Well, got to play this afternoon with a rim that is an absolute pain to get right. It’s a circa 1976 nos ambrosio Montreal. See quote from velo-pages below.
“Very bad! They became rare because they failed. The eyelets don't stand the spoke tension.Even without riding, they can fail”
I built them for my ‘77 Motorbecane c4, but decided on some high flange Normandy Luxe, they are my tester wheels now, a sort of self-flagellation with spokes when I think I’m great, lol! One wrong move and they start an uncontrollable reaction…..anyway, I digress.
I started to feel a strange yearning for my analogue dials, as if It was somehow cheating, chasing a dot on a screen! Then I remembered the Villum that a lot of the bike manufacturers used (not as easy to move around mind!) and felt a lot better!
See
https://hollandmechanics.com/bicycle-wheel/villum/
I tried just following the arrows to see where that took me, I tried a kyudo type approach. The rim didn’t pretzel. Hmm, stop think about what the chart is telling me, go again, and again, loosen a random few off and try again. Once you start to digest the information on the screen you start seeing what is happening at individual spokes. One remarkable thing is how easy the radial shape came, (because you update the reading when you like) that was a big surprise. 0.2-0.3mm runout on radial, lateral and dish came quite quickly, I was trying to chase for more but the weld on that rim said enough!
I now have more information for my brain to process, you realise it does not replace any skills you have it, just gives you more information to get you to where you want to go faster. It is strange you automatically keep looking at the gauges to start with but get used to watching the screen. I found this much easier to see for a longer period, less eye strain.
The wheel dish works really well, and easy to use. I noticed that the spoke tension was all within 1-2 marks on a park tool tm-1 that I am using, just from keeping the lateral and radial where it should. I seriously
want need a digital tension meter so I can link in to the tension program that comes with it.
I have a pair of wheels to build next with 14/15db on drive and 15/16db for all the rest. I would have started them by now but I am waiting for a new de-burring tool for the holes I want to try on the rim before I lace it up. I am looking forward to using this system from a scratch build and will hopefully have more detail to write up. Seriously, I am impressed and relived it still requires a human to think about what they are doing to achieve a good result. I think those analogues are going to get dusty.
Dam, got to go to bed!
ciao.