I've been reading through various brandt archives and came across something that gave me pause for thought:

He goes on to say that

But then he describes a method for doing so:

So which is it? Is it possible to handbuild 16 or less spoke wheels with the proper tension or not? I wished he'd post on bikeforums.

Looks like you can only build those wheels by hand if your Brandt and you don't do it in your spare time...

I wonder how tight the spokes will have to be when they get around to building wheels with 4 or 8 spokes...LOL!

I guess the front wheel on my SS doesn't work then. (16s AC Micro 58 hub/Velocity Aerohead rim)

Of course, I have no sophisticated equipment so I don't have a clue what the tension is. Tightened it up with a trusty Park on an el-cheapo Minoura stand. Ridden on it since last spring without re-truing.

(and FWIW, I'm borderline Clyde)

It's been done but the spokes were over 1" wide. They were more like wagon wheels than spoked bike wheels.

If you have access to a truing stand that's sturdy enough, and anchored to something that's heavy enough so that you can give the rim a decent sideways pull while tightening the spoke, then you can get the proper tension.

Another way would of course be if you have an endlessly patient helper, then one could do the "spoke untwist" thingy with pressing the wheel down against the axle while the other is tightening the spoke.

He used to post at cyclingforums.com, but that site has been badly hit by spam recently. Don't expect too much though, he can be quite testy at times.

I rebuilt a "Sweet 16" tandem wheel for an acquaintance. The instructions I was given said to walk the spokes up to 95 on my wheelsmith tensiometer. Those were some pretty stout spokes so I imagine that might equate to 175 or 200 kgf. At the time I only had one of those little wrenches that Shimano supplies with their wheels. My fingers ached by the time I was finished. Since then I've acquired a longer, more finger friendly wrench for working with low spoke Shimano wheels.

The bottom line is I was able to do it and the wheel has lasted for a year and a half (so far).

Jobst is saying it's too high of tension to do it without unloading the spoke. He makes a stab at humor about that being a pain in the ass. Then he describes how to unload the spoke.

Is there a reading comprehension problem here?

What I didn't quote was how he says that < 24 spoke wheels cannot be handbuilt in another conversation. So he's saying it can be done and can't be done in different posts. Which is it? Spoke unloading - does that only work for box section rims or deeper section ones like deep v's?

If it doesn't work for deeper section rims, how do you unload the spoke then?

If you want to be a jerkbag, go right ahead and do it - but answer the question at the same time.

You might want to invest in a tension meter before you end up investing in new teeth! Aeroheads are very sensitive to spoke tension.

This was 24h 2x under a 155 lb rider, btw.

Jobst is only human, and strongly opinionated at that. He doesn't approve of low spoke count wheels on general principles, so it's not surprising if he would unintentionally blur the line between what he considers shouldn't be done and what "can't" be done.
It's not "can't be done" as a physical impossibility, but rather "can't be done" as in difficult, uncomfortable, time consuming and without particular merit.

Use high quality stuff and some extra consideration and it should still be doable.

Spoke unloading as he describes it is done by putting a lateral load on the rim, and there's not that much difference in lateral rigidity between box section and deep V.
If he'd been doing spoke unloading by putting a radial load on the rim instead, then it would indeed be much harder to achieve that on a deep V rim.

Sorry if I offended, but the question at the bottom of your original post was answered within the post. It seemed like you were just out to pick on JB, not ask a question. If you have a question for JB, he's over on rec.bikes.tech all the time.

Putting what JB says aside, yes, you can build low count wheels by hand. Deflecting the rim will unload a spokes in the direction of the deflection. With deeper rims, it becomes much more difficult to unload by squeezing adjacent spokes together -- and impossible with low count wheels because adjacent spokes are not anywhere near parallel for squeezing.

It always seemed to me that anyone born before 1950 insists on nothing but 36 spokes laced 4 cross. The guy who taught me to build wheels literally yelled at me when I took some 36h rims he gave me and laced the front radially. I weighed 120 at the time and never had to true a wheel unless I crashed (or someone crashed into me).

I didn't realize I was having so much trouble

^ It looks like you have alloy nipples so you are probably undertensioned, which is actually a good thing. That means you risk breaking a spoke, but that's better than a rim failing. I always figured you could get away with far fewer spokes on the front than people think. The late Sheldon Brown agrees with that as well.

I did it and I didn't have to push the rim sideways to unload the spoke. The only concession I made was to grease the outside of the nipple where it interfaced with the hub.

No, this is a genuine question. I've obtained some 14/16h shamal rims and ordered some custome phil wood drilled for those rims - just wondering if i've now made a mistake if they truly are unbuildable by humans.

In which case i'm going to unload them on ebay

Ya know, I've trued such wheels in the past before, and the truing tool you can buy for Shamals with the hidden nipples does not require a machine. I think if you spoke prep or otherwise lube the spokes, you will be fine. I would avoid alloy nipples so you won't risk rounding them out when you get up into the high tension range, but the rest seems perfectly possible.

edit: I didn't notice the ebay unloading comment. In that case it can't be done at all and I'll take them off your hands so you don't have to deal with ebay.

I was born before 1950 and am perfectly happy with 32 spoke wheels and, even lower spoke counts and radial lacing as long as they are done well and used in appropriate circumstances, like not for full loaded touring.

One of the reasons for older wheel builders conservatism is that spokes and rims now are much better than they were in the 70's and prior. Box section and deep section rims are much more rigid than the open channel rims that used to be common, newer Al alloys are much stronger and stainless steel spokes are far more durable than their Cd or Zn plated predecessors. Using modern building formats back then lead to early and frequent wheel failure.

You can build them. One trick I've learned with really high spoke tensions is to tighten each one in two steps. Get some pliers, and wrap the jaws in tape to prevent marring the spoke. Turn the nipple 1/4 turn, then hold it in place while you turn the spoke 1/4 turn to untwist the spoke. This way you're not fighting two friction sources at the same time. It turns out to be a lot less likely to round out the nipple at very high tensions. I lube everything with oil too.