Bicycle Mechanics - judging correct spoke tension without a tensionometer?

Okay, so tensionometers run around $60. I'd get one if I planned to build a lot of wheels, but I'm not. From my understanding, experienced mechanics can judge proper tension by plucking the spoke, like a guitar-string, and hearing the note. Now, I'm a musical person, and have close-to-perfect pitch, would love it if any of you could tell me about what the note (or range of notes) associated with an ideally tensioned spoke. If type of spoke matters, I use 14/15/14 for most of my wheelbuilding. The one especially in question is rear wheel, drive-side.
Also, note that you don't need perfect pitch to do this - just compare to a guitar or piano.

Do people use this sort of technique? It makes sense, but I've never heard anyone refer to the actual note.

One can not tune a piano with a tensionometer.

One can not tune a piano with a tensionometer.
Right, but one could correctly tension a spoke with a piano. So, does anyone know what is a proper pitch for a correctly-tensioned 14/15/14 drive-side spoke to "ping" at?

One can not tune a piano with a tensionometer.
I thought it was "you can tune a piano but you can't tuna fish" :D







I'm sorry, I'm just in one of those moods today.

On a somewhat more responsive 'note' (yea, another bad pun). How much for an LBS to properly adjust it? Then you could use the pitch technique to keep it properly adjusted and as a reference for future wheels.

http://www.bikexprt.com/bicycle/tension.htm

on the other hand

http://www.yarchive.net/bike/spoke_tone.html

Thanks - those links are exactly the sort of information that I was looking for. I'll need to read more about this, and *maybe* buy a tensionometer...

Another musical fella here (duh, they call me "oboeguy" for a reason) so I'm interested in this too. I'll have to check those links and find some batteries for my electronic tuner.

One can not tune a piano with a tensionometer.

Use the Madame Sousa method



http://www.cabaretvoltaire.com/42/archives/images/triplettes.jpg

I built my first wheelset using Allen's table of pitches and a piano. 3+ years later, they're still strong and true, with minor maintenance truings along the way (hey, I ride in NYC everyday, and they've been amazingly dependable).

Find a set of wheels that you know is properly tensioned and "feel it up". With your thumb and two fingers of both hands, grab two sets of spokes halfway between the hub and the rim and squeeze. You'll soon have a good feel for how much tension there should be in the spokes. Be sure to get a feeling for the tension difference between the drive and non-drive side of the rear wheel. "Don't need no stinkin' tensiometer."

I've been a cellist for over 30 years, also with close to perfect pitch (in a quiet room), and while I've also built a few dozen race wheels I don't do it every day. But maybe I'm the guy to span the knowledge gap here- while Granny's truing technique in The Triplets of Belleville cartoon is quaint, it doesn't work so well in real life. Even if you start with a top quality brand new rim, it ain't ever perfect out of the box so when you "tune" your spokes with the precision to play Vivaldi Sonatas, your humming will cease when the resulting several mm's of noticeable wobble in your wheels may cause you to roll into the canal as you speed past his birthplace in Venice unable to apply your brakes with any precision. Just for kicks, I tried a couple of times to build a wheel without a stand, just using a pitchpipe. So I could feel old-school smug or something. If I were to compose an Italian Opera, it would definitely have a bike mechanic as the central, and very tragic, love-interest character. :love: The wheelbuild didn't work. Maybe it requires years of apprenticeship, I dunno. As you probably know something already about strings, the pitch will also depend on the length (effective rim diameter/hub/spoke count) and thickness (gauge, butted/non, bladed..) It will obviously vary also on each side of rear wheels. It's true that the human ear, especially a musician's, is gonna be orders of magnitude more precise than any common tensiometer. Well, maybe unless that ear is my Dad's at Sunday morning services... The point is that pitch, while a useful indicator of relative tension, cannot be used to measure absolute tension unless you have calibrated your ear for a single combination of rims/spokes/hubs/patterns. Anyway, I only recently bought my tensiometer, the cheap Park Tool one, since I've been building and repairing non-standard funky wheels recently. Paired, low-count or bladed spoke wheels. Why bother, don't ask, fashion over function... and finding "trashed" expensive wheels in a shop's dumpster that I restored for cyclocross abuse. For standard wheels you really don't need a tensiometer. Just take a similar well built wheel and pinch the spokes to get the "feel" then copy it. It will be close enough, then just true it up in your stand. Or what the heck, pluck away and copy it. The point is, you will need to find an "average" pitch/tension around the wheel, no way all the spokes will be identical AND perfectly true, at least with the rims (mostly high end Mavics) I've tried. Close, but off by as much as a minor 3rd high-lowest. Geez what a time-waster web forums can be! Anyway have fun!

I guess if I forget my tuning fork and electronic tuner but ride to a concert I could bring the wheel on stage to give the tuning pitch to the orchestra. ;)

I don't have any trouble tuning a guitar or banjo, and I've had good luck tuning radially laced spoked wheels. But when it comes to cross-spoked wheels all I hear is a rattle, kind of like trying to tune a guitar with a loose capo. The Park tension meter is a good investment at $55.

Al

I don't have any trouble tuning a guitar or banjo, and I've had good luck tuning radially laced spoked wheels. But when it comes to cross-spoked wheels all I hear is a rattle, kind of like trying to tune a guitar with a loose capo. The Park tension meter is a good investment at $55.

Al

You have to push the crossing spoke away just a hair to kep them from touching.

Also, I wouldn't use a guitar unless it was just tuned to a pitch pipe or electronic tuner, or even a piano unless it was tuned recently. I have seen both that are tuned well to themselves, but are way out of true pitch.

I play trumpet and hand drums.

Do people use this sort of technique? It makes sense, but I've never heard anyone refer to the actual note.

I'm also a musician with close-to-perfect pitch. I also know how to true a wheel without a tensiometer, and with nothing but a bike to use as a truing stand.

I have no idea what note (and at what octave) my spokes would supposedly produce when properly tensioned. I've never had a radially-spoked wheel, so plucking the spokes has always gotten me an indistinct mess of pitches.

I make sure my spokes are tensioned fairly evenly by feel. (Pull on the spoke, if it moves too much tighten it, if it doesn't move enough, loosen.) The next task is to guess what is the maximum tension that can be withstood by the weakest parts of the spoke, nipple, and the rim's spoke hole and stay under it. You may or may not have confidence in your ability to guess this. (Personally, i've never broken anything by misjudging this but I wouldn't use this method on expensive, fragile parts.)

I should be okay going by feel, since I'm normally just building standard 32-spoke wheels. It's interesting to see all the musicians coming out in this thread!

I've built only a few wheels. I'm no expert, but I've used the plucking method to bring each spoke to uniform tension. Regardless of the pitch, a spoke that isn't even become obvious.

Once I've achieved a straight true wheel, I then pluck each spoke to relieve stresses and also verify that they are uniformly tensioned. Works for me.

You have to push the crossing spoke away just a hair to kep them from touching.

Actually, not. You are listening to both spokes resonating at once. I aim for a G. Taking a pair of crossing spokes and squeezing them together gives a pretty good feel for correct tension. e.g., spokes pairs singing at B feel quite a lot tighter than those at G. You should be able to move spokes pairs a few mm towards each other when squeezing them together like that.

One can not tune a piano with a tensionometer.
That's true, but I don't believe piano tuners do their job without the proper tools.

I am an amateur musician, spoiled by years of piano playing, so I don't have a genuine perfect pitch, not even close. My relative pitch is accurate enough. As a reference I use a tuning fork. An electrical tuner would do, too, but I guess I am old skool. I would definitely not use any instrument as reference.

In my experience and as described above, there's no need to have every spoke sing at exactly the same pitch. You're hoping to build a good, true wheel - not a musical instrument. You have to allow for some variation there.

Now, to the pressing question of which is the best wheel-truing reference frequency for A natural: the 444Hz that is increasingly common in music, 440Hz (this is what I use, told you I'm old skool) or the 435 from the Romantic era? :D

--J

When I first started building wheels I played around with this "plucking the spokes" business and never was able to find much value in it; it's a LOT easier to tension the wheel by feel - torque/drag on the spoke wrench. Of course, the key thing to building a solid wheel is to bring the wheel up to tension by turning each spoke the same number of turns. Also, make sure you grease the spoke threads so the torque/drag will be consistant between the different spokes.

All that said, I use a Park tension gauge now a days. To measure is to know.

Ed

You have to push the crossing spoke away just a hair to kep them from touching.



But that changes the tension and also deadens the amplitude.

Al

But that changes the tension and also deadens the amplitude.

Al

Not on the one you are plucking. If you have two spokes tht cross and buzz on each other, you hold one slightly away ( like a mm) and pluck the other one. If they are touching you will not get a pure pitch for the length of the spoke. You will get harmonics mixed in.

If I remember right "Brandt" something or other a pro wheel builder, wrote a book I have a copy of some book on wheel building, somewhere out on loan, the arthur said that and I loosely quote " I used to tension by ear, until I used a tensionometer, and realized how far off that method was"

Not intended to be a real quote, if you want the real quote I will have to get the book back. The point he made was, dispite the fact that he was an accomplished wheel builder, he realized that a tension meter was far better.

And what should those of us who are musically challenged do? really! I just built a pair of wheels and they have a slight (.5mm) wave after 100 hard Chicago and DC miles. Wonder if this is good or not

If you really want to get JobstBrandt_anal_completelyscientific about it you should get an excellent, studio quality microphone and and feed it to a frequency counter or oscilloscope. I like a tensiometer, but a guitar pick or a good educated fingernail could do the job, too. Just make sure you pluck at exactly the same place on every spoke. Do you want the easy, cheap way out, or do you want to do the job the right way?

FWIW, I have used a mike and a scope. What I found out is that a $60 tensiometer is pretty accurate - and by far the easiest to use. It's a lot cheaper than a 500MHz oscilloscope ;-) Life is too short.

If I remember right "Brandt" something or other a pro wheel builder, wrote a book I have a copy of some book on wheel building, somewhere out on loan, the arthur said that and I loosely quote " I used to tension by ear, until I used a tensionometer, and realized how far off that method was"

Not intended to be a real quote, if you want the real quote I will have to get the book back. The point he made was, dispite the fact that he was an accomplished wheel builder, he realized that a tension meter was far better.

Thanks for a great reminder of a fundemental reference:

From "The Art of Wheelbuilding" by Gerd Schraner:

"I worked for years without a tensiometer, being under the false impression that instinct and experience were enough. Then I bought one of the first HOZAN tensiometers on the market and started making comparisons. Shamefacedly I had to admit that my super instinct was not so super after all. Even my mood on any particular day gave different results. Since then I work with a tensiometer and it is always at hand next to the truing equipment. While truing a wheel, I make a check now and then and get closer to the perfect tension step-by-step."

Gerd Schraner is worth listening to for the simple fact that he exhibits a little humility. This is the key passage in his very important book, in my opinion. On the other hand, you are not likely to find "Jobst Brandt" and "humility" linked with each other. Yes, JB has made an important contribution to all wheelbuilders, but I'll take Gerd any day if only because he will admit he can be wrong. Gerd is also a major proponent of tying and soldering which does not garner much support these days. Yup, he's out of date with some things, but at least you can respect his honesty.

The important thing to take away is that a highly respected master wheelbuilder is being honest enough and humble enough to publish - in his book - that a tensiometer is an important tool in wheelbuilding. It's all the same argument as to use, or not to use, a torque wrench. I would bet any amount of money that the guys torqueing down cylinder heads on NASCAR motors are not using a "calibrated elbow". Those days are over.

There's correct ways to do things and half-assed ways. Anyone who has ever particiapated in ISO 9001 qualification is aware that to be consistent you find the best way to measure your process and use it consistantly. A tensiometer is the best way to measure spoke tension and, as quoted from Schraner, you need to refer to it regularly to be consistent.

I have seen this subject debated repeatedly on this and other forums. The basis for virtually all of the arguments against the use of a tensiometer are almost always rationalizations for why not to spend the money to do the job as best you can. I will use the NASCAR analogy again. Do you believe for one second that there is any team in NASCAR that quibbles about the cost of torque wrenches? or the cost of digital pressure gauges that measure to 0.1 lb/in? Please don't argue that using musical notes, or whatever, is as accurate as a tensiometer. It's not, plain and simple.

If you are willing to compromise and "do it by ear", then more power to you. Just please don't try and tell us that it's "as accurate". It's not.

{flame suit ON !!**

I've been a cellist for over 30 years, also with close to perfect pitch (in a quiet room), and while I've also built a few dozen race wheels I don't do it every day. But maybe I'm the guy to span the knowledge gap here- while Granny's truing technique in The Triplets of Belleville cartoon is quaint, it doesn't work so well in real life. Even if you start with a top quality brand new rim, it ain't ever perfect out of the box so when you "tune" your spokes with the precision to play Vivaldi Sonatas, your humming will cease when the resulting several mm's of noticeable wobble in your wheels may cause you to roll into the canal as you speed past his birthplace in Venice unable to apply your brakes with any precision. Just for kicks, I tried a couple of times to build a wheel without a stand, just using a pitchpipe. So I could feel old-school smug or something. If I were to compose an Italian Opera, it would definitely have a bike mechanic as the central, and very tragic, love-interest character. :love: The wheelbuild didn't work. Maybe it requires years of apprenticeship, I dunno. As you probably know something already about strings, the pitch will also depend on the length (effective rim diameter/hub/spoke count) and thickness (gauge, butted/non, bladed..) It will obviously vary also on each side of rear wheels. It's true that the human ear, especially a musician's, is gonna be orders of magnitude more precise than any common tensiometer. Well, maybe unless that ear is my Dad's at Sunday morning services... The point is that pitch, while a useful indicator of relative tension, cannot be used to measure absolute tension unless you have calibrated your ear for a single combination of rims/spokes/hubs/patterns. Anyway, I only recently bought my tensiometer, the cheap Park Tool one, since I've been building and repairing non-standard funky wheels recently. Paired, low-count or bladed spoke wheels. Why bother, don't ask, fashion over function... and finding "trashed" expensive wheels in a shop's dumpster that I restored for cyclocross abuse. For standard wheels you really don't need a tensiometer. Just take a similar well built wheel and pinch the spokes to get the "feel" then copy it. It will be close enough, then just true it up in your stand. Or what the heck, pluck away and copy it. The point is, you will need to find an "average" pitch/tension around the wheel, no way all the spokes will be identical AND perfectly true, at least with the rims (mostly high end Mavics) I've tried. Close, but off by as much as a minor 3rd high-lowest. Geez what a time-waster web forums can be! Anyway have fun!

I enjoyed reading this post...I feel a little more comforted about the wheel I am building after reading it. I am using a mavic rim too, and I found myself getting over obsessed about using the tensionometer (at my local bike shop) and brought the rim out of true, when it had before been pretty straight as an arrow.
I'm sure there's a healthy balance between the two. This is my first wheel, so I'm looking forward to building others. Thanks

Thanks for a great reminder of a fundemental reference:

From "The Art of Wheelbuilding" by Gerd Schraner:

"I worked for years without a tensiometer, being under the false impression that instinct and experience were enough. Then I bought one of the first HOZAN tensiometers on the market and started making comparisons. Shamefacedly I had to admit that my super instinct was not so super after all. Even my mood on any particular day gave different results. Since then I work with a tensiometer and it is always at hand next to the truing equipment. While truing a wheel, I make a check now and then and get closer to the perfect tension step-by-step."

Gerd Schraner is worth listening to for the simple fact that he exhibits a little humility. This is the key passage in his very important book, in my opinion. On the other hand, you are not likely to find "Jobst Brandt" and "humility" linked with each other. Yes, JB has made an important contribution to all wheelbuilders, but I'll take Gerd any day if only because he will admit he can be wrong. Gerd is also a major proponent of tying and soldering which does not garner much support these days. Yup, he's out of date with some things, but at least you can respect his honesty.

The important thing to take away is that a highly respected master wheelbuilder is being honest enough and humble enough to publish - in his book - that a tensiometer is an important tool in wheelbuilding. It's all the same argument as to use, or not to use, a torque wrench. I would bet any amount of money that the guys torqueing down cylinder heads on NASCAR motors are not using a "calibrated elbow". Those days are over.

There's correct ways to do things and half-assed ways. Anyone who has ever particiapated in ISO 9001 qualification is aware that to be consistent you find the best way to measure your process and use it consistantly. A tensiometer is the best way to measure spoke tension and, as quoted from Schraner, you need to refer to it regularly to be consistent.

I have seen this subject debated repeatedly on this and other forums. The basis for virtually all of the arguments against the use of a tensiometer are almost always rationalizations for why not to spend the money to do the job as best you can. I will use the NASCAR analogy again. Do you believe for one second that there is any team in NASCAR that quibbles about the cost of torque wrenches? or the cost of digital pressure gauges that measure to 0.1 lb/in? Please don't argue that using musical notes, or whatever, is as accurate as a tensiometer. It's not, plain and simple.

If you are willing to compromise and "do it by ear", then more power to you. Just please don't try and tell us that it's "as accurate". It's not.

{flame suit ON !!**

You are completely correct, a tensiometer is always more accurate than doing it by hand or ear.

However, I can't justify getting a tool that I will use once every few years. I ride almost every day and I haven't had to build a wheel in over ten years. Your analogy with a torque wrench is well taken, I don't rely on feel for even lug nuts on my car, I always use a torque wrench. And since I use it every time I work on my car, which is more and more these days, I justify the expenditure for the torque wrenches (2).

I used to have a German car that had two timing belts. If you didn't get the tension right, the results were catastrophic engine failure. The manufacturer wanted about $600.00 for the tensiometer to set the belts. Someone showed me how to do it by hand and I put over 50k miles on the car with regular tension checks using the hand method.

I guess my point is, tensiometer is the best, but learning the "by hand" method will yeild very good results without having to rely on a (fairly) rare and costly tool.

Actually, not. You are listening to both spokes resonating at once. I aim for a G. Taking a pair of crossing spokes and squeezing them together gives a pretty good feel for correct tension. e.g., spokes pairs singing at B feel quite a lot tighter than those at G. You should be able to move spokes pairs a few mm towards each other when squeezing them together like that.

Actually, not. I do one spoke at a time. Just like you do with a tensionometer. What you are talking about is tensioning spoke PAIRS, which is relative pitch to each other. That is the equivalent to squeezing pairs. Yes, this is a method that is used for quick checks. But, it does not work if the spokes rattle on each other. What I am talking about is tensioning each spoke.

How do you aim for G on a rear wheel? The two sides are totally different tensions.

If you are willing to compromise and "do it by ear", then more power to you. Just please don't try and tell us that it's "as accurate". It's not.

{flame suit ON !!**

The book that you quoted is talking about doing it by hand vs using measuering equipment (tensionometer). It is very correct, calibrated eguipment is always more accurate.

Going strictly by ear would be the same as going by hand.

Using an electronic tuner is also a very accurate piece of measuring equipment.

eliminating varience is good. Round and straight and even tension is the ultimate goal. but for many of us, getting the first 2 are easy, but making sure that the tension is consistant is not so easy. There must be an acceptable tolerance where we are safe to ride and the wheel will remain true. theory is good to shoot around, but lets hear about practice.

Not on the one you are plucking. If you have two spokes tht cross and buzz on each other, you hold one slightly away ( like a mm) and pluck the other one. If they are touching you will not get a pure pitch for the length of the spoke. You will get harmonics mixed in.

Yeah, Ok, you're right. I must have been having a cerebral enema.

Al