Home wheel builds, worth it not not?
Discussion
Agree with both of the above to a certain point. Except the technical ability bit. It really is a very methodical process, and there are good instructions online (sheldon brown). I'd also add:
E) You want something very specific (for whatever reason)
As to Kermit - if you're happy, great. I don't really see how building your own and getting a machine shop to make 'dropouts' is less time and effort than spending 10 quid more on buying a stand / 5 minutes jury rigging something with gaffa tape, but each to their own. Really. Just trying to make the point that you can come up with a way of doing it if you want to, you don't have to spend a lot of money, and there doesn't always have to be an exact, specific, specially invented tool. Make it up as you go along
E) You want something very specific (for whatever reason)
As to Kermit - if you're happy, great. I don't really see how building your own and getting a machine shop to make 'dropouts' is less time and effort than spending 10 quid more on buying a stand / 5 minutes jury rigging something with gaffa tape, but each to their own. Really. Just trying to make the point that you can come up with a way of doing it if you want to, you don't have to spend a lot of money, and there doesn't always have to be an exact, specific, specially invented tool. Make it up as you go along
Edited by upsidedownmark on Monday 24th October 09:54
I'll be getting back into building my own wheels soon after a near 20 year hiatus. Had been planning to use the old upturned forks again, but that jig for £40 seems great value and I can see myself sitting on the sofa with it while the missus watches crap TV but insisting I waste/spend the evening with her.
When you can get a wheel building kit for this £60 from Rose bikes it's got to be a no brainer.
https://www.rosebikes.co.uk/article/rose-wheel-tru...
That's what I bought a couple of years ago to build my first wheels which I've now done over 4000 miles on. It's definitely a skill worth having
https://www.rosebikes.co.uk/article/rose-wheel-tru...
That's what I bought a couple of years ago to build my first wheels which I've now done over 4000 miles on. It's definitely a skill worth having
gazza285 said:
Kermit power said:
And by the time I've done all that, I've spent more time and effort getting ready to true a single set of wheels than I did spending under £30 to build myself a stand which I will be able to use time and time again.
I can fully understand why anyone wouldn't want to spend silly money on buying a stand made by someone else, but I'm totally perplexed by the Luddite attitude of refusing to build one yourself when it costs at most £30, and quite possibly nothing if you've already got the bits lying around.
I built one for free out of an old frame and forks and you shot me down for it...I can fully understand why anyone wouldn't want to spend silly money on buying a stand made by someone else, but I'm totally perplexed by the Luddite attitude of refusing to build one yourself when it costs at most £30, and quite possibly nothing if you've already got the bits lying around.
upsidedownmark said:
Agree with both of the above to a certain point. Except the technical ability bit. It really is a very methodical process, and there are good instructions online (sheldon brown). I'd also add:
E) You want something very specific (for whatever reason)
As to Kermit - if you're happy, great. I don't really see how building your own and getting a machine shop to make 'dropouts' is less time and effort than spending 10 quid more on buying a stand / 5 minutes jury rigging something with gaffa tape, but each to their own. Really. Just trying to make the point that you can come up with a way of doing it if you want to, you don't have to spend a lot of money, and there doesn't always have to be an exact, specific, specially invented tool. Make it up as you go along
Part of it was the satisfaction of building it myself, and having something which will do everything the £150+ Park ones do for a fraction of the price. E) You want something very specific (for whatever reason)
As to Kermit - if you're happy, great. I don't really see how building your own and getting a machine shop to make 'dropouts' is less time and effort than spending 10 quid more on buying a stand / 5 minutes jury rigging something with gaffa tape, but each to their own. Really. Just trying to make the point that you can come up with a way of doing it if you want to, you don't have to spend a lot of money, and there doesn't always have to be an exact, specific, specially invented tool. Make it up as you go along
The other part was that the cheaper ones I looked at were fine if you were just building wheels to road bike widths with QR skewers, but didn't adjust to take wider MTB hubs and bolt thru axles.
I could've made the drop-outs myself, I suppose, but it only took 10 minutes to get a machine shop to do them whilst I went round the supermarket next door doing a bit of shopping...
There are some kits available too. I got this from Rosebikes which had everything I needed to get me started:
https://www.rosebikes.co.uk/article/rose-wheel-tru...
The quality of the stand itself is 'fully acceptable' although if I used it a lot, I'd want something more sturdy. I'm building my 8th and 9th wheels on it this week though and it's going strong!
I'd fully recommend buying and downloading the Roger Musson book. It's step by step, thorough and amazing. It also has plans to build your own stand from Wood if you wanted to.
http://www.wheelpro.co.uk/wheelbuilding/book.php
https://www.rosebikes.co.uk/article/rose-wheel-tru...
The quality of the stand itself is 'fully acceptable' although if I used it a lot, I'd want something more sturdy. I'm building my 8th and 9th wheels on it this week though and it's going strong!
I'd fully recommend buying and downloading the Roger Musson book. It's step by step, thorough and amazing. It also has plans to build your own stand from Wood if you wanted to.
http://www.wheelpro.co.uk/wheelbuilding/book.php
timnoyce said:
I'd fully recommend buying and downloading the Roger Musson book. It's step by step, thorough and amazing. It also has plans to build your own stand from Wood if you wanted to.
http://www.wheelpro.co.uk/wheelbuilding/book.php
That's exactly the one I went for, including building the stand.http://www.wheelpro.co.uk/wheelbuilding/book.php
vxsmithers said:
For those that build your own wheels, where do you buy your components from? Looking at wiggle etc I see a massive lack of choice, especially regarding spokes / rims.
Am I looking in the wrong places? (Road wheels rather than MTB)
Both times I've built wheels, I ended up buying Alpina spokes from some little LBS in Wales who also happen to sell spokes online, and I've bought my rims (Pacenti TL28 both times) from On-One.Am I looking in the wrong places? (Road wheels rather than MTB)
Recently I've used Rosebikes, Bike24 and this last lot were from Starbike. I tend to use DT Swiss Rims and Spokes as I've had some failures with the ACI Alpina spokes as mentioned before. The german shops aren't as good value as they were a year or so ago, but still tend to work out cheaper than buying the equivalent bits in the UK.
Always worth keeping a look out at the UK Sites though and checking in the sales as you can sometimes pick up some real bargains.
Always worth keeping a look out at the UK Sites though and checking in the sales as you can sometimes pick up some real bargains.
Ok Gents, I've been plugging numbers in to prowheelbuilder and come up with some values. The rim is a Hope tech Enduro 26" and the hub is a SP PD8 (dynamo) both are 32 hole.
Spoke length comes out at 247.3mm for non drive side and 247.9mm for drive side. Does anyone have any recomendations for spokes and which length to go for? I have been looking at DT swiss PG's in 248mm with 12mm nipples as the closest to the length given.
Spoke length comes out at 247.3mm for non drive side and 247.9mm for drive side. Does anyone have any recomendations for spokes and which length to go for? I have been looking at DT swiss PG's in 248mm with 12mm nipples as the closest to the length given.
Any idea why you went for 32 Spoke 2 cross? I'd suggest that a 3 cross is more conventional, and probably preferable.
I've just done it in the DT Swiss Calculator and it comes out slightly differently, for 2 cross it recommends 247 left and 246 right. Although I'd suggest going with 3X which comes out at 258.6 Left and 257.4 Right. In both cases you can just round to the nearest whole even number and use the same spoke for both I'd suggest.
I've just done it in the DT Swiss Calculator and it comes out slightly differently, for 2 cross it recommends 247 left and 246 right. Although I'd suggest going with 3X which comes out at 258.6 Left and 257.4 Right. In both cases you can just round to the nearest whole even number and use the same spoke for both I'd suggest.
timnoyce said:
Any idea why you went for 32 Spoke 2 cross? I'd suggest that a 3 cross is more conventional, and probably preferable.
I've just done it in the DT Swiss Calculator and it comes out slightly differently, for 2 cross it recommends 247 left and 246 right. Although I'd suggest going with 3X which comes out at 258.6 Left and 257.4 Right. In both cases you can just round to the nearest whole even number and use the same spoke for both I'd suggest.
Good point. I didn't look at that, but both sets I've built have been 3 cross as well.I've just done it in the DT Swiss Calculator and it comes out slightly differently, for 2 cross it recommends 247 left and 246 right. Although I'd suggest going with 3X which comes out at 258.6 Left and 257.4 Right. In both cases you can just round to the nearest whole even number and use the same spoke for both I'd suggest.
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