From this:

To this:

To this:

Stripped the old wheel as the nipples kept breaking, as I think the spokes were too short….
Plus I wanted to!

Used the WheelPro book, and laced and tensioned it up in about 40 minutes.
It’s mostly true, but I now need to make a proper wheel jig to get the spokes tight and really true it up.

All in all, a very satisfying process, and it’s the last part of ‘cycle maintenance’ that I’d been putting off, but have finally done!

If you’re thinking about giving it a go, it’s actually quite straightforward and relaxing!

DrP

nice one, I get as far as half way and get a mate to finish it

I really, really like wheel building.
Use the spocalc.xls for spoke length calculation.
Follow Sheldon Brown’s instructions, takes me about half an hour to lace, and half an hour to true and tension usually.

Bought a cheap wheel jig a while back. Only problem is the dishing gauge turned out to be offset, so I’ve ree-labeled it. And the ends are only really suitable for QR axles, so a bit of a faff with newer bolt-thru designs.

Wanna do mine? 😉

Can you see the hub logo through the valve hole? 😉

Some regrouting may be needed.

I want to be able to do this, how much blood did you lose?

Amazing, Just doing the myself using the same book.

I am building a 29er lefty which caused a few problems with trying to work out the correct spoke lengths.

I have just finshed lacing and now need to true. can a ask thought did you have problems using the nipple driver? I have found the on some of the spokes the driver is already disengaged and the nipples are still a little loose?

Nice one. I’ve done a few. Amazingly, two years on the first one is still tight & true. 🙂

Can you see the hub logo through the valve hole?

Yes…sort of… I didn’t realise flange holes really start at ‘zero’ in line with the logo, rather than ‘one’.
I.e. thinking I had moved round 3 holes, I had only moved 2….
I was contemplating taking it apart, but I’m not precious!

Tim…I’m pretty tight on time, but I’ll give you a shout, see if we can’t work something out!!
Do you have spokes?
Use This to figure out what you need…I got DT Swiss comps and nipples (ooh er) from eBay…

Some regrouting may be needed.

Nah – that’s ant killer powder.

I have just finshed lacing and now need to true. can a ask thought did you have problems using the nipple driver? I have found the on some of the spokes the driver is already disengaged and the nipples are still a little loose?

My driver has a 2mm ‘spike’, not the 3 suggested (no real reason). But ye, some were loose still…

DrP – healer of the sick in the day, ant murderer by night…

DrP – healer of the sick in the day, ant murderer by night…

Lets keep it like that, We don’t want a repeat of Dr Shipmans home for sick ants.

DrP – did you find it therapeutic?

I really enjoyed building a set of wheels. I was told it’d either be strangely calming and enjoyable, or it would drive me mad! I just took it as read, it’d be the latter. Nobody was more surprised than me that it wasn’t

i like to think i’m a good bike-tinkerer – but building wheels i cannot do 🙁

well done sir!

I remember my first ride on my first self built wheel – listening out for the dreaded pinging and fearing spontaneous collapse at every turn… Takes a few miles to get the confidence in them but once you do its very satisfying.

I built the musson truing stand from some old kitchen cabinets, and just doubled up the 3mm plastic to make the “drop outs”. It’s done a few now and still going strong.

I built the musson truing stand from some old kitchen cabinets

I’m planning on using the leftover birch ply from the great bed build to make the stand too 🙂

Did you make both truing gauges? I can’t see why I’d need a separate one for radial trueness – surely the lateral one can be used for both…

And I did find it very therapeutic too – I love truing wheels (in the frame mostly) but had been putting off wheelbuilding for some time….!

DrP

Yep did both gauges – you might get away without the radial one but it’s easier to sight along the line of it. It’s only 2 bits of wood & some plastic so not too time consuming in the grand scheme of things. The amazing cardboard boomerang dishing tool works fine as well.

I’ve enjoyed wheel fettling enormously – can’t be doing too bad because I’ve only had to retrue one, and that was after a major wheel/tree stump/OTB/off riding for a week incident…