wheel building

camlifter

camlifter

Active Member
built my first wheel yesterday. it was a mind numbing experience. after a few tries i got it right. first i went on line and watched all the u tube vids and then hit up the spoke calculator sites, most of those sites give you the wrong spoke length. lucky i had a garage full of wheels i could rob spokes from. all in all i learned a new skill and now have a cool wheel. everyone into bikes should take the time to learn to lace a wheel, once you learn, it's one of those jobs that give you a real sence of accomplishment.
 
good for you !!!
I tried to true a 10 speed wheel once , and tacoed it so bad, I swore 'never again!!!'
 
I just "jumped in" & tried it!
So far I laced 4 wheels, & all of them came out pretty darn straight!
It's really not that hard if you just slow down & think about what you are doing.
Doing it yourself will also save you lots of $$$$!
 
I've not tried a full lace job but I do all my own trueing. I've gotten pretty good at it and even improved the roundness or a brand new wheel on a Schwinn Jaguar. It came with lumps and I was able to get it better than the way the factory shipped it out. It is a time consuming task but the satisfaction when you're done is well worth it. I use an old fork for front wheels and a home made stand for the rears.
Tom
 
heres some pics of the wheel and the bike its going on, it's my 4 stroke project.
 

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yeah its a dyno hub, 3 watt. i have a small power wheels battery from a kids toy i'm going to use to power the lights and the hub to keep it charged.
nice wheels venice.
don't know if you can tell from the pic, but the rim is dechromed polished and finshed with gun blue, then clear coated, going to do the frame that way too.
 
Ok any tips on measuring for the right length spokes. Haven't thought all this out yet. I want heavy gauge spokes. Will probably have to change the rim to accommodate. Really cool thanks for sharing!!
 
goat herder said:
Ok any tips on measuring for the right length spokes. Haven't thought all this out yet. I want heavy gauge spokes. Will probably have to change the rim to accommodate. Really cool thanks for sharing!!
Click to expand...

i went to the spoke calculators on line, put in the numbers and they all said i needed 9.1 inch spokes. but i knew that was wrong because i had already tried using 9.75 inch and they were to short. so i tried the stock 10.5 spokes that came off the bike and they were to long. i ended up using 10.25 inch. it was a trial and error thing since i couldn't get good info from the spoke calculators. on the plus side i had to relace the wheel so many times i learned how to do it.

the tank is a fiberglass tank were making, will have some for sale in a few weeks.
 
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