WTF is up with my wheel build
 

This isn't my first build but I"m a rookie. I'm trying to simply lace the friggin things up, i got the first 16 spokes in but when i go to rotate the hub backwards I can't get all the nipples to fall into place. I double checked the measurements and the crazy thing is that the spokes seem way to long yet when I double check the measurements it seems as if anything the calculator says they should be LONGER! WTF is going on? I've screwed the nipples way down already just trying to get the damn hub to rotate and the nipples seat and they aren't even close!!!!!!! I'm ready to break something

Hub = ?
Rim = ?
Holes = ?

=8-)

Only thing I can think of is to check that after the key spoke and corresponding 7 on that first side, double-check to see that you lined things up properly on the opposite flange in the correct starting hole. If not, all your measurements will be off.

Two possibilities.

The first is that you trying fewer crosses than what you calculated for. Check that you're not going for the wrong hole in the rim.

The second possibility is that you have your flanges phased wrong. Sight straight across the hub looking at the near pairs of spokes going in the same direction. If the one in the left flange is to the left in the hub, it must be to the left in the rim. This kind of error is what causes the long-short-long-short kind of problem people often encounter.

Don't you rotate the hub forwards (in the direction the chain will drive it?) This is important because lacing a rear wheel assumes forward twist because otherwise the spokes will cross at the valve hole (instead of being parallel) and interfere with pressing on the pump chuck.

Possibly a few nipples are hanging up and not fully engaging in the rim's spoke holes. It can take a bit of shaking and coaxing to get them all drawn in as you twist the hub.
You don't screw the nipples all the way down at this stage of the build -- just four turns, enough so they don't fall off while you're finishing the lacing. This should give you enough slack to get the next 16 nipples engaged.
Otherwise, if you are sure the spokes are the right length, you could have made an error in the spacing of the spokes as you went around the rim installing them. Or you might have mixed up the offset in the spoke holes in the opposite sides of the hub by getting one-backward instead of one-forward.

Occasionally you will encounter a hub where the spoke holes are not offset but exactly opposite each other. Use these for making paperweights, pepper mills, or mobiles, not for building wheels.

thanks guys, on the other wheels I did, everything went together fine. I'm not sure why this one was such a beyotch but I finally got it to go. I had to tighten them down a lot more than I wanted to or had to do in the past but ultimately none of them are that tight. wheel is all laced up and ready for completion.
Question, any reason to not go ahead and lace up my rear wheel now and then do the final adjustments on both wheels tomorrow? I'm thinking just in case I run into issues, I'd like to bring both wheels to someone to finish them up. I can't imagine there is an issue with just lacing up but I'll defer to you guys

You've already found there was an issue with "just lacing up", so it's safer to imagine that what can go wrong will go wrong.

I like to finish one wheel before starting another. That way if I made a mistake that doesn't show up until well into tensioning (e.g., spokes too long so I run out of threads, or too short so threads are left exposed) I won't copy the mistake into the second wheel. The spoke supplier is unlikely to accept return of the spokes for exchange if they have been laced into a wheel because of the "setting" that occurs during lacing and early tensioning -- they won't look "new" to the next customer. Better to have the second wheel's spokes unused in the box if you need to get them a few mm longer or shorter.

too late i already did it and the same ****ing problem again. if i screw nipples down tigher trying to get all the nipples to go through but then i won't be able to turn the wheel. I don't understand whats up with this rim ohter than the fact that the holes seem to be drilled down the center as opposed to alternating sides

wtf, why is this happening

its been a ****ing hour, what the ****!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!the goddamn nipples will NOT go through the frigging holes. never happened before, what the **** is up with this ****?

The nipples ends are butting into the edges of the holes. Slow down and don't try to rotate the hub and pull all the nipples through simultaneously. With one hand twist the hub. With the other, use a screwdriver to wiggle a nipple that's not through, then the next, then the next. Just one or two of the nipples are hung up. Just work around the wheel methodically until you find the nipple that's stuck. Once you free that one up, the hub will suddenly twist some more. Then another nipple may be hung up. Usually no more than a couple though.

To avoid this, I start with the first key-spoke and the next one going one way, then immediately twist the hub and insert a crossed spoke going the other way to keep the hub twisted. Then lace up all the other spokes in the original direction. Also be sure to start with all the heads-out spokes first.

Hub = ?
Rim = ?
Holes = ?

=8-)

+1. That's my bet. It comes up more often than you might expect.

iro cold fusion rim aka velocity fusion front wheel is 32 hole 2 cross DT REV 1.8/1.5 Rear is 32 hole DS Super comp 3 cross NDS Revolution 2.0/1.5 3 cross it was such a ***** getting them to all line up i literally spent over an hour trying to do it, first tightening up the nipples more then letting them all go really slack. I don't know if it was because the lightness of the spokes or what but i didn't have any trouble like this on the other wheels i first experimented with. at any rate, I got it sorted out now and am making good progress on the front wheel. got it laterally true, have to get a hop out of it and then probably get overall tension up a bit but so far so good!

And maybe a picture to go with it.

Hub = ?
Rim = Fusion
Holes = 32

...and TTIUWP.

=8-)

sigh, this is what happened to me :(

Some rims are drilled down the center, that's not the problem. When you say you rotate the hub and the nipples don't go in, do you mean that you lace both drive and non drive side (every other hole sheldon calls it "trailing" spokes) and twist the hub to get ready for the cross spokes, that all of the nipples are not fitting perfectly into the holes on the rim? If so that is normal. Once you get the cross spokes in there things should start falling into place, some of your spokes might be screwed in tighter, some looser etc making matters seem bad. Also make sure all your spokes are the same spoke size (front wheel? non disc?), that will make matters worse. Have fun and enjoy lacing!

got the lacing figured out, but have a qauestion. I'm doing a 1 cross front wheel (please don't tell me not to do it, it's a done deal) one side has 8 paired up spokes running paralelle while the other side all the spokes are crossing each other. I wish I could explain it better but basically each side are 1 cross (without the spokes touching each other) but they don't look the same/symmetrical. To my knowledge this will be okay if I just finish the wheel appropriately but am I gonna have other problems other than funky aesthetics?

Not sure if you can distinguish on this pic or not

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-z...ss%2Bwheel.jpg

Can someone better describe this situation for me? I'm working on the single cross front wheel and I fixed one mistake but I now suspect that I may have the long short long short thing going on. right now the wheel looks like 8 pairs of paralell spokes on each side. initially it looked like 8 pairs parallel on one side and the other side everything was crossed. Am I making sense here?

Well, if the nipples seem to tighten up OK, that's not it.

Sure.
In, say a 36h 3X build, you can find (almost) parallel pairs if you take one heads-out spoke, then jump over 6 spokes. The 7th spoke should be a heads-in running pretty much parallel. In a 2X pattern it'll be the 5th spoke that's kinda parallel.

I described it earlier but here's another way of looking at it. If you number all the holes in sequence in the rim 1,2,3,4....32. then the numbered holes on the hub would be all even on one flange, and all odd on the other. It's important though that the flanges are phased so if you look straight across hole number 3 is exactly between holes 2 and 4, and so on.

On a radial wheel, you'd simply run spokes from the hub to the correspondingly numbered holes in the rim. Crossing changes that but the phase sequence remains the same. If you look at the so-called pulling spokes which come from adjacent holes in the rim, say the 1st to the right of the valve hole. The first one (nearer the valve), must go to the hole 1/2 position to the left (sighting across) of the of the second. The same situation repeats when lacing the pushing spokes.

You can avoid the issue by loading the 2 spokes that you plan to bring to the first 2 holes to the right of the valve first, one to each flange, remembering that you want both to be head out (per Jobst Brandt) or head in (per myself and most Europeans) Now when the hub is twisted to the right everything else will fall into place automatically.

BTW- I'm surprised that you're electing to build 1x, as this is the least popular lacing pattern and offers no real benefit. However since that's what you have in mind, remember that you shouldn't lace the inner and outer spokes over/under because the cross is too close to the hub and causes excess bend in the spokes.

doing it 1x simply because of spoke length purposes (got great deal on length of spoke that calculator said would be perfect for 1x front wheel, didn't know there was the crossing issue but i'm crossing them without touching)

I think I got it even more jacked up now that I'm probably gonna have to start all over again!

OK, to avoid the error, and get it right, read my prior post while looking at Sheldon Brown's sketch here (scroll down to it). Place your hub right side toward you then the first two spokes you should load into the hub are the orange and yellow ones to the right of the valve hole. These will be your pulling spokes so decide whether you want them head in or out. The offset of the holes in the rim will determine which goes to the right and left flanges, but regardless they have to be in holes such that the yellow one is half a hole to the right of the orange one when sighting across the hub. That's the key which sets the flange phasing, and from there the rest will follow automatically. Get this wrong, and you'll be starting again later.

For one cross, you'll take the spoke one hole to the left of any spoke and bring it across to the rim one hole to the right. For 2x you'd go 3 holes to the left and one to the right, 3x = 5 holes, etc.

I hope this helps.

fb

i think the mistake i made was in where I placed the spoke when I got to the third grouping. I did one cross but then I think i placed it one hole too far. Ultimately I only had to undo half the wheel to get it straightened out but it's good to go now. Thanks for the help everyone!