Right then, just come back in from the third ride on my new winter steed (rigid Alfined Lurcher) with a very wobbly back end…

My first attempt at building a wheel appears to have gone awry somehow and lost spoke tension, including some that were finger tight 😮 !

Retensioned it and it’s still trued up lovely, but can’t for the life of me see why it’s happened…

My only thought so far is that the tension I’ve used isn’t high enough given that I’ve done a comparative test of the hope hoops front (which also confirms my lacing is good) which obviously uses longer spoke lengths, but then the park tool as far as I can see has no compensation for spoke length.
I de-stressed regularly throughout the Truing process and haven’t noticed any cracks and creaks that you usually get with a freshly built wheel…

The only other possible issue was the spoke length I chose was right on the long side of the spoke length calcs (noticed before I trued, but decided to try it anyway), but they all still turn and I’m pretty sure I could get at least another 3/4 of a turn on them all from the point I’m at now…

There is no damage to the rim or hub flanges, so I haven’t broken anything from over tightening either.

Any other ideas before I order 32 slightly shorter spokes and tear it to bits!!

I’d go for rebuilding but using higher tension than last time. As long as the nipples aren’t bottoming out on the threads then you should be OK.

If they’re stans rims then look up their max tension they recommend.

Sounds like not enough tension, I wouldn’t worry about getting it perfectly true, concentrate on getting actual and relative tension (diffetence between spokes) as close as possible.

Think Stans are 130kgf which could well be higher than your current Hope rims, Mavic reccomend 90kgf so it’s not always possible to compare wheels.

Give the spokes a ping with your finger. They should give the right pitch of note.

C

Just up the tension, no point whatsoever in a rebuild.

Yup, there’s no point taking the wheel apart, just add some tension. Do it gradually though, half a turn at a time per spoke. That said, your wheel would have to be seriously slack to go wobbly on a ride.