Forum menu
Hope Bulb on a 721. rim is straight, hub is fine, spokes are knackered.
One missing, others keep loosening and creaking.
Can I buy a bunch of spokes and replace them one at time until I have 32 new spokes and then tension everything up?
yep. measure the spokes from elbow to end to get the length. beware that spokes on one side may be different lengths to the other.
read sheldon brown's guide to building. tbh the lacing ( threading the spokes in ) part is not hardest bit. getting it tensioned, true, then relieveing it all properly, and re-truing, is the more difficult part of the process. if you think it all through though it's pretty straight-forward. it's a process just like any other job of mechanical assembly. execute the steps properly in the right order and it'll come good.
Yes, this way you are most likely to get the lacing right by replacing exactly what you just took out. But before you start, loosen them all off a full turn at a time, working round the wheel until all very slack. Otherwise you may find that loads all break and your rim goes doolally, and will be very much harder to keep straight without some odd combinations of spoke tensions acting on it.
Long winded, but you will get a better built wheel in the end.
yes if your not confident building a wheel from scratch
just leave all your new spokes loose till you have replaced them all
then tighten all your new spokes evenly one turn at a time one spoke at a time until youve got some tension in them then you can fine tune it in your frame/forks.
i would recomend a read of sheldon browns wheelbuilding guide before you start http://sheldonbrown.com/wheelbuild.html
Strip the old spokes out and start a new build from scratch using the sheldonbrown link above. Much easier and straightforwards and that way (if you do as Sheldon dictates) your spokes will go in easier without having to bend them excessively or getting them all in a tangle. Then tension & true.
BTW, there's a Park Tools wheel jig floating around Totnes between various STWers at the moment. I've just knocked up a nice pair of trail/XC wheels on it 🙂 It belongs to Si but he may let you borrow it the week after next whilst we're all in the Alps.
(though, of course, he may not 😉 )
Does he ever come on here anymore?