General Category > The Knowledge
new spokes - old wheels, sizing?
drossall:
I'm not sure that replacing one spoke at a time in a tensioned wheel is a good idea. You could do it if you slackened off all the spokes first.
The key thing is to get the spoke tension balanced. You're less likely to achieve that, replacing one at a time in an otherwise-complete wheel. If you understand how to true a wheel, then in many ways lacing up the spokes is the hard bit. There are books and videos around with advice on the process.
Where a (good) built wheel may help is in giving you a comparator for the right level of tension, which is important too. But it's easier to use another wheel for that.
chrisbainbridge:
Cheers all. I will take the plunge and see what happens. Worst case I will need new pretend old wheels. Est case I will have reconditioned original wheels and will have learnt to build a wheel.
drossall:
It's all fairly straightforward and logical. I only build wheels for my own use, and therefore only do it occasionally. So the thing I quite often get wrong is failing to align the valve hole with a set of (near) parallel spokes. If you align it instead with a set of crossed spokes, there's less room to get the pump in. Fixing that means redoing the lacing, which is annoying, although it's generally easy to spot it early. If I built wheels more often, I'd have got into a method that avoided it, but instead I have to think it out each time.
Otherwise, just go at it methodically and tension the spokes as a whole set, and in stages. The rest is not much different from truing a wheel. And in a minute, half a dozen people will come along and tell you (rightly) how important stress-relieving the wheel is ;D
caerau:
Building your own wheel might turn you on so much upon completion that stress relief is not confined to the spokes ;)
chrisbainbridge:
I took the plunge and tried unscrewing the spokes. Despite being in place since 1975 they turned fairly easily!
I now need to take out the various relevant spokes and measure them and get the replacements and then I can do a one out one in to get my lacing correct.
Next question. On the rim there appears to be a steel water at each spoke hole. I say steel as it appears rusty. Are these replaceable as well or should I just accept them?
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