Originally Posted by
corrado33
We sell 27" rear wheels with aluminum rims for 20-30 bucks. (Rears are... rare (they're often the first to break), and the price reflects that.) Do yourself a favor and buy an aluminum rim version. (Steel rims are kinda awful.)
How would you go about fixing this wheel? If it were me, I'd try to fix it by tightening/loosening spokes first. If that didn't work or resulted in unsatisfactorily tensioned spokes, I'd go to more extreme methods. Basically I'd stand on the wheel and jump on the high spot to try to get it back into round. A bit of "percussive" maintenance. That is a relatively large bump though.
While low spots may be actual bends in the rim, usually the result of an impact, high spots are almost always the result of spoke work, and rarely anything to do with the rim itself.
But we need to keep in mind that a rim is sort of like an arch bridge, and as you pill a high spot in, you have to give the "sides" room to spread. A common error of beginners s to try to pull the high spot in, without making room, causing outrageous local tension, and ultimately a weak wheel.
So,
BEFORE trying to pull the high spot in, loosen the spokes to either side, then locate low areas which need to come up, and loosen spokes there accordingly. That will give the rim room to move and spread out equally.
Also, while everyone discusses tension, the real consideration is spoke length. It's the effective (stretched) spoke length that locates it's part of the rim in the right place, both radially and sideways. So, keep in mind that every full turn of a nipple relates to about 1/56" or about 0.5mm of radial movement either way. Sideways the multiplier is much greater, so you need to think in factions of turns.
Once you learn to think about the flow of rim material, and get a feel for response, aligning warped rims becomes much easier, and you'll be surprised at what can be brought back from the brink.