So, over time, I’ve got my first wheelbuild to the below state (sound needed). Pretty close?

Seems like the dips and the rises are quite equal to me! Should I start again? How do I get this properly round?

Take it to a shop? Please help a moron in distress (well, not really in distress, but I would like to get this sorted once and for all.)

Thanks!

it’s rotating a bit too slow to really see – your wobbly hands are more pronounced than your wobbly rim !

Having said the above, looks pretty good to me; I’d stop at that if your tensions are all OK

If you really want rid though, obvz loosen off both sides a tiny bit around a dip and tighten around a rise but I’m sure you’ve prob done several rounds of that

ride it for an hour and have another look after that

it’s rotating a bit too slow to really see – your wobbly hands are more pronounced than your wobbly rim !

It’s fixed in a pair of forks in a workmate 🙂 Looks just about fine, but the wooden fork meter says otherwise!

ride it for an hour and have another look after that

Liking that advice!

ride it for an hour and have another look after that

Or ride it for an hour, then just leave it on the bike as it rides fine, it’s taped up, covered in dirt and jizz and a nicely aired up tyre, and you really can’t be bothered to get it off the bike, strip it down, clean it and have another dispiriting go at trueing out fractions of a millimeter of hop.  Keep an eye on it and true when/if it gets noticeably wobbly.

So.. you two are saying.. the I, (the moron in question) have successfully built a wheel??

Yay !!

It’s fixed in a pair of forks in a workmate

I meant your camera hand

Oh!

Anyway, blimey. 😀

It’s pretty good and I’d echo those saying just stick it on and go ride it. But first give it a proper de-stress and check again. And I mean a proper de-stress with a pair of leather gloves. Your tyre will have more deviation than that.

Personally I can see a bit of radial outness and a tiny bit of sideways wobble. If still there after a de-stress I would spend about another half hour getting it perfect.

Cool, cheers

Doesn’t look too bad to me – the rim join is accentuating the rim roundness at one point. Laterally it looks pretty good too.

If vertically out by quite a lot (with decent tension in the wheel) I found sometimes it was easier to just loosen the whole lot off and start again working on vertical trueness first.

Reiterate the de stressing it – if you haven’t done that a couple of times you’ll find he wheel pings a lot when you first ride it and could go straight out of true.

Some people use their hands but I found a video where a very decent wheel builder stands on the wheel. They put thick cardboard down under the hub and rim and literally stood on the middle of the spokes hard and worked heir way round the wheel from both sides. I’ve done this and the wheel pings quite a lot. I normally do this process a couple of times per wheel build. My resulting wheels haven’t needed any retensioning or retruing so far so assume it did the job.

As a (very) amateur builder, I aim for < 0.25 mm lateral deflection (i.e side to side) and < 1mm vertical (up and down) combined with spoke tensions that are all within around 10% of each other. I find that i can now take an assembled, untensioned wheel to this state in < 1 hour. I’ll never make money in a shop but my wheels are good 🙂

It’s a little hard to tell, but yours looks pretty good to my eye. It’s more important to make sure your spoke tensions are (more or less) correct and even, and that you’ve de-stressed them (as mentioned above) as this will ensure that the thing stays true after the first ride.

(I use the Planet X jig which has needle gauges, which I find easier to build with than a normal jig)

The British Standard for new bikes is something like 5mm of vertical and 2mm of lateral tolerance in wheels. Vertical ‘hop’ is often the hardest to get right, particularly if you’re working from a distorted rim. The reality is that you’ll not notice it when riding as the surface you’re riding on in never than smooth and your tyres and suspension are always moving.

The British Standard for new bikes is something like 5mm of vertical and 2mm of lateral tolerance in wheels

Well, it’s better than that!

I’ve destressed a few times as recommended by a baldy fella on youtube. So, it looks like I’m almost there. How jolly satisfying.

The rear wheel is a different matter as it won’t fit in my special building forks.. Not sure about doing that one..

The British Standard for new bikes is something like 5mm of vertical and 2mm of lateral tolerance in wheels. Vertical ‘hop’ is often the hardest to get right, particularly if you’re working from a distorted rim.

Not much of a bloody standard is that then!

OOI, I find that a home-made spoke driver is the key to this. If you tighten all of the spokes to an initial identical amount and then work evenly from there the wheel ends up more or less vertically round without any effort:

(just stick this in the cordless drill and screw up the nipples from the outside – the spoke should push the driver off the nipple at the same point on all spokes, so you can pre-tension the wheel quickly and (most importantly) very evenly.

(I bought a load of cheap screwdriver bits and dremelled meself a pile of them with different length “points”)

Amateur builder here since 2011. I only build my own wheels<b> </b>though, because I’ll never be fast.

What you’ve got there is better than 98% of all factory wheels. As long as you’re happy it’s sufficiently de-stressed (I tread on mine!) and tensioned, it should run fine.

You cant do anything about misalignment at the joint.

The other slight high/low spots “should” be able to be adjusted out by tightening and loosening as required, however if its not excessive I would prioritise even spoke tension.

Also depends if the rim was round/flat in the first place!

I like that little spoke driving widget and the idea of having multiple lengths.

I built one from the Roger Musson book but now I am thinking about something like the above but make it adjustable so you can wind it in a bit as you build the wheel and keep adjusting. Or maybe just go the multiple routes like above and colour code/number them so you can work your way though.

Then again all my bikes now have 100% self built wheels so hopefully I won’t need to do any for a while.

OP I just build in a spare frame for the rear and use cable ties.

Thanks for all the tips and advice – I now have Flows on American Classic hubs on my Instinct.

Bought a £20 stand off ebay and had a go at the back wheel. Knocked up a dish tool from some old shelving. Couple of sessions and yesterday both self built wheels were given a  blast around QECP (luckily it was still dry, unlike this morning) and they survived! Didn’t go easy on them either.

So an old dog can learn new tricks 😊

Skills 🙂

When I nail a wheel together ’round enough’ is round enough 😆

The first wheels i put together were pretty much like that , 2500+ miles later i still ain’t tweaked them & they are just the same. Good enough for me.

Agree, no wheel I have ever built has been any rounder than that.  I am good as getting straight but always struggle with roundness.  By the time the tyre is on and adding some more non roundness I forget all about the rim.  Can never feel it so makes no difference to the ride.

Get some feelers gauges and measure it. What might look like a few mm is often only about 0.25mm.

I’d be happy with that too tbh, but also, after a bit of proper use your wheels tend to end up less perfect than that and nobody rebuilds them just to take out a mm of hop or whatever so that’s the standard you’re looking for imo, durable and straight enough to keep riding on rather than shop perfect.

Though speaking of shop perfect that still looks better than the last wheel I got from Merlin

I have only built 4 wheels but that looks pretty good to me. I think that even spoke tension is more important to the longevity of the wheel than roundness / trueness.

More important that the spokes are tight (tensioned to within the limits of the rim) and evenly tensioned than getting it perfectly round.

I also build in frame – I started off using the zip tie method- but I now use an even simpler way – I merely place an empty beer can on top of a book  adjacent to the rim – Seems easier to incrementally move than twisting the zip tie inward which often took me a few goes to correctly adjust  – With the can one also get better audible feedback off rim .

You fellas missed my update lower down the thread 😊