Biluding A Wheel Hard Or Easy?

[adam978]

Hi i have just broken my back wheel and im just wont to no if you think its a good idea to bilud a new one or better to just buy one all ready made?!?!?!

[Grant H]

Its not hard to build a wheel, just find a good tutorial..

Obviously it won't be amazing but once you get the hang of it they won't be too bad, it also saves money..

i wouldn't bother getting a whole new wheel, if you didn't want to build your own.

Just get your local bike shop to build a new rim with new spokes onto your existing hub, they'll probably charge about 25 quid for the wheel build and spokes.

[Alex@Flawless Bikes]

It easy once you know what your doing, i have just built me a new rear wheel and it is working great, dead straight as well . Just make sure you have the right length spokes and you will be fine!

[ilikeriding]

what happend to your wheel?, may be fixable

[Trixter]

hi,

There are all sorts of fancy spoke patterns out there, but there's no very good reason to use anything but regular three-cross spoking so that's what we're doing here.

what you need

You'll need a rim, a hub and some spokes. What they are is relatively unimportant and can be argued until the cows have not only come home but redecorated. The main thing is to make sure that the rim and hub have the same number of holes in them and that the spokes are good quality and the right lengths. Stick to Sapim or DT double-butted spokes and brass nipples and you won't go far wrong. Length depends on whether you're doing a front or rear wheel and what rim and hub you're using. If you've got a decent LBS they'll know the lengths, otherwise there are loads of spoke length calculators on the web - Google for "spoke length calculator". If you happen to be lacing a Mavic 618 rim to a Shimano XT disc hub you want 260mm on the disc side and 262 on the other side...

Before you start make sure the spokes are all sorted out into lengths, and put a bit of light oil on the threads. Chain lube will do.

Lacing a wheel hinges on getting the first steps right. Everything else follows from here. Take a comfy seat with a cup of tea readily to hand, and place the rim on your lap with the spoke hole opposite you. You'll notice that the spoke holes are staggered up and down - position the rim so that the hole to the right of the valve hole is lower than the one to the left. Hold the hub in the middle of the rim with its right-hand end down.

Time to start putting spokes in. The first set are the "inbound" spokes. These will end up with their heads on the outside of the hub flange. Drop a spoke of the correct length (this is the left side of the wheel) into alternate holes in the hub flange, then feed the threaded end of one of them into the spoke hole to the left of the valve hole and thread a nipple on to it. Just do it up three or four turns for now.

Work around the wheel putting the rest of the set of spokes in every fourth hole and threading nipples on to them. Each of these spokes should end up in a hole that's offset up wards. If they don't, you've done something wrong...

Now you need to do the inbound spokes on the opposite side. On rear or disco brake wheels these will be a different length so make sure you're using the right ones. Turn the wheel over so the valve hole is still away from you with one of the first set of spokes in the hole now to its right. Drop spokes into alternate holes on the new upper flange, but make sure they're the right alternate holes - the flanges are offset so the holes on the left aren't directly opposite the ones on the right. You're looking for the holes to the right of the ones occupied by spokes - just push a spoke through parallel to the hub to figure it out.

Take the spoke that's in the hole to the right of the very first spoke you put in and put the threaded end through the next hole to the right in the rim. This should be a hole away from the valve hole. Go around the wheel putting each of the second lot of spokes into the holes to the right of the ones occupied by the first spokes and put nipples on them.

So far so good. Now move on to the outbound spokes. If the spokes are quite a snug fit in the flanges, drop them all through the lower flange before turning the wheel over (remembering that these are left-hand spokes out of the other pile again...). Then turn the wheel over and flatten the spokes out. If they're a bit of a loose fit they'll all fall out when you turn the wheel over unless you grab a handful of them. One way or another, you're looking for spokes with the heads in on the left-hand flange which should be up wards.

So far all the spokes have been lying radially. But in the finished article they're tangential to the hub flanges. This is where that happens. Hold the rim and twist the hub anticlockwise. The first spoke you put in (to the left of the valve hole) should be pulling away from the valve hole. Make sure that all the spoke nipples drop into the holes in the rim properly.

Now thread the crossing spokes, which are the ones currently not attached to the rim. We're doing a three-cross wheel, so each of these spokes needs to cross over three others. Take one and aim it in the opposite direction to the others. The first crossing is over the inbound spoke in the flange hole immediately to its left. The second is over the next inbound spoke round, and the third is under the next inbound spoke again. Then put the threaded end of the spoke through the next empty hole past the last spoke you crossed. There'll be a spoke from the other side of the hub between the last crossed spoke and the one you're threading. Don't worry, it'll make sense when you do it for real... Go around and thread all the spokes in the same way.

Repeat the last two steps for the other side of the wheel. It's easy to identify the relevant rim holes now, as there aren't many left. With everything in place your wheel should look a bit like this, with the valve hole between two roughly-parallel spokes and all the spokes on one side of the hub going into rim holes offset to the same side. If it looks all asymmetrical or some of the spokes wouldn't reach you've done something wrong...

If all is well, grab a screwdriver and use the handle to push the outermost spoke crossings in to wards the hub. This'll make sure that the spoke nipples are all seated and that every thing's even on both sides of the wheel.

In theory, the rim was round and straight before you laced it up, so as long as you keep all the spokes evenly tensioned it should stay round and straight. It won't, but if you pay attention to tensioning it'll be very close. Start by tightening all of the nipples so there's the same amount of thread showing on each.

Finally, start at the valve hole and work around the wheel tightening the spokes a turn at a time. Don't look at the spokes end on - there's a chance they'll break as you tighten them and shoot out of the rim. Put a rim strip on if you've got one handy. You'll need it when you're finished anyway. Keep tightening the spokes until they're as tight as your comparison wheel.

At this point you should have a correctly-laced, evenly-tensioned wheel that's generally fairly round and straight. All that remains is to tweak out those final few wobbles.

Wheel tensioning

Right, down to business. Put your wheel in your chosen stand and move the pointer so it just clears the sidewall of the rim. Spin the wheel and peer intently at the gap betwixt rim and pointer. With any luck you'll be able to see that it's generally straight with a couple of wobbles in it. Spin it back and forth until you've identified the biggest wobble. It doesn't matter if it's wobbling towards or away from the pointer.

You'll notice that the spokes are staggered either side of the centerline of the rim with the spokes coming from the right hub flange being offset to the right and vice versa. To bring the wobble back into line, first check to see if one of the spokes near the wobble is a lot looser than the others. If it is, tighten it until it's somewhere near and check the wobble again.

To move the rim over to the left, tighten the spokes on the left side 1/4 turn and loosen the ones on the right by the same amount. Work on four spokes at a time, two in each direction. Try to keep all the nipples aligned so that the spoke key is either perpendicular or parallel to the rim - it makes it easier to judge how much you're adjusting them. If your wheel has butted spokes, they're likely to twist as you tighten them. To get around this, turn the nipples slightly too far and then back them off to the desired position.

Spin the wheel again and the wobble should have got smaller. If it's still the biggest wobble, repeat the tightening/loosening thing until another wobble becomes bigger. Repeat the procedure, always working on the biggest wobble. In theory if you tighten and loosen spokes by equivalent amounts the wheel should stay round, but chances are that it'll develop a bit of a 'hop' with high and low points around the circumference. So when the lateral trueness is looking good, move the pointer so it's across the rim and check for up-and-downiness.

Correcting hops is a similar theory to correcting wobbles, except that instead of tightening and loosening opposing spokes, you tighten (or loosen) left and right spokes together. If part of the rim bulges outwards, tighten the spokes at the bulge. If part of it drops inwards, loosen them. Start at the highest (or lowest) point and adjust the spokes either side of that point 1/2 turn and the ones outside of those 1/4 turn. Spin the wheel, check and repeat.

Once your roundness is good, go back and check for wobbles again. If they're both good, make sure the wheel's still dished right, that is, that the rim is exactly in the middle of the hub as it ought to be on nearly all bikes (there are some bikes with asymmetric rear ends that need the rim to be aligned differently but these are both rare and a pain in the bum, so we'll ignore them). The easiest way to check this is by simply taking the wheel out of the stand, flipping it over and putting it back in. The rim should be the same distance from the pointer both ways around. If you're lucky enough to have a dishing tool (supplied with some truing stands), then you can use that.

If your wheel is significantly off to one side but straight, simply go all the way around the wheel tightening spokes on the side towards which it needs to move and loosening them by the same amount on the other. Start and finish at the valve hole to ensure you do all of them. Adjust by 1/4 turn at a time unless it's miles out. Keep checking and repeating, then once it's correct go back and check trueness and rounditude.

The last step is to go around the wheel grasping pairs of parallel spokes and squeezing them hard - gloves help. This is vital on a newly-built wheel with new spokes as this does all sorts of clever and useful things that you can't see. On a just-trued wheel it may not do anything if you've managed to avoid spoke twist as you adjust them, but doing this will make any twisted spokes untwist. This'll make the wheel go out of true again, but better now than the first time you ride it. Go back and correct any errors and repeat.

Here's a few handy hints and things worth remembering about wheel truing:

Make small adjustments, and be methodical.

You won't have to make any adjustments smaller than 1/4 turn.

Tighten any very loose spokes first.

Always work on the biggest errors.

If there are any dings or dents in the rim, they're going to make life considerably more difficult, so sort them out before you start. Small inward dings can be gently straightened out with pliers or an adjustable spanner. If you've bashed a rock and splayed the sidewalls outwards, you may be able to squish them back by putting a bit of scrap wood either side and clamping the whole thing up with a G clamp. If you find you've got an untreatable ding, it's new rim time...

Rear wheels (and disc fronts) have different spoke tensions each side. This doesn't usually make much difference when correcting trueness, but getting hops out on an eight or nine speed wheel requires adjusting the right spokes twice as much as the left ones.

If the wheel makes various pings and pops when you first ride it after truing, you got some spokes twisted. Now they've straightened out you'll need to true it again.

Practice on old wheels first

Hope this helps

Trixter

[Grant H]

wonder how long before he's validated

[dozydame]

hi,

There are all sorts of fancy spoke patterns out there, but there's no very good reason to use anything but regular three-cross spoking so that's what we're doing here.

what you need

You'll need a rim, a hub and some spokes. What they are is relatively unimportant and can be argued until the cows have not only come home but redecorated. The main thing is to make sure that the rim and hub have the same number of holes in them and that the spokes are good quality and the right lengths. Stick to Sapim or DT double-butted spokes and brass nipples and you won't go far wrong. Length depends on whether you're doing a front or rear wheel and what rim and hub you're using. If you've got a decent LBS they'll know the lengths, otherwise there are loads of spoke length calculators on the web - Google for "spoke length calculator". If you happen to be lacing a Mavic 618 rim to a Shimano XT disc hub you want 260mm on the disc side and 262 on the other side...

Before you start make sure the spokes are all sorted out into lengths, and put a bit of light oil on the threads. Chain lube will do.

Lacing a wheel hinges on getting the first steps right. Everything else follows from here. Take a comfy seat with a cup of tea readily to hand, and place the rim on your lap with the spoke hole opposite you. You'll notice that the spoke holes are staggered up and down - position the rim so that the hole to the right of the valve hole is lower than the one to the left. Hold the hub in the middle of the rim with its right-hand end down.

Time to start putting spokes in. The first set are the "inbound" spokes. These will end up with their heads on the outside of the hub flange. Drop a spoke of the correct length (this is the left side of the wheel) into alternate holes in the hub flange, then feed the threaded end of one of them into the spoke hole to the left of the valve hole and thread a nipple on to it. Just do it up three or four turns for now.

Work around the wheel putting the rest of the set of spokes in every fourth hole and threading nipples on to them. Each of these spokes should end up in a hole that's offset up wards. If they don't, you've done something wrong...

Now you need to do the inbound spokes on the opposite side. On rear or disco brake wheels these will be a different length so make sure you're using the right ones. Turn the wheel over so the valve hole is still away from you with one of the first set of spokes in the hole now to its right. Drop spokes into alternate holes on the new upper flange, but make sure they're the right alternate holes - the flanges are offset so the holes on the left aren't directly opposite the ones on the right. You're looking for the holes to the right of the ones occupied by spokes - just push a spoke through parallel to the hub to figure it out.

Take the spoke that's in the hole to the right of the very first spoke you put in and put the threaded end through the next hole to the right in the rim. This should be a hole away from the valve hole. Go around the wheel putting each of the second lot of spokes into the holes to the right of the ones occupied by the first spokes and put nipples on them.

So far so good. Now move on to the outbound spokes. If the spokes are quite a snug fit in the flanges, drop them all through the lower flange before turning the wheel over (remembering that these are left-hand spokes out of the other pile again...). Then turn the wheel over and flatten the spokes out. If they're a bit of a loose fit they'll all fall out when you turn the wheel over unless you grab a handful of them. One way or another, you're looking for spokes with the heads in on the left-hand flange which should be up wards.

So far all the spokes have been lying radially. But in the finished article they're tangential to the hub flanges. This is where that happens. Hold the rim and twist the hub anticlockwise. The first spoke you put in (to the left of the valve hole) should be pulling away from the valve hole. Make sure that all the spoke nipples drop into the holes in the rim properly.

Now thread the crossing spokes, which are the ones currently not attached to the rim. We're doing a three-cross wheel, so each of these spokes needs to cross over three others. Take one and aim it in the opposite direction to the others. The first crossing is over the inbound spoke in the flange hole immediately to its left. The second is over the next inbound spoke round, and the third is under the next inbound spoke again. Then put the threaded end of the spoke through the next empty hole past the last spoke you crossed. There'll be a spoke from the other side of the hub between the last crossed spoke and the one you're threading. Don't worry, it'll make sense when you do it for real... Go around and thread all the spokes in the same way.

Repeat the last two steps for the other side of the wheel. It's easy to identify the relevant rim holes now, as there aren't many left. With everything in place your wheel should look a bit like this, with the valve hole between two roughly-parallel spokes and all the spokes on one side of the hub going into rim holes offset to the same side. If it looks all asymmetrical or some of the spokes wouldn't reach you've done something wrong...

If all is well, grab a screwdriver and use the handle to push the outermost spoke crossings in to wards the hub. This'll make sure that the spoke nipples are all seated and that every thing's even on both sides of the wheel.

In theory, the rim was round and straight before you laced it up, so as long as you keep all the spokes evenly tensioned it should stay round and straight. It won't, but if you pay attention to tensioning it'll be very close. Start by tightening all of the nipples so there's the same amount of thread showing on each.

Finally, start at the valve hole and work around the wheel tightening the spokes a turn at a time. Don't look at the spokes end on - there's a chance they'll break as you tighten them and shoot out of the rim. Put a rim strip on if you've got one handy. You'll need it when you're finished anyway. Keep tightening the spokes until they're as tight as your comparison wheel.

At this point you should have a correctly-laced, evenly-tensioned wheel that's generally fairly round and straight. All that remains is to tweak out those final few wobbles.

Wheel tensioning

Right, down to business. Put your wheel in your chosen stand and move the pointer so it just clears the sidewall of the rim. Spin the wheel and peer intently at the gap betwixt rim and pointer. With any luck you'll be able to see that it's generally straight with a couple of wobbles in it. Spin it back and forth until you've identified the biggest wobble. It doesn't matter if it's wobbling towards or away from the pointer.

You'll notice that the spokes are staggered either side of the centerline of the rim with the spokes coming from the right hub flange being offset to the right and vice versa. To bring the wobble back into line, first check to see if one of the spokes near the wobble is a lot looser than the others. If it is, tighten it until it's somewhere near and check the wobble again.

To move the rim over to the left, tighten the spokes on the left side 1/4 turn and loosen the ones on the right by the same amount. Work on four spokes at a time, two in each direction. Try to keep all the nipples aligned so that the spoke key is either perpendicular or parallel to the rim - it makes it easier to judge how much you're adjusting them. If your wheel has butted spokes, they're likely to twist as you tighten them. To get around this, turn the nipples slightly too far and then back them off to the desired position.

Spin the wheel again and the wobble should have got smaller. If it's still the biggest wobble, repeat the tightening/loosening thing until another wobble becomes bigger. Repeat the procedure, always working on the biggest wobble. In theory if you tighten and loosen spokes by equivalent amounts the wheel should stay round, but chances are that it'll develop a bit of a 'hop' with high and low points around the circumference. So when the lateral trueness is looking good, move the pointer so it's across the rim and check for up-and-downiness.

Correcting hops is a similar theory to correcting wobbles, except that instead of tightening and loosening opposing spokes, you tighten (or loosen) left and right spokes together. If part of the rim bulges outwards, tighten the spokes at the bulge. If part of it drops inwards, loosen them. Start at the highest (or lowest) point and adjust the spokes either side of that point 1/2 turn and the ones outside of those 1/4 turn. Spin the wheel, check and repeat.

Once your roundness is good, go back and check for wobbles again. If they're both good, make sure the wheel's still dished right, that is, that the rim is exactly in the middle of the hub as it ought to be on nearly all bikes (there are some bikes with asymmetric rear ends that need the rim to be aligned differently but these are both rare and a pain in the bum, so we'll ignore them). The easiest way to check this is by simply taking the wheel out of the stand, flipping it over and putting it back in. The rim should be the same distance from the pointer both ways around. If you're lucky enough to have a dishing tool (supplied with some truing stands), then you can use that.

If your wheel is significantly off to one side but straight, simply go all the way around the wheel tightening spokes on the side towards which it needs to move and loosening them by the same amount on the other. Start and finish at the valve hole to ensure you do all of them. Adjust by 1/4 turn at a time unless it's miles out. Keep checking and repeating, then once it's correct go back and check trueness and rounditude.

The last step is to go around the wheel grasping pairs of parallel spokes and squeezing them hard - gloves help. This is vital on a newly-built wheel with new spokes as this does all sorts of clever and useful things that you can't see. On a just-trued wheel it may not do anything if you've managed to avoid spoke twist as you adjust them, but doing this will make any twisted spokes untwist. This'll make the wheel go out of true again, but better now than the first time you ride it. Go back and correct any errors and repeat.

Here's a few handy hints and things worth remembering about wheel truing:

Make small adjustments, and be methodical.

You won't have to make any adjustments smaller than 1/4 turn.

Tighten any very loose spokes first.

Always work on the biggest errors.

If there are any dings or dents in the rim, they're going to make life considerably more difficult, so sort them out before you start. Small inward dings can be gently straightened out with pliers or an adjustable spanner. If you've bashed a rock and splayed the sidewalls outwards, you may be able to squish them back by putting a bit of scrap wood either side and clamping the whole thing up with a G clamp. If you find you've got an untreatable ding, it's new rim time...

Rear wheels (and disc fronts) have different spoke tensions each side. This doesn't usually make much difference when correcting trueness, but getting hops out on an eight or nine speed wheel requires adjusting the right spokes twice as much as the left ones.

If the wheel makes various pings and pops when you first ride it after truing, you got some spokes twisted. Now they've straightened out you'll need to true it again.

Practice on old wheels first

Hope this helps

Trixter

OK,i think i got it

[adam978]

what happend to your wheel?, may be fixable

it is fixable but i just wont a new back wheel

[Luke Rainbird]

Copy/Pate skillz!!!!1!!!1!one!!eleven

Next time, maybe just put in the link, and possibly credit the author, as opposed to making it seem like you did all the work yourself...

Thanks BikeMagic http://www.bikemagic.com/news/article.asp?...amp;SP=&v=1

[tomturd]

Theres also a good article in the wiki thanks to onzaboymark..

http://www.trials-forum.co.uk/wiki/How_to_build_a_wheel

[kid creole]

ahahahahahahaha

cheater ...lol

[Trixter]

lol its not what it looks like a while ago i found this website (bike magic) i copied the "how to build wheels" document and put it into Microsoft word and saved it i then a while later i went on to download Mozila Firefox and deleted internet explore 7 and bike magic was in my favorite's not remembering the site i could not put a link up to it but i still had the document so i copied and pasted the document onto trials-forum.

trixter

[Grant H]

still a good tutorial though..

[Concussion]

hi,

yadda, yadda...

Trixter

Hellooooooo member! Good post, even if you did copy and paste it!

[jackamory]

Hellooooooo member! Good post, even if you did copy and paste it!

i agree

there arnt rules saying no copy and pasting so i dont know why people get silly over it like (year...nice copy and pasting etc) the point was to help the kid and i think trixter has helped him ALOT lol.

i see you have made a couple of decent posts now.. keep them coming as i said and you will soon be a member.

Edited May 29, 2007 by jackamory

[streetzguy]

I can build wheels the first time I did it I found it a bit hard but once you can do it you can do it all the time the hard bit about it is geting the spoke patern right.