Vintage tracker Frankenbike tribute build

[Nabeaquam]

The hub is now fully spoked but it’s not centered after all the spokes are in and tightened. It might be able to be dished or else I’ll need different length spokes. Remember, I used 4 spoke length calculators and there was a range of almost 4 mm amongst them. No agreement among them. I took the middle ground, perhaps that was a mistake.

 

[Ren Rawbor]

Looks like Sapim win the wooden spoon in that contest! Scary as I was considering theirs as "most likely to be reliable"

Also, I should be in bed over an hour ago but just binged through this thread & thoroughly enjoyed every bit so far especially the frame fence & the forge exploits. Hope you're properly on the mend now & the lungs are behaving?

 

[Nabeaquam]

Looks like Sapim win the wooden spoon in that contest! Scary as I was considering theirs as "most likely to be reliable"

Also, I should be in bed over an hour ago but just binged through this thread & thoroughly enjoyed every bit so far especially the frame fence & the forge exploits. Hope you're properly on the mend now & the lungs are behaving?

I used 3 spoke length calculators for the front wheel. Two of them gave me 270+- mm, close to 270. The third calculator gave me 258. I’ve had this happen quite a few times in the past so it was obvious 258mm was wrong. Two seventy was perfect. I always try to use at least three calculators. I’ve never built a wheel before that had such a big difference in hub flange diameter and a mm off might make for a problem? The Sipam used a different way to find hub center and I liked it. Perhaps it was the most accurate?

 

[singlemalt]

Absolutely love this thread and your ingenuity, hope you are well on the way to feeling better. Please keep the photos and posts coming.

 

[Nabeaquam]

I’m going to use spokes that are 5 mm shorter for the drive side to see if I can pull the hub into center. It’s off by almost 3cm. I think the Sipam calculation might have been better? This might be too short but I want to see what this does to the longer spoke

 

[Nabeaquam]

I used spokes 3 mm shorter on the small hub flange side ( drive side of the hub ) to see if I could pull the hub over so it would center in the rim and they were too short and wouldn’t fit. I’m getting spokes that are one mm longer for the non drive side to see if this pushes the hub over far enough to center it in the rim. So, what I’ll end out trying is what Sapim gave me, 270 and 276. Giant pain. I have nipple washers and perhaps I can also use those to jury rig it. So it’s half built again while I wait for the longer spokes to get here.

 

[27motorhead]

Getting there slowly!!!

 

[Nabeaquam]

I got the spokes figured out.

 

[27motorhead]

I got the spokes figured out. View attachment 826480

WOO-HOO!!!

 

[Nabeaquam]

WOO-HOO!!!

276x267.5 mm. I used 267+ wheel nipple washers. A slightly different combo of sizes on each side may work without washers, but I’m tired of playing musical spokes. Five spoke calculators didn’t agree so I’ve been guessing spoke lengths for each side. It looks like the drive side originally used a thicker gauge spoke? I’m going to try using spoke hub washers on the drive side. Almost all sorted, I hope.