetrating the tube . Any opinions please ?

Many rims are double skinned, the inner layer well separated from the outer layer and spoke nipple heads. Naturally there's no problem with those. The inner layer has the rim tape covering it's holes.

 

[wurly]

I have built my own wheels.
Get a book by Jobst Brandt 'the bicycle wheel'. It's an interesting read which covers all aspects of design of wheel. Sit down and read it first before attempting anything.
The first wheel took 5 attempts to get it right. Every wheel build i do gets easier everytime.

 

[z0mb13e]

I found a few helpful posts and collected them here.

I found a wheel truing stand to be invaluable.

 

[amigafan2003]

To all you guys who can build a wheel , how did you get started , and how many failures did you get on the way ?

Wheelbuilding

Just get the bits and build it - no procrastinating!

As far as how many wheels have failed whilst I was learning - none ;-) they are all still going strong - even an ambitious snowflake pattern I did at college (16 years ago!).

 

[z0mb13e]

To all you guys who can build a wheel , how did you get started , and how many failures did you get on the way ?

I didn't get any out and out failures, just a few false starts where things just weren't coming together properly. I found what worked for me was to get all the spokes in with nipples fitted to about the same depth and work a quarter turn on each from that point (where there is a lot of slack) rather than taking up the slack first and then trying to true from there which seems to be where my false starts came from.