Originally Posted by
cny-bikeman
Working on round should not generally greatly affect the true, as long as you always turn an even amount of spokes. Of course if you tjurn more spokes on one side than on the other the rim will go out of true.
....Again as noted - doing so requires some skill and a good touch.
Yes, and no. For you and I and experienced wheel builders radial and lateral movements are pretty independent. But for less experienced folks, working on one tends to mess up the other. That's because of the asymmetry in the rear wheel.
The right spokes are at least half again as tight as the left, and have a more radial line of force. So if one were to tighten both right and left adjacent spokes the rim would move in but to the left. Then there's spoke twist which will be more pronounced on the right spokes, so someone lacking feel will think he's doing more than he is.
As you point out, experience and good touch make a world of difference.
My advice is to be very patient and work slowly by degrees toward the goal. Also set a much higher priority on radial correctness, because it's much easier to make lateral adjustments at the end. When the wheel is radially correct, use the left spokes spokes more than the right (almost exclusively of tension is near target) to true the wobble.