khatfull

Ok, this is complicated so bear with me

I have three complete or mostly complete original tubular wheelsets/rims for early Fuji bikes. Let me describe them and what spokes each has:

1) Completely original wheels/spokes/hubs. These will be disassembled for cleaning and rebuilt. Spokes are SS and 1.8/1.7/1.8 I believe.

2) Rimset, hubset, and two different sets of spokes front and rear. Front had very nice, SS, 1.8/1.5/1.8 spokes, all came out of the wheel without a hitch, I plan to reuse them. Rear wheel had straight gauge galvanized spokes, they're outta here.

3) Rimset, hub (although I have a match), and a set of pretty much equivalent spokes to what I have above for one wheel, I haven't had a chance to measure them yet but they are definitely 1.8 before the butt.

So, my thinking is:

- #1 gets rebuilt as is after cleaning.
- Use the lighter SS spokes for the front wheels of #2 and #3 and get slightly heavier say 2.0/1.8/2.0 spokes for the rear wheels

Is there some other way I should be looking at this?

Thoughts and opinions welcome. Oh, yes, and I AM reusing spokes. So let's not go down that road.

Bianchigirll 

I don' understand your passion for tearing wheelsets apart for cleaning.

otherwise I see nothing wrong with your plan.

auchencrow

Why don't you want to use the original wheels/spokes/hubs? (They're all SS, and this is certainly a no-cost alternative.)

- But if you really want to use that rim-set from (2) for some reason, then you must buy some kind of spokes for the rear wheel -(Unless of course the spokes from (1) or (3) will fit by some lucky coincidence.)

So, if it's a given that you are buying spokes, what kind of spokes to buy?

- Personally, I would try to avoid mismatched spokes, unless they are free.

khatfull

You know me... You'll see why hopefully when it's all done.

Wheelset 1 is all original and will stay that way.
Wheelset 2 had bad corroded galvnanized spokes on the rear (that weren't original)...so they're gone, leaving only 36 spokes.
Wheel"set" 3 ONLY came with the 36 SS light spokes. Two rims, one hub, one set of spokes.

So two of them are each in need of 36 of some sort of spokes. Either the same, different or otherwise. So the question is how to best use the existing spokes and marry in new spokes to complete the wheels.

The lengths need to be in the 306-309 area (4x on high flange) and light 1.8/(1.5-1.6)/1.8 spokes are hard to find in those sizes.

noglider 

If you're buying new spokes, buy either DT Swiss or Wheelsmith brand and none other. I haven't used Wheelsmith, but I hear they are as good as DT. In my experience, nothing comes close to DT, not even close to close.

And I recommend butted spokes for every application if you can afford them. It's simply a quality/cost tradeoff. Well, there is the extra care to build the wheels, but I assume you can handle that.

ColonelJLloyd 

Keith,
I can't add anything useful really, I don't see any flaw in your rationale.

Slightly off-topic: Has anyone used Phil Wood DB spokes (2.0/1.8/2.0)? I'm going to build a wheelset with a Phil Wood freehweel hub (126mm) and a dynohub (not sure which one). Mavic Open Pros. 32h. Double butted spokes. I just wondered if I should go ahead and order the spokes from Phil Wood when I ordered the hub.

sailorbenjamin

I've heard it said that when you reuse spokes, you should maintain the original orientation,eg, left hand side, forward leading, left hand side after leading, etc.
I've also heard it said that this is BS but i try to do it when I do it.
I went with double butted DT. The LBS had them in stock and not wheelsmith. They were almost $1 each. The guy talked me out of triple butted. They were almost $3 each. They were quite satisfactory.

Zaphod Beeblebrox 

For some reason I find it easier to work with Wheelsmith spokes than DT. I have no rationale or explanation for it....I just happen to feel that way.

That said I have built wheels with either and the end product is equal in my eyes.

I feel like DT has more cachet value on a high end wheelset though.....again no basis for that statement...just my opinions.

Personally I'd use up all the old spokes on one wheelset and buy all new spokes for the Other. I also wouldn't build the rear wheel 4x...Something about going with lightweight spokes and then building them into a 36 hole 4x wheel seems counterintuitive to me. I understand the reasoning (hey, its lighter than 4x with straight gauge!) but I don't see the situation where the added strength of a 4x rear wheel over a 3x one is gonna come into play in this scenario.

buldogge

Run DT Revs on the front and NDS rear, run DT Comps on the DS rear...brass nips all around...done.

BTW...What are the spoke counts?

Didn't we talk about CX-Rays since you scores the rims and hubs for so cheap?!

Chombi

I don't either, It's easy enough to clean built wheels with enough elbow grease but I guess Khatfull might be going for perfection and wants to really clean all the wheel parts to approach NOS condition.
I though I did read somewhere recently that it might be detrimental to the wheel parts to detension and tension the wheels too much. don't remember the details, but I think I read that it affects the aluminum rims and might start propagating stress cracks from the excessive tension release and retensioning cycles that might result from doing so........is it true??....dunno, could be just circulating cyclomyth.....

Chombi

Zaphod Beeblebrox 

Use Spoke Head washers. Because they look awesome.

Peter White seems to have a lot to say on the subject of Spoke Brand.
https://www.peterwhitecycles.com/DTspokes.htm

Although he seems to have a lot to say about a lot of things.

khatfull

This is what I did last night, after thinking about it it made the most sense. Two reasons for the 4x:

1) The wheels came from Fuji that way.
2) The spoke lengths dictate 4x :

So the wheels are Ukai tubular rims, Sunshine HF hubs, and 1.8/1.6/1.8 DB spokes.

Front wheel is 755g, rear 853g, not too bad for a 36H HF wheelset.

dbakl

From my own personal experience I'd say that's true.

Since I usually get my spokes on ebay, I don't really care if they're butted or straight anymore as long as they're stainless and reasonably priced.


Conventional wheelbuilding wisdom says rebuild a hub the same way it was previously built to not add a new set of stresses to the flanges.

4 cross highflange is a nice looking wheel. I have another set to build here...

khatfull

The hubs are definitely rebuilt in the same orientation....I made very sure of that.

I'll have pics of the wheelset tonight...I agree, they're nice looking wheels....all pretty, clean, and polished. Wonder who did that?!

old's'cool

In principle, that is correct. What you are referring to is called "low-cycle-fatigue", and results from relatively high stress applications that are repeated relatively few times, as opposed to "high-cycle-fatigue", which refers to relatively low stress applications (or reversals, if you like) that are repeated a very large number of times. Cracking around spoke holes would be an example of high cycle fatigue (the stess is cycled with each revolution of the wheel (i.e. while loaded with a payload - this is probably greatly exacerbated by inadequate spoke tension, which necessarily increases the cyclic stress amplitude, and can result in spoke fatigue breakage also). Another common example of high cycle fatigue is aluminum connecting rods that are sometimes used in dedicated drag racing engines. The number of races these are subjected to must be strictly limited, lest they fail in use. Each engine revolution constitutes one cycle. Real world examples of low cycle fatigue I can think of are turbocharger impeller explosions (latter day engine modifiers sometimes experience these because they repeatedly spin their turbos beyond intended normal rpm limit. The damage - crack origination and growth - progresses with each high rpm excursion - i.e. not with each revolution of the turbo). Fortunately, reputable turbocharger manufacturers design and test their turbos to ensure that not only impeller but also turbine explosions are contained by their respective housings, before releasing the design to production. Another well known example of low cycle fatigue is the early Comet jetliner disasters. The stress was cycled with each pressurization and depressurization cycle, i.e. once per flight. This is the problem domain for all pressurized aircraft design, which fortunately is well understood in the solution domain, these days.

As for bicycle wheel building cycles, it's a bit of a stretch to think that the stress of building up a wheel combined with the number of repetitions would result in a low cycle fatige failure, but it's not out of the question.

khatfull

Here's the final result, 4x high flange tubular wheels. Built as I mentioned above.

Zaphod Beeblebrox 

Nice work! Next pic is the same wheelset with the tubbies mounted and the wheels NOT covered in tubular glue.