STW please please can you help? Building this wheel is doing my head in!

I am struggling with final tensioning of my first wheel build (Front Pro2 onto Mavic EN521).

I have built the wheel up and got it perfectly true and am now tensioning it up.

I have reached this stage before and got the tension way low so invested in a tension meter and now have the problem that the spokes on the disk side are all low on tension but for the wheel to be true (dished properly) I need to tighten all the spoke on the non disk side which are already high on tension.

Where have I gone wrong? What can I do to fix it ?

For the sake of my sanity please help me out.

Cheers

Rusty

tighten DS to max tension, NDS tension has to be lower, so adjust it for dish/truth.

Its true but no tension. ???

As al says – ds should be tighter.

Slowly build wheel with tension until its round before its true.

Shouldnt take much to true it after that.

Are the spokes the correct length.

wot al said

don’t panic and don’t get fixated on your meter – they’re not that precise, I don’t think

Once you have pretty much the tension you want, you can finalise the tensions by ear – “pluck” and those on the same side of the wheel should all sound about the same

DOn’t forget to destress by giving a damn good squeeze to all spokes – in pairs (2prs of gloves helps here)

Cracked open a beer now so that is taking priority. Once i’ve finnished it i’ll get back to the wheel build.

Just to clarify are you referring to DS = Drive Side NDS = Non Drive Side?

I thought it was a front wheel ?

I assume we all mean disc side – flange’s closer to the centre line of the hub on that side, so needs a bit more tension

If it is dished, true and round with good tension on the dished side and even tension although slacker the other side you are finished!!

Leave it alone!! Enjoy the beer!

ah sorry front so disc side will be at max tension

Shortcut It is which is why i am confused.

Currently the disk side is a little high on tension and needs to be tightened further to pull it accross to get the dish right.

I could slacken the non-disk side but that is already low on tension hence the confusion.

You in abz Atm ? . Feel free to drop me a mail and pop round with wheel sometime this week an ill have a gander for yah if you want some reassurance ?

Put wheel disk side down on the ground an press at opposite sides !

If you have reasonable tension in both sides and the dish is miles out then the spokes are the wrong length. As said above, the disc side on the front wi have a higher tension than the non disc.

GB

trail_rat Yup in Aberdeen. May just do that, gonna have another shot at it tonight so may mail you tomorrow, cheers for the offer.

Pretty sure spoke lengths are correct, checked them on DT Swiss spoke calc and wheel pro.

Have now got it true and dished with disk side spokes at a good tension. Have not checked non disk side but off to bed now.

trail_rat will probably drop you an email in the morning to see about getting it checked over.

Cheers all

gee you are talking crap.

OP once your disc side is tight enough you MUST loosen the other side to allow the rim to move over. Simply physics. You may then be able to tighten the dis side back up a bit.

EDIT just read your last post. You are done, good work.

What al says

go for even tension on each side not even tension between sides

Tension meters are interesting, but really just get the disc side as tight as you can, and the rest will follow.

It’s actually a good idea to get a scrap wheel and have a go at tightening nipples to see what happens – eventually the square part of the nipple will shear off. You want them just a bit less tight than that.

A hell of a lot less tight than that!

Not really. As tight as possible is what you want to avoid fatigue fractures.

with the mavics i tend to agree with ben – its a comes with practice thing

also if building track wheels for powerhouses i tend to err on the tight side of tight

how ever stans wheels – you cannot do this the holes in rim will split.

once “snug” being even is more important than the actual tension how ever loose spokes tend to loosen off under jarring though

So if the front checks out to be ok, when i come to tension up the two rear wheels i have sitting in the middle of the living room floor, should I expect the Drive side spokes to sit at a higher tension than the non drive side as Al mentions in the 2nd post?

Yes, on a rear wheel the drive-side spokes will be a lot tighter than non-drive-side. With rear wheels, the drive-side spokes do all the work, non-drive-side are really just there to stop the wheel flopping to the side.