Originally Posted by
CliftonGK1
I never thought much about the dishing gauge, either, until one of the LBS guys asked me about my spiffy new wheels and I told him I built them myself. He plucked a few spokes and said "they look and sound nice, how did you check the dish?" and I mentioned just flipping the wheel in the stand. We measured them with a dish gauge and they were both off to the non-drive side by almost 6mm!
Hahaha! I had a big knock down drag out debate on another site/ forum about the dishing gauge. He said the stand did it right. I said you never know until you VERIFY it with a dishing gauge. He said he has built a ton of wheels for other riders/track racers without a problem. Cool but I ask how do you know it is right if you don't VERIFY it with the correct tool?
That was the exact argument, using the stand to dish. I said fine but the only way you can verify that the dish is correct is by using a dish gauge. My argument was that if you build and are
PAYED/CHARGING to do the job by friends and associates, why not verify the work with dish gauge?
Nothing was resolved other than a few of his friends calling me a ******bag for insisting that using the tool was the correct way to verify the job and that he should use it as it is his business. He still believes he's correct and I still believe that I am in correct in using the tools designed to verify that the job was correctly done.
BTW, I got my Park Dish Tool on sale for $20 some time back. Inflation sucks!
Even the Park site says something similar "a dishtool is not requird but in order to verify a precise specific build, use the dish tool".