I’m building my third set of wheels (previous two were over a year ago) and everything went pretty sweetly.
Then as my final step I did stress relieving by placing the axle on the ground and pushing down on the rim as I was told to do by a very experienced wheel builder. Non drive side worked fine (it’s an offset rear) but when I started the drive side the wheel kind of taco-ed a bit and popped back.
The rim is pinned at the seam (I think? At any rate, it’s certainly not welded), and there is a slight ripple in the sticker over the seam suggesting that it came apart a little. There is also a very slight ridge on one side of the braking surface (more evidence that’s where it came apart). Of course, now the wheel has an even wave throughout in (to the right at the seam and valve hole, to the left at the halfway points).
Does this mean I should loosen everything and start again? Or should I just true it up again? The seam ridge now is no worse than plenty of factory fresh rims but is the fact that it has shifted enough of a worry to start over?
Also, is this method of stress relieving common? I think I’d rather use a different method (Sheldon’s crank-arm) in future.
If the bend is significant (>5mm) I’d try and bend it back a bit. If it’s less than that, I’d just true it up. Don’t worry about the rim coming apart at the joint since it has hundreds of pounds of force pulling it in. I’d say it’ll probably go away after after a tensioning touch-up and a bit of use.
Don’t do this. I don’t even like Sheldon’s method. If you’ve built hundreds of wheels and you want to get things stress-relieved quickly and have the experience not to fuck up a wheel then either of these methods might be useful. For the occasional wheel builder (i.e. me) I’d suggest a pair of leather gloves and squeezing the spokes. The downside to not stress-relieving enough is having to re-true and re-tension after riding a few times which is something I generally do anyway.
I don’t think so. They just slide on each other at the crossing point.
I do the axle on ground, push on rim stress relieving thing. Never gave me any problems (although I’ve built about 10 wheels only). I don’t know what happened to your wheel, wotan.
Squeeze nearly parallel pairs on the same side of the wheel, then do the next pair on the other side. Repeat!
If the spokes are pinging you wound them up. Stop winding up your spokes. [/quote]
This. And also if your spokes are pinging, sometimes they’ve been wound up, sometimes not. It could be that they’re not bent into the final shape yet. There’s a few other areas where stresses can accumulate. In any case, it’s not a big deal. Stress relieve the best you can and then ride the goddamn things. If they ping while you’re riding 'em, then put 'em back on the truing stand.
If you’re building a wheel for someone else and you never expect to see it again then stress relieve the hell out of it. If you’re building it for yourself, stress relieve as best you can and then re-true and re-tension a time or two. I can’t believe all the stupid shit people do to their wheels to stress-relieve them.
Also read Jobst Brandt’s book if only for the explanation of how spokes in tension transmit compressive forces. It’s the most easily understood explanation I’ve ever read.
what i also do to finish a wheel is take a small brass hammer and tap the elbow of the spoke to give a good bend/proper seat and has resulted in less need/ longer time between retensioniing if at all
^
I do the same but with a plastic faced hammer. Helps to bed the spokes into the flanges. I use the end of the wooden handle to press the inner spokes.
I do it at the when the wheel is tight but not at full tension?
Does anybody bend the spokes up near the nipple to improve the spoke line? I give a good squeeze on crossed spokes while the wheel is still loose, but never tried actually bending them.
Pressure with the thumb near the hub on outside spokes on certain builds(wider high flange hubs to deeper rims more likely to need this). I keep the hammer away from a wheel unless to use with a punch on the spoke heads, but that would only be if a customer was really stuck on the idea of having it done. Definite good advice above about building wheels for other people, even when you tell them to come back for free in a few hundred miles…they don’t.
When lightly tensioned, doing it earlier just means less relieving/retruing down the road because your stress relieving would actually be putting load on the whole spoke(or whatever) instead of just straightening that joint out. All this is doing is just possibly saving you some time down the road. The same thing would happen automatically by riding the wheel(radical rarely mentioned method of stress relieving) or whichever wrench/glove/robot/hammer you want to use
Once I get all the spokes threaded and while they’re still loose or just lightly tensioned, I bend them in. At that point, it’s pretty easy to see the arc of the spoke and how much it will need to be bent to have a direct path from the hub flange to the spoke hole.
