rc50

Hi hope all are great... Just wondering if any one could tell me what a good wheel truing stand would be for someone that just builds wheels for himself.. and not alot of them ?

thanks any and all help thanks a ton

rc

Wordbiker

The cheapest one.

Seriously, if all you do is an occasional build, a high quality stand is not necessary. That said, Minoura's latest revision of their portable stand looks promising.



It now handles 29er wheels, self-centering and looks a bit more durable than the previous iteration. It also folds up compact for storage: A real bonus for mobile or occasional jobs.

sivat

Self centering is a big plus. It can cut quite a bit of time off of a build or truing. The Park TS-2 is the best one around in my opinion, but it can be hard to justify the $200 if you're only going to use it twice a year.

enigmagic

TS-2 is great, I like the hozan stand a bit better, but that's a bit out of the scope here.

That minoura stand is fantastic for the cash, the park consumer stand isn't half bad either, though I'd side with the self-centering.

Sixty Fiver

WB - My favourite stand was even cheaper...

dabac

Fairly similar to mine, but mine hasn't got a base. I clamp then in a vise instead.
I'm actually using two old forks, one spread enough to hold a rear wheel, one left as-is.
I've also drilled and threaded a couple of holes to let me use screws instead of zip ties as trueness gauges. An old front fender bracket serves at a roundness guide.

Good_Karma

I just bought the Minoura and was very impressed with the quality of it. For the price I was expecting something light weight and flimsy, basically I thought that I'd be disappointed.

When I picked up the box it had a weight to it that I wasn't expecting. The design seems sturdy and easy to use.

I am doing my first wheel build using this stand and have been happy with it so far.

digger

Oh that's neat! I LOVE DIY stuff, now I have to do one.

So the zip ties are just rotated to lightly touch the rim for side to side truing, but what about roundness? What do you use for dishing?

operator

The TS-2 doersn't self center.

operator

Radial you're ****ed. Dishing you can jus flip the wheel.

digger

So when you flip the wheel, you use the fork drop outs to compare dishing? Is that what you mean?

Wordbiker

Heh, my favorite was free...



...but not everyone is that lucky.

I love the VAR, but it's so old school no one at the shop likes it, so I keep it at home now. We use the TS-2 there mainly because they accept a disc rotor truing attachment.

mparker326

You just make sure that both sides of the wheel are the same distance to the zip after you flip the wheel.

For radial, I have a zip tie that I slide up from the bottom and let it lightly touch the rim.

Sixty Fiver

Love it !

I have an ancient trueing stand at THE shop (that I would love to bring home) along with a pair of TS 2's...will have to snap some pics for ya.

digger

Ah of course, if the hub is centered in the rim then the rim will be equidistant from the zip ties.....stupid brain....

Sixty Fiver

You still have to flip it (the zip ties aren't that accurate)... verniers work well for checking the dish.

Al1943

+1
Self centering it's not.
Flip the wheel on the stand if you want to know when the rim is centered.

Al

FLYcrash

The mtbr.com reviews favored Performance's Spin Doctor stand, so that's what I got.

I'm pleased: it's plenty sturdy and accurate for the home wheelbuilder. The radial truing mechanism is a little hard to use for me, but I can't think of a better design offhand.

I don't trust the auto-centering...I pair the truing stand with a Park dishing gauge. That dishing gauge is perhaps one of the most overpriced tools considering what it does. (You could probably kludge one out of a few blocks of wood and a screw for all of $2 or so.) However, it does the job nicely, and I don't regret having it now that the money is gone for good.

eddy m

I have one like that, but I use an old pair of handlebars for the base. It's not so stable so I need to attach the dial directly to the fork.
Pro builders mostly seem to think that the dial slows them down, but I find it faster than using anything else, plus it gives me a some confidence when I remeasure the wheel and it hasn't changed after a couple of hundred miles.
The fork also holds the wheel strongly enough that I can push the rim sideways to take some pressure off the spoke I am tightening. You can't do that with most inexpensive stands, or with that fancy antique Var for that matter.
I'm also trying to make a tensiometer with a dial indicator. My first attempt at that failed, but I think I have the solution now.

em

sivat

Assuming you have it adjusted properly, the clamps move in unison, so it does self center. At least that's the case with the one sitting in my den.

Joshua A.C. New

I don't love my Spin Doctor, but I've made four wheels on it and they all work. Centering seems to be OK, but the guage is a bent piece of sheet. The Minoura up there looks much better.

Al1943

It's not the case with the one in my garage. The uprights move in unison but the angle of the uprights changes with different locknut spacings and the locknuts are not uniform in shape or size so the only time it stays centered is when the uprights are perpendicular to the wheels axle which occurs when the span is somewhere between 130 and 135 mm drop out spacing. When you switch to a front wheel it's no longer centered. Try reversing a front wheel on the stand.
A few years ago Calvin Jones, head mechanic at Park Tools posted to forums that the TS-2 did not center rims and that the TS-3 did. Later Park Tools advertised that it did and Calvin has not addressed the subject since. The uprights on the TS-3 remain perpendicular to the wheel axle as the span changes.

sivat

The easy fix to this is to get a couple of 15mm spacers to put on either side of the locknut to make the front hub 130 mm wide. It's never been an issue for me though, since the contact area on all of the locknuts on the wheels i've built have been round so the slightly different angle hasn't effected the centering.

Al1943

Already tried that, didn't work at all. There was no axle left to fit into the upright notches.

bellweatherman

Al1943 is right. The self-centering mechanism on the Park TS-2 is all marketing. The arms angles DO NOT move the same. I think the one on the right actually moves more based on my experience. The adjusting know that moves the arms is also on the right.

If the self-centering arm worked to true precision you could put any size wheel in and it would work. It doesn't. Let's say you just built a front wheel, now you open up the arms to put in a rear wheel. The tighter you tighten the arms, the more it puts the wheel out of dish with the calipers. And no. You can't decide you want to lightly put the wheels in each and every time and have repeatable results. The only way you get a appropriately dished wheel with the TS-2 is if you use a dishing tool. So, the claimed self-centering mechanism is essentially useless.