Lacing your own wheels ...

[Lid]

Re:

I took a class. It was over a weekend at "Surgar" in Portland.
That's the Prof in the pic. There were only six in the class so you got as much or a little attention as you needed. My retro rims needed a fine tune at the end by the pro to get them just right. Everyone else had a much easier time with their newer hoops. (I refuse to believe that it was my fault of course)

 

[Rob H]

Re:

Just echoing what the others have said; go for it, building wheels is one of my favourite jobs, just remember to align the valve hole with a gap.

 

[Follower]

Yes Syncros right. Even if the spoke length is right, the results for the first time might be not as good as you expect them to be.
But if you are really up to it, to start wheelbuilding I mean - do it really slowly and steady.

To Wadsy - that only will work if you are changing the rim. T-Rod needs to replace the hub - will not work here. Otherwise it is a great fint. I thought I invented it myself and was very proud untill today I read your reply

To check the tension and for the fine tuning you may always ask somebody for cheap afterwords. What is more important and challenging is to avoid vertical beating, ergo to make vertical truing right from the begining. Otherwise you will need to start again horisontal truing, and then dishing, and then tension again.

Other then that - it's fun, if you enjoy doing repetitive manual labour for few hours. As I said, not 100% satisfaction guarantee at the end.

 

[k-rod]

Gee - and I was expecting to end up with perfectly round/true perfection ... even after my very first try!!

Hmm

 

[randomdan]

Nothing beats that feeling of rolling your own wheels, and then rolling on them..

I like this dude's video tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYl4NO5m16Q

 

[Woz]

Re: Re:

Just echoing what the others have said; go for it, building wheels is one of my favourite jobs, just remember to align the valve hole with a gap.

...and hub so when you look down the valve hole you see the DX logo. Just saying

 

[captaincosmic]

Re:

I Think I read somewhere that hub pitting can be eased by degreasing and then using toothpaste as grease substitute for a ride then back to grease again as the toothpaste will reseat the surface.
I haven't tried this but it sounds plausible

 

[Gaddmeister]

Re:

Built a set of wheels bitd on hope hubs cause I fancied a go and lasted years without ever going out of true! Built some for my mate who was a 20 stone giant and his lasted forever. Go for it, the worst thing that could happen is that you have to get a shop to do it? :-D

 

[k-rod]

Re: Re:

I Think I read somewhere that hub pitting can be eased by degreasing and then using toothpaste as grease substitute for a ride then back to grease again as the toothpaste will reseat the surface.
I haven't tried this but it sounds plausible

Apparently there is an industrial compound that works the same way, as my local bike-shop owner explained. However, the back hub spins quite 'crunchily', so rather than dicking aorund with trying to re-surface an inner race surface, when the NOS DX hubs came available (for a fairly reasonable price) ... I figured "forget mucking around with the worn out Xt hubs just cause they're 'XT', go for brand new ... and have a go at building them myself" ...

So, in a matter of a few days, I'll be gingerly de-constructing the XT-hubbed wheels and transferring the spokes, rims and nipples onto the new DX hubs (the DX hubs have the exact same physical dimensions as the XT ones).

I'm almost looking forward to it, as I can intuit the deep sense of reward and satisfaction that constructing one's own wheels must offer ... and it'd be great to be able to say "Yup - I built it all by myself!" ...

 

[mattr]

Re: Re:

I Think I read somewhere that hub pitting can be eased by degreasing and then using toothpaste as grease substitute for a ride then back to grease again as the toothpaste will reseat the surface.
I haven't tried this but it sounds plausible

it's a common trick in scalextric, a blob of tooth paste and 5 minutes running to match the gears to each other.

Lapping compound is the stuff you'd use in an engineering setting.