Roger Musson’s Truing Stand – potential flaw or actually a good idea?

I’m starting to build a Roger Musson truing stand like this:

What I see as potential flaw is the metal uprights that hold the hub. These only have one bolt in, meaning they could pivot about the bolt and not be upright. This would mean the hub isn’t perpendicular to the base and all subsequent truing will be off. The flip side of this is because there is only one bolt then the uprights could be adjusted to be perfectly upright. If there were two bolts in each upright then you couldn’t adjust it….

So, is it a flaw or a good thing?

Providing they don’t move in use, it doesn’t matter.

I used to know Roger quite well. I don’t think he’d object if I called him a fussy so and so. He wanted things right, first time, every time. He used that stand in his workshop, and I’ve never heard any complaints about his workmanship.
It will be right.

If you do them up tight they don’t move :D.

The brackets moving during use is a secondary concern, it’s setting them to be level in the first place that I’m wondering about. Two bolts in each side would make this easy BUT you’d have be very accurate when making the stand and uprights.

If it worries you, why not put a second bolt in either side?

You’re measuring deviation at a fixed point, so as long as the axle is fixed and you measure square to the rim then there’s no issue.

you may want to build it bigger to account for 29er or fat tyres.

all subsequent truing will be off

Dishing maybe, truing no.

They’d be good if they fitted 15/20mm axles and not just QRs. (I’ve built 2 wheels, me).

DezB

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They’d be good if they fitted 15/20mm axles and not just QRs. (I’ve built 2 wheels, me).

They do. Just use a normal QR through it and nip it up tight.

(Ive built 1 wheel me, and it was a 20mm axle)

I think my stand has two bolts in each, but as others have said, as long as it doesn’t move in use it doesn’t matter.

I built one with a single bolt each side. It works fine

Just do what I did and use one bolt and one countersunk screw in each plate – then they can’t rotate. Anyway, even if they did move a bit it wouldn’t affect trueness.

They’d be good if they fitted 15/20mm axles and not just QRs. (I’ve built 2 wheels, me).

I’ve built qr, 15mm, 20mm and 12mm in mine using the qr trick.

You can improve the design.

Using 2 separate legs is where the danger of inaccuracy comes in.

If you use thick plywood and cut out a U shape for each size of OLD you will have a stable mount.

This gives you a fixed fork which many of the antique (and very good) cast iron wheel jigs had.

You can improve the design.

Using 2 separate legs is where the danger of inaccuracy comes in.

If you use thick plywood and cut out a U shape for each size of OLD you will have a stable mount.

This gives you a fixed fork which many of the antique (and very good) cast iron wheel jigs had.

And make your dropouts using a bit of angle and cut a big ‘V’ in either rather than a 10mm ‘U’ shaped dropout so you can rest any size axle on there…

I used 2 bolts either side when I built my stand….. still using it in 2018 🙂

I know it goes against the whole DIY thing but these Park ts-2ta adapters make it a lot easier to build 15/20mm wheels as you know the wheel is centralised and it’s easy to take it in and out to de-stress spoke etc.

My onyl real criticism is that the rond bits the hubs sit on might be better as cones as it would be slightly easier to be sure the hub is centred.

although they do require on of the uprights to be movable which looking at the pic I’m not sure they base mounts are slotted to allow that?

I used 40mm thick oak worktop for mine, and rebated the thingummys (drop ins?) into the wood. It didn’t occur to me that they’d need to be absolutely bob-on square and level.

But they don’t really, do they? You’re tensioning the rim in relation to the hub, not anything else. And when you’re spinning the wheel to check for hops and wobbles, it’s just the rim in relation to itself.

Edit: and I’m guessing Roger built it this way do they could be spun round for easy non-jabby/damagey transport.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Bicycle-Wheel-Repair-Truing-Stand-Platform-Set-Up-MechanicTool-Thru-Axle-Adaptor/401621448152?hash=item5d8280f5d8:g:dv0AAOSwl95bzZ5Y:rk:11:pf:0

and I used two bolts.

As others have said, it doesn’t matter whether the hub is square with the stand, because the stand doesn’t measure dish, only trueness. I think part of the argument is that even if you’re using a conventional stand with some kind of self-centering gauge you’ll still need to use a dishing stick towards the end of the build, because they’re so much more accurate. The way I see it is that the stand is much easier to make, and has various minor advantages in use, if you let the dishing tool do the dishing. It is a system that works but isn’t necessarily for everyone. I built one of Roger’s jigs years ago and am more than happy with it, but I’m sure I’d build to the same standard and at about the same speed (slowly) with any other type. If you’d strongly prefer to keep an eye on dish without having to remove the wheel I’d go for one of the modifications suggested above, or an off-the-shelf jig.

I built 2 of these for less than £40, have built 5 wheelsets with them so far and they’ve been geat for me.
I cut them with a jigsaw so there’s no straight line and there are gaps everywhere, but still, deflection is relative so as long as it doesn’t felx or move (which it doesn’t) you’re good to go.
I use coins and 2 yogurt pots for gauging the dish 🙂

Ah, now, my home made dish tool is a thing of rare beauty.

2 blocks of wood, a shelf rack upright and a nut n bolt. I even drew a plan before building 😀