Spokes??????

GoldenMotor.com

racing fan

New Member
Apr 17, 2011
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Michigan
I am not a wheel builder by any means and I was wondering about how much torque and overall force could 14 gu. stainless steel spokes could take before the decide to start failing? (48 in the wheels)
 

biknut

Well-Known Member
Sep 28, 2010
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48" wheels, dang that's big. Maybe you mean 28"?

If you want to know what to torque the spokes to, I'm sorry I don't know the answer, but I do seem to be an expert at breaking spokes. What I've learned is, loose spokes break faster than spokes that are properly tight.

The only way I know to tell if a spoke is loose is to tap on it with something like a wrench. It it sort of rings, or pings it's tight, but if it has a dull sound it's loose. That much is easy to tell.
 

biknut

Well-Known Member
Sep 28, 2010
6,631
409
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Dallas
I's sorry If I confused you it's 48 spokes in both wheels
Oh yeah, silly me. I weight 220. My stock wheels have broken a few spokes. Once my muffler fell of when I was going 30 mph. Of course I ran it over, and It broke a couple of spokes. I'm always running pretty hard, 30 plus.

When I break a spoke I take my wheel to a shop and have it repaired and trued. The mechanic knows it's for a motor bicycle, and he makes sure all the spokes are nice and tight. After getting my wheels worked on they seem to be a lot more durable.
 

Allen_Wrench

Resident Mad Scientist
Feb 6, 2010
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Indianapolis
Boy, I've laced rims before, but I never thought about measuring the torque. I wouldn't know how to measure that; my spoke wrench isn't a torque wrench so I'm not even sure I could guess. I just go by feel. You certainly don't want your spokes loose enough that they'd wobble at one end. Nor do you want them so tight that you can play a harp concerto on the wheel. Sometimes, as you tighten them, they'll make a sound like "ping*ping*ping". That's okay, but don't keep doing that once you hear it. There's a certain amount of tightness you learn to feel for in the spokes.
Try to imagine that you won't want your hub rattling and floating around near the middle of your wheel as you ride, nor would you want the spokes under so much tension that, as soon as you skip over a small pothole, five spokes go *TWANG!* and your rear wheel folds up behind you.
I'm hoping somebody else on this forum can explain the process better than I can. I don't think about it so much, I just do it and go by feel.
 

Nashville Kat

Well-Known Member
Apr 20, 2009
1,501
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Jacksonville, Florida
Wheels with 48 spokes should take a lot of abuse-

I always try to play my spokes pretty tight- a wheel tends to round itself a little bit as you get tighter-

If the rim is new I generally mostly tighten when I'm truing and rounding a wheel- when they are tight, the loosening of spokes to round or true is minimal-

with 48 spokes they may not need to be really tight- but they shouldn't have much flex either

I had a Park jig and built up all my own wheels when I was racing back in the '70s- mostly 36, three cross tubular sew-up rims then

and I'd build up more wheels these days, but the friggin spokes have gotten too expensive- I recall paying 10 and 15 cents a spoke- now they want a dollar a spoke- or more!- so it's just as cheap- even cheaper- to buy wheels already built up- even with the high cost of shipping-

I've wondered a bit why that is. You'd more than likely be paying about $48 to buy the entire set of spokes for your bike, with 48 spokes, and I guess the manufacturers are not paying as much for the spokes.

anyway, when you're building it up and truing, you need to gently tension the spokes by pushing lightly sideways on the rim- all the way around, three or four times on each side-

that's when you hear that sound described in the post above- that's the sound the spokes make setting themselves in the nipples and the rim- otherwise they can hold tension that pops out later-, changing the adfjustment-

and you usually have to retrue a time or two after riding it- I usually tighten, until they feel tight and the nipples get harder to turn- and only 1/4 turn at a time near the finishing- and when they are tight then you may have to slightly back some off to get the side to side true-

but the rim tends to round itself under tension- that is if you've started all the spokes even- I generally guage that with the spoke thread showing relative to the nipple- get each nipple end at the end of the spoke thread, or the same length at least-

and then methodically tighten each the same until they start getting tighter and don't flex much- then it's time to start visually checking the rim on the jig or the bike, and tighten them discriminately as regards to true and round-in smaller increments as you get closer to finishing.

i've built up a few lately the past couple years in this fashion and just using the fork and brakes for the final true- but it is nice to have a wheel jig. A Park stand was $50 back when- more now I guess.
 
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