Sounds to me that you over tensioned the wheel. Jobst Brandt says in his book:
Originally Posted by Jobst
After each round of tightening, test the
tension by stress relieving. If the wheel becomes untrue in two large waves
during stress relieving, the maximum, safe tension has been exceeded. Approach
this tension carefully to avoid major rim distortions. When the wheel loses
alignment from stress relieving, loosen all spokes a half turn before retruing the
wheel.
Originally Posted by
timin8r
But I'm still not 100% sure what I did wrong. Yes I built the wheel tight, probably quite tight, and it was a vintage (aka "old") rim. What I want to know is this, as specifically as you have time for. What steps do you take to “seat the spokes” prior to tensioning?
What do you mean by "seat the spokes"?
Originally Posted by timin8r
After I laced the wheel, and basically got it to where the threads had just disappeared under the nipples, I put on a pair of stout gloves and pushed the outside spokes with my thumbs so they were straight, not bowed.
Sounds good, also grab two spokes that cross and squeeze. This will get a good spoke line.
Originally Posted by timin8r
Also, many times, before and during tensioning, I put on the gloves and massaged (squeezed) the spokes bunches. Sometimes I heard the “tinking” of a spoke head moving into position. Sometimes not. What I did not do, until the very end, was to flex the rim. Should I have done this as well? I guess I feel (felt) like what I had done was sufficient, and that flexing a barely-tensioned rim would not have much of an effect, certainly not as effective as what I was already doing.
The tinking was most likely because the spoke was not unwound all the way. I don't flex the rim. I think it is very hard to determine if all the spokes were stress relieved. It can be a good way to unwind the spokes, I prefer to do it while tensioning. For stress relieving, I prefer to grab parallel spokes and squeeze.
Originally Posted by timin8r
Also, to address what waterrockets said, and by way of additional information, up until the time i flexed the fully (overly?) tensioned wheel, I never had a problem truing it. Additional tensioning always made it better, never worse.
I believe waterrockets is correct. There is a max tension. Once that is reached you will get waves in the rim. The tension needs to be backed off, as mentioned above by Brandt.
Originally Posted by timin8r
I was at my LBS last night and discussed it with one of the fellas there. He said it sounded like it was over-tensioned and “it's always better to error on the side of a little too loose.” I'm not sure I agree with that.
I agree about not to error on the side of too loose. You might not have the wheel as tight as possible, but not too loose.