Wheel Build Advice Thread

T-Rex said:
EDIT: And if you have not yet purchased a dishing tool, don't waste your money. You can dish quicker in the truing stand, or you can use a pair of tea cups on a table and a stack of coins.
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Hmm, sounds good.
The dish gauge is the only thing I haven't made or ordered yet.
I was gonna have a go at making Roger Musson's one....but I should have known there are other hacks out there ;)

I've made a decent truing stand out of small gauge square section steel tube. I guess I could centre the hub on the truing axle and then measure the distance to the edge of the rim from an appropriate reference point (?)
 
born-again-biker said:
Hmm, sounds good.
The dish gauge is the only thing I haven't made or ordered yet.
I was gonna have a go at making Roger Musson's one....but I should have known there are other hacks out there ;)

I've made a decent truing stand out of small gauge square section steel tube. I guess I could centre the hub on the truing axle and then measure the distance to the edge of the rim from an appropriate reference point (?)
Click to expand...

The trick with dishing the wheel in the stand is to simply pull one of the guides (finger thingies.... whatever they are called) to one side, and flip the wheel over. If the gap from the rim to the finger is the same with the wheel in both orientations, you have the rim centred and the wheel correctly dished. If you find there's a bigger gap with one orientation, tighten the spokes that enter the hub on that side to pull the rim across.

Clear as mud?
 
I used to have a Speccy Big Hit, It ran a dished 24" rear..it was a PITA, because everytime you needed a new wheel built, you would have to drag the entire bike into the shop so they could get the dish correct..F*&^ing Specialized, they have always been dicks!
 
I've built between 15 and 20 wheels over the years and love the process. A trueing stand would be a nice luxury is nice but I've never actually used one. I learnt with rim brakes and used the pads to gauge how straight the wheel is. Now that I'm using discs I use the frame and fingers or a piece of dowels held in position to check how straight it is.
 
The Duckmeister said:
I do a slight variation... I use two longer spokes, screw a nipple all the way onto each one, and mark a line across both spokes in the section where they overlap. Remove the spokes, lay them out on a bench with the marks aligned and tape them down so they don't move, and measure from the undersides of the nipples. ERD is measured at the load-bearing point of the rim. Take measurements from at least two sectors of the rim, especially if rebuilding a used one that might have been crashed around a bit. Similarly, carbon rims can have variable wall thickness where individual bits of carbon mat have been overlapped during layup.
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This.

My measuring technique is very similar, but instead of taping them to the bench, I lay out a builder's tape measure, and lie them (spoke and coathanger wire in my case) in the concave bit of the tape. Line one nipple base up with the 100mm mark, line up the two sharpie marks where they cross over, read the measurement off the other nipple and deduct 100mm, there's your ERD.
 
Dish is simply the effect of the flanges not being the same distance from the centre of the hub; the spokes on the drive side angle outward from rim to hub only a little bit, while the off side spoke angle out a lot more (less so with disc brakes, but it's there. This asymmetry resembles a dish.

Offset is building the wheel so the rim is not centred over the axle. Offsetting actually results in less dish. It's pretty rare to need to offset a wheel, but some DH bikes have offset rear ends, needing the wheel to be built to suit.
 
Zaf said:
Cannondale and Guerilla Gravity also known for offset in their rear swingarms to help reduce the amount of dishing required and optimise chainline at the same time.
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So both chain stays are slightly offset to the RHS (towards the drivetrain) to even-out the dish?
Does that mean their rear hubs are unique?....no......wait.....it'd be a normal hub, but offset chain stays and offset rim relative to hub centre?
 
Question all - my current rear hub is from a RF Aeffect 30 wheelset, 28h straight pull where all the spokes are same length.... not sure what hub it actually is, probably a Novatec of some sort.

I'd like to replace the rim, and 28h options for enduro type rims are quite limited, the other RF AR and ARC 30 advertise as "offset" but i can't quite understand how that works for a hub design where the current spoke length is equal. I presume equal spoke length would mean equal tension and therefore no need for offset?

Bit confused by offset vs asymmetric and whether it matters what hub.

Basically i'm confused. If anyone could explain or point me to a good YouTube video that would be great.
 
northvanguy said:
Question all - my current rear hub is from a RF Aeffect 30 wheelset, 28h straight pull where all the spokes are same length.... not sure what hub it actually is, probably a Novatec of some sort.

I'd like to replace the rim, and 28h options for enduro type rims are quite limited, the other RF AR and ARC 30 advertise as "offset" but i can't quite understand how that works for a hub design where the current spoke length is equal. I presume equal spoke length would mean equal tension and therefore no need for offset?

Bit confused by offset vs asymmetric and whether it matters what hub.

Basically i'm confused. If anyone could explain or point me to a good YouTube video that would be great.
Click to expand...

Syntace do a very nice 28 hole carbon enduro rim. I just rebuilt one for a mate last week. Straight pull hub too.
 
T-Rex said:
Syntace do a very nice 28 hole carbon enduro rim. I just rebuilt one for a mate last week. Straight pull hub too.
Click to expand...

Carbon a bit too pricey for me at this stage i think...... unless it comes with an excellent warranty!

But thanks for the suggestion.
 
northvanguy said:
Question all - my current rear hub is from a RF Aeffect 30 wheelset, 28h straight pull where all the spokes are same length.... not sure what hub it actually is, probably a Novatec of some sort.

I'd like to replace the rim, and 28h options for enduro type rims are quite limited, the other RF AR and ARC 30 advertise as "offset" but i can't quite understand how that works for a hub design where the current spoke length is equal. I presume equal spoke length would mean equal tension and therefore no need for offset?

Bit confused by offset vs asymmetric and whether it matters what hub.

Basically i'm confused. If anyone could explain or point me to a good YouTube video that would be great.
Click to expand...

Asymmetric rims have the spoke holes drilled closer to one side (ie. offset), so that the spoke angle from hub flanges to the rim is more equal on both sides, resulting in more spoke tension on the non drive side. If you used an asymmetric rim on a rear wheel, you’d build it so the spoke holes are closer to the brake side because the hub flange on that side is closer to the end of the hub compared to the drive side. Pic to illustrate

362399


Offset, as described already, is the position of the rim between the hub ends. Most bikes need zero offset ie. rim is centred on the centre of the hub, and the tyre has even gaps to seat and chain stays on both sides when the wheel is on the bike. Some manufacturers have rear dropouts offset to the drive side so that the centre line of the hub isn’t in line with the centre line of the rear triangle of the frame. Eg. Cannondale AI
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The hub itself is nothing exotic, but the spoke hole drilling offset distance in asymmetric rims needs to be included in the spoke length calculation.

Here’s my simple but effective dishing tool too - aluminium channel with some long machine screws. Started with screw to channel distance of (hub width - rim outside with)/2 and tweaked once the wheel was built. Suits a hack like me that will only build a wheel every now and then.

362403
 
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@Nambra really appreciate and hopefully you'll be patient with me!

So my bike is definitely where rim is centered between flanges and the rear triangle of frame is asymmetric? (Appears frame designed to have rim sit towards brake side of frame slightly) (RM Slayer 2017)

The current hub/rim combo uses single length spokes which would suggest the flanges are equal. Is that right?

If so, does that mean an offset rim doesn't make sense?
 
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