Reviewed in the united states on september 3, 2011. Since you have derailleur gears the wheel will almost certainly be dished its possible to build a frame such that this isnt necessary, but that requires other compromises, so if its a mass produced frame with derailleur gears its got a dished rear wheel. Calvin and ben had a live discussion and demonstration of the theories and applications of wheel dishing on facebook live. Because ice designs their rear dropouts to eliminate dishing the wheel, i set osb to the dishing distance to eliminate dishing in the spoke length calculation. The second form of wheel maintenance is nipple lubrication. Another method is to flip the wheel in a truing stand. Complete guides to building the best wheels youll ever ride.
I built a dishing gauge from scrap wood, works good enough. The process of fitting spokes when building a bicycle wheel is known as lacing, presumably because theyre passed through holes and then tightened, like shoelaces. Students learn how to take hubs, rims, spokes and nipples and assemble them into a finished wheel by lacing up the components and then tensioning the wheel to achieve proper tension, trueness and dish. All the spokes on the same side of the wheel should have the same tension. These, as well as truing stands, books and other wheelbuilding tools, are available. The rim should be centered to the hub so that it sits adequately centered in the bike.
There is an art to building a reliable wheel, and while most. Jobst brandt, author of the excellent book the bicycle wheel. You could use a frame, but a jig will make it easier. There are several key elements which make a big difference in overcoming potential building problems, especially in dishing. This is the thread for anyone wanting info on wheel building, for anyone who builds wheels and for all guys who may want to learn this art. Assuming that this explanation will be readily understood, and that it will be deemed by all satisfactory reason for dishing wheels, i will give brief consideration to the amount of dish. Sheldon brown has a good succinct guide to wheel building. To true a wheel you simply tighten the spokes that need to be tighter to pull the wheel straight and maybe slightly loosen ones on the other side. As long as someone with a dish tool can show a wheel is a bit uncentered, the most accurate tool will be the goto. The wheelwright must ensure that the wheel is true in two ways. For basic bikes, repairs, hub brakes, stand centering is adequate. Building wheels from scratch is the best way to learn the craft of wheel truing, to get the feel for how a wheel responds to spoke adjustments.
I bought a copy of jobst brandts the bicycle wheel when it was first published in 81 and got roger mussons professional guide to wheel building e book a couple of years ago. The first thing you need to know is whether youre building a 24, 28, 32, or 36 hole wheel, the process is the same. Wheel building is an art i havent learned yet, but would like to. Dishing rear wheels is a pita but can be reduced to a minor irritation if approached in the right fashion. Spoke length calculation for offset rims and frames.
Changing dish, on the bike, to match frame or fork alignment is a bandaid imo. Jan 11, 2011 i have a bunch of old hubs and rims, wanted to try my hand at building a wheel. May, 2016 arguably the most specialized area of bike repair is wheel building. The first wheel building course for 2020 is on february the 8th, followed by may the 9th and december the 12th. So heres the quick and dirty on building or rebuilding an mtb wheel.
There isnt one, as far as i could see, so lets start a wheel building thread. I know the basics of lacing the wheel, and getting it true, but its the tensioning and dishing that i dont know much. Can you folks recommend a good dishing gauge for a newbie. When the wheel is laid flat on the ground, the lowermost 18 spokes form the shape of a dish and the uppermost form the shape of an upturned dish. The dish of a wheel is a measure of how far the rim is. Also get the screwdrivery thing with the tip on the blade. The most accurate method to check centering over a hub is with a dishing tool, such as the park tool wag4 or wag5. Im not going to attempt to explain how a wheel is builtthere are books for thatbut the whole. Master wheelbuilding is a complete tutorial on how to build wheels.
This makes a huge difference to the long term stability of a wheel says the book. I have a bunch of old hubs and rims, wanted to try my hand at building a wheel. You need to know about spoke types, spoke lengths, hubs, rims, rim sizes, lacing, truing, dishing, and a variety of. Of the three wheel building books i own, this is my favorite and most used. Theres a certain mystique surrounding the art of building a bicycle wheel.
One of the results of my crash was a pringled wheel and the only real way to fix it was to replace the rim. Personally, having both been on a wheel building course at the lbs and built 15 odd pairs of wheels id say some of sheldon browns wheel building advice is a little dubious. When the wheel deviates radially less than 116 inch and side to side less than 14 inch, youre ready for fine truing. Hst includes a copy of the wbi wheel building course book, all the materialsfor students to build up their own set of wheels. My most recent challenge was building a prewar high low hub on a.
The artisan who takes pleasure in building beautiful, precise wheels will probably never become rich, but his life will he enriched. For front wheels, disregard that which does not apply. I am bad at book learning, and need handson experience to. The quick start guide describes the essentials for building and provides an index into the book with links to the sections that require reading. The dishing on the front wheel is symmetrical because all the spokes are the same length. Fine truing tightening and gross truing is a wheel building activity. Get the latest edition 7 of the wheelbuilding book, and get a full new book free of. If im successful ill try building one up for the ss. Home practical carriage building the dishing of wheels part 2 what i have termed effective horizontal strain depends on the adhesion of the wheel to the road acting in opposition to such strain. Successful students will receive a wbi professional wheel building certificate. So heres the quick and dirty on building or re building an mtb wheel.
The rim will run the same distance from an indicator, which ever way it faces if it is centered. Wheelbuilding is the process of assembling wire wheels generally a bicycle wheel, but including wheelchairs, and some cars. If a rim appears to be centered in the front forks or the rear triangle, it is usually considered adequately centered. Wheel building i am discovering is a very fluid thing and rhythmic but of course there is the technical element to it, which this book covers brilliantly. The stands support top building, just not the centering. Great book with good explanations of the forces that make the bicycle wheel such a marvel of engineering. The bicycle wheel by jobst brandt is by several lengths the best book on the subject ever written, and not likely to be superseded in this life, given that the reader pays attention and doesnt mind stretching his mind a little, because jobst takes no prisoners. To build a bicycle wheel with traditional spokes and nipples, you need a regular spoke wrench i use this park tool black size. Dishing refers to the fact that the spokes on a bicycle wheel never run vertically between the rim and the hub. Oct 05, 2017 for this kind of wheel, nominal accuracy is fine, nominal being 116 of an inch each for runout deviation. Slowly spin the wheel a few times looking at the vertical highspot and horizontal highspot and mark the high vertical spot with tape. A typical dishing tool is simply a gauge that allows you to set the distance from the rim to the hub axel, and then compare those distances on the driveside and nondrive side of the wheel. I find it easier to dish the wheel as im building the initial spoke.
Overview of the 23 chapters in master wheel building i sample chapter. A dishing tool provides proper dish for the wheel new or used. The high amount of dishing withr more and more sprockets has caused an increase in spoke breakage on the left side of rear wheels. Bicycles need wheels, roads and asphalt made of oil, not natural gas, not wind energy to roll on, for the most part. In this vid mike shows how to use a dishing wheel to make sure your bicycle wheel is properly dished. There are a number of ways to do this but a dishing tool wheel centering is known as dish is the overwhelming choice. When the wagon or cart is upon a level road, as shown by fig. The situation is, weve both been lured into wheelbuilding. Radial front wheels offer mainly esthetic benefits, but halfradial rear wheels can be substantially more durable than conventional ones, if the wheel is highly dished. Jan 22, 2010 one of the results of my crash was a pringled wheel and the only real way to fix it was to replace the rim. These nipples are tightened or loosened, which is how the wheel is trued. There are manufacturers specifications and lists of rim and hub dimensions online including damon rinards list on this site, but, only after you have mostly laced up a wheel will you discover whether spoke length is correct. Keep in mind the truing process is a combination of adjustments that are opposite to the desired outcome.
When i tried to build my first wheels, i found no books on wheels, and magazine articles offered. In many climates, the nipples have a tendency to corrode solid even before the wheel. Dishing or centering tool this page contains the download templates for making the dishing tool, a full description of how to make the tool is included in the wheelbuilding book edition 7. The nipples are the little elongated nuts at the rim end of each spoke. The dishing gauge procedures between the two tools are similar in concept. The book is beautifully bound in hardcover with a wonderfully considered, restrained. This is a fantastic book on how to build and repair bicycle wheels. Spokes the wire things with a bent nailhead at one end and threads at the other. Get a good spoke wrench spokey shaped, doesnt have to be the pro version, they grab all four sides of the nipple. Wheelbuilding book for cycle wheels 7th edition wheelpro. In many climates, the nipples have a tendency to corrode solid even before the wheel needs to be trued the first time. I have built wheels over the years by using you tube and the wheel building book. The quick start guide describes the essentials for building and provides an. Truing stand, dishing gauge, nipple driver, nipple holder, blade spoke holder, tension meter.
As the spokes cross over each other, it could just as easily be called weaving. The greater the dish or asymmetry, the weaker the wheel and. This article focuses on building a rear wheel, because that is the more complicated one. Dishing definition, an open, relatively shallow container of pottery, glass, metal, wood, etc. A back wheel is slightly more complicated because you have different length spokes on each side. Purchase both master wheel building i and ii for only 49. Anyway, was wondering if there is a good book out there with instructions on how to do this. Feb 16, 2020 i have been building wheels in bicycle shops since 1975. Dishing the rim 82 spoke alignment stress relieving 85. It is much easier to learn this with new, undamaged parts than to start right in trying to repair damaged wheels. I used it to teach myself to build, rebuild and repair a few sets in our ancient family fleet of town, road and mountain bikes. The parameters in the database assume the wheel will be dished.
Read its strength, weaknesses, find deals and pricing. I also downloaded a tension app for my iphone that i. Like the park tool facebook page to be notified for the next live tech. Retail stores in portland, oregon and lancaster, pennsylvania. Bicycle bike repair building wheels wheelbuilding truing lacing. This book is equally at home in your tool shed reference library, or in your house library. Those wheels are still perfectly true and in service. Students are welcome to return and pay a small fee to use our wheel building equipment after the initial course, or for refresher sessions when the main wheel building course is not running.
Reproduction of any part of this book is prohibited without the written permission of the publisher. Generally, spokes should be as tight as the wheel allows. Note, the photo above is an early prototype, the one described in the book is the latest version. For this kind of wheel, nominal accuracy is fine, nominal being 116 of an inch each for runout deviation. If you want to learn to build wheels, this book can teach you. For anyone intending building lacingup a wheel of their own, this book is an essential item to have in your library. Remember these are just a newbies notes on wheel building. Wheel building and trueing skills by learning custom handbuilt wheel skills, you can build your own wheels with the various combination of rims, hubs, spokes, and nipples. Click here to see the math behind wheel dishing with a complete diagram.
I bought the art of wheelbuilding on a whim to complete my wheel building library. The upper wheel is subjected in a less amount of horizontal strain, which compensates in a great measure for its defective construction for resisting strains. Its a skill all bike tourists should probably should learn, but few of us do. A tutorial on how to choose parts for, build and true a spoked bicycle wheel. If you plan to build a wheel, its worth looking up a more detailed account and if you have tips to share, please do. Bicycle bike repair building wheels wheelbuilding truing. Nov 23, 2016 calvin and ben had a live discussion and demonstration of the theories and applications of wheel dishing on facebook live. The professional guide to wheel building by roger musson. And if this book inspires some of its readers to learn the wheel building trade or even simply to put in a little more practice, then the work i have put into its pages has been rewarded. Master wheel building i includes nearly two hours of comprehensive, expert instruction, troubleshooting, and maintenance tips designed to give riders the knowhow and confidence to build and repair the two most important components on their bicycle. I used ts2s for many decades, always disabling one of the calipers left, for me. Instead, we take our bikes to the shop when the wheels wear out and watch the mechanics spin rims and twist spokes.
Jobst brandt, author of the excellent book the bicycle wheel, points out a. The book is beautifully bound in hardcover with a wonderfully considered, restrained and crafted cover graphic. Many years ago, i built several wheels on my own, with no classes or any training, by following sheldon browns wheel building guide and using jobst brandts book, the bicycle wheel, as a technical resource. I have been building wheels in bicycle shops since 1975. This adhesion is determined by the weight thrown upon the wheel, by the weight of the wheel itself, and by the nature of the road. Sometimes the rim is bent or sprung and this results in uneven tension when the wheel is true, but, within limits, its more important to have a true wheel than to have all the spokes. All i bought for tools is the black parktools spoke key and an ebook about wheel building. We offer a variety of hub rim combinations, typically a shimano or formula hub on an alex rim. Wheel what you get when you put all of these things together. I havent tried building a wheel yet but the process seems less intimidating after reading this book. Spokes and nipples should be considered fasteners, like any nut and bolt. For detailed procedures see wheel dishing centering.
To find the correct spoke length when building a wheel, you need dimensions of the rim and hub. Arguably the most specialized area of bike repair is wheel building. Changing dish, on the bike, to match frame or fork alignment is a. I recommend thicker spokes for the right side of a dished rear wheel a wheel used.