When truing wheels, I go gradually. Turn the wheel to a spot where it is out of true (rim rubs against the truing stand indicators), make at a 1/4 turn (in the appropriate direction) in the nipples at that location, then - whether the rim is true or not - move to the next trouble spot. Keep going around and around. Little by little, get the rim true. Eventually go to 1/8 turns.
Also, I try to spread the larger adjustments over a few spokes. Not just tighten this one spoke, but also loosen the neighboring spokes on the other side, a little. That helps avoid creating low spots .
If you're willing to find "The Bicycle Wheel", it explains all of this in a clear, short book .
this book?
http://www.amazon.com/The-Bicycle-Wh...+Bicycle+Wheel
I have been at it for literally 4 hours and I finally got the hang of it. I managed to get the wheel spinning straight. I was missing 1 huge concept. You have to find the apex of the bend in the rim and tweak from there out. Once I got that concept everything else fell into place. I replaced about 5 spokes but those a-holes at the bike shop gave me a thicker gauge spoke. They gave me a 2.0 spoke when the wheel has 1.8 spokes.
while I got the left and right variance corrected, I have made an oval out of my wheel. so I've got to address that now.
Park Tool Co. has an awesome web app to help out with this.
The guy at the bike shop told me to put paint on the end of the spoke to keep the nipples from spinning. has anyone else heard of that?
I'm going to eat something before I collapse since I've been so engrossed in this that I have yet to eat.