Crankycrank

For the expert/pro wheel builders here. What is considered the max acceptable out-of-round/trueness tolerance for a quality build? I can never seem to get mine just perfect but want to know what you guys consider OK.

BCRider

For radial runout I like to aim for 1/32 or less. But with a poor joint or when truing up an older wheel I'll sometimes need to live with a little more than that due to the joint or some kink in the rim from a big hit in its past. For lateral (side to side) I use a dial guage so I can pretty easily set it up to be "flat" within around 5 to 8 thou. And I try to get the dishing of a new wheel set to within around 10 thou or less when the wheel is flipped in my stand.

The numbers certainly don't need to be that "tight" for the lateral and dishing but with the dial guage it's so easy to get them within that range that I just do it that way. On an older wheel where the rim is a bit wonky and I can't seem to get even tension in the spokes with the rim set to true I'll accept up to around 20 to 25 thou of lateral run out rather than pull things so hard that I end up with some spokes running with too little tension.

mrrabbit 

Depends upon the rim more than anything else...

First off, as a general rule:

1. Adequate/Proper Tension is Goal #1
2. Dish (Centering Between Hub Locknuts) is Goal #1a
3. Trueness is Goal #2


Now the gist regarding rims:

For entry-level to mid-range rims such as my KinLin RT-6Ns, ADHNs, MX3Ts, etc., you run into a lot of extrusion and finish defects. For every rim that is perfect - another 9 are not.

So with these I try to aim for +/- .002 in. tolerance vertical and lateral. If I have to settle for +/- .003 in., then so be it.

Bottom-line is, entry-level rims are exactly that.


With high-end or high-quality rims that of course cost a lot more, getting the rim dialed in at +/- .001 in. is often achievable. I can actually accomplish this without the use of a dial-indicator. I'll actually use electrical tape on the points to accomplish this.

I find +/- .001 tolerance often achievable with:

Mavic Open Pros
Mavic CXP-33s
Velocity DeepVs (assuming they aren't from the botched batch from a couple years back...)

...and sometimes with Alex Adventurers...which is really a mid-range rim.


High-end / quality rims simply get more attention in the QC department, especially during the extrusion and joint prepping and fixing process.


=8-)

fietsbob

+1) If the customer is buying top tier parts, the parts are made more accurately
round, and laterally true.
So the finished wheel can be brought into a tighter tolerance, as a complete wheel..

Sixty Fiver

It depends on the parts as some are better than others... for good quality average parts .005 is a good goal point while top tier parts can be built to tolerances of nearly .001 but the trueness of the rim is not as important as having proper spoke tension and correct dish which should also be < .005

The average human can only differentiate .005 without aid and if a wheel is built to a .005 - .008 standard you will not be able to feel this on the ride.

If you are servicing used wheels .010 might be as as good as it gets.

Higher end Mavic wheels are built and machined very precisely and can be built to a very high standard with extremely low deviation... there is a significant difference between the 319 (a very good rim) and the 719 which is a great rim but you pay nearly double for the 719.

I build more mtb, touring, and commuter specific wheels and do restorations on vintage bikes... among other things.

eddy m

It's interesting that you accept 1/32 (or 30 thousands) for radial run out but you want less than 10 thousands for lateral run out. Usually, builders want the same or less radial run out than lateral.
The rest of you guys are just playing one up on each other. If you are truing to less than 20 thousands (0.5 mm) you are not leaving enough room to equalize tension. A half mm radial or lateral is unnoticeable when riding.

em

Batavus

+1. I find that 0,5 mm is adequate, but my perfectionist side always tries to get it within 0,1 mm. I have never been able to do that radially, not even with a quality rim. Laterally, on occasions I get the near perfect rim.

Maybe a dial guage will get more precise results more easily.

Batavus

Besides, there is nothing more frustrating than getting a rim near perfect, mounting the tire and the tire being horribly out of true with the bead seated correctly. Especially Schwalbe tires are all wonky when it comes to that.

San Rensho 

I agree with your "goals", but .002 in tolerance is way overkill. That's approaching the piston/cylinder clearance for car engines.

And what's the point of getting it to that close tolerance when it will never stay there? Get your wheels as true as you possibly can, then go for a ride around the block and I guarantee you that the variation will be nowhere near .002.

Anything within less than a millimeter tolerance is more than adequate for anybody.

davidad

Half a mm or less.

Sixty Fiver

My goal is to build 0/0 wheels with ideal tension... they have yet to build components to this quality level so we settle for a little less.

Have built wheels that were <.002 and have stayed at <.002 after being pounded into the ground (literally).

Just finished building a new wheel and it was .005 lateral and .010 radial and it is off to tour the world for a year.

What do you do for a living ?

Maybe we can tell you how to do your job.

mrrabbit 

As Sixty Fiver, myself and others have already hinted at:

There's lofty goals.

Then there's reality.

Our bunk buddies "compromise" and "settle" keep us somewhere in between.

=8-)

BCRider

As mentioned I TRY to build to better than that but if my rim runs out to UP TO .30 thou radially and all the other stuff comes out well I don't sweat about it. I have yet to pay the price to get tires that run to more trueness than that anyway. Along the way at getting the tension and lateral trueness up to snuff if the radial ends up running out in a smooth manner and I just can't seem to pull things back and still keep the tensions nice and equal then I'm willing to live with a bit of radial runout.

Having said this I've only done about 10 sets of wheels from new and rebuilt another 8'ish used ones by slacking off the mess of spokes and re-tensioning and re-trueing to produce wheels that I could then use. So I don't have the background that someone doing this for a living has. I also very seldom work with the very top end products as I choose to go with "best bang for the buck" middle of the road options which may not be as nicely made.

sknhgy 

I would think that if you left a rim sit in the sun while you get coffee, the rim will deflect more that what some of you are trueing to.

mrrabbit 

...and get a lotta miles with the thief too...

SuperFatDave

Question for you all then, are you talking of the numbers provided by a Park TS-2di or a similar product?
I ask as I have built 13 wheels and I would like to build another 5 in the next month or so. I would like to improve the quality of the wheels I build from this point forward.
I have a Park TS-2.2 truing stand w/an adjustable base. I have a dishing tool, a spoke tension meter, upright stand extenders and a variet of spoke wrenches.
Besides the guages are there any other products/tools that you recommend I aquire to assist me in improving my wheelbuilding?
Also are threadlockers such as spoke prep, nopple freeze, loctite or linseed oil more of a professional touch or a precaution, as correct spoke tension is a must wether one uses the "crutch or not"?
Any tips/suggestions you have would be appreciated.

mrrabbit 

You pretty much have everything you need:

1. Grab a few of the flathead bits at the checkout counter at OSH or Home Depot. File or RotoZip one until you still have a flat screwdriver bit but with a 1.5mm long point in the middle. Using a 6V-9V slow power screwdriver with this bit will help speed up thread take-up. Gotta go slow in case the spokes are a tad short so you don't "burn" the rim seat at the holes - in that case stop at a few threads showing...lube the nipple seats...take up the rest.

2. Take another one of the bits and do the reverse. Grind away the center a good 3mm so that you can easily remove stripped nipples that also happen to have spoke poke thru that gets in the way of using a screwdriver to remove the nipples. Comes in very handy when removing corroded aluminum nipples from overly long spokes.

3. 3/8" - 1/2" electrical tape. I cut little squares off...

- place one on the side of the preferred truing stand point with only 1mm stick inward.
- place on on the bottom of the preferred truing stand point with only 1mm sticking upward.

These provide a very sharp and fine edge for fine truing - and easily allow .002 in. truing with the naked eye even with poor eyesight or glasses. My dial-indicator gets touched maybe once or twice a year per the 200-400 wheels per year that I build.

4. Grab a spoke ruler and a very small metric right angle - say 6 in. by 6 in. max. Also grab a cheap metric caliper. These work together well to measure exact hub dimensions - especially when restoring hubs to spec with locknuts, spacers, etc. I use 'em frequently when converting 7spd cassette hubs to 8/9 speed cassette hub and vice versa.

5. Grab some cheap dental syringes from your Dentist. Cut off about half of the curved nozzle so that you get a 1/8" bead. Fill with Park Tool grease...handy lightweight grease gun is ready for use.

Overall you are pretty well equipped already...

=8-)

Sixty Fiver

I use a little light oil for most spoke prep and if bikes are going to get ridden in our harsh winters will use blue loctite or anti seize compound but modern quality spokes are so good that they really don't need much, if anything unless you are looking at extreme conditions.

You could buy the Park gauges... my partner and I both worked as machinists and come with our own sets of dial indicators and measuring tools and neither one of us own a "professional" truing stand and have built our own.

My dial indicators also serve as dishing gauges and have also built wheels using the bike's frame, the brakes and a few zip ties to take measurements. The tools are only as good as the person using them and many people get good results without making a great investment in the blue stuff.

I tension and true by ear and touch and Jobst's methodology unless I am working with unfamiliar components and exotic builds and will only use the tension meter to check my work and tensions which are always within spec.

My fingers have been doing this for a long time... some of my own wheels have 10's of thousands of km on them and have never have needed another touch from the wrench and have retired quite a few wheels because of straight up wear that have never needed adjustments.

I am really light so don't put the same kind of stress on my own wheels but do haul a lot of stuff, ride some insane miles, and pull a trailer with a number of my bikes so many of my wheels are overbuilt... a high percentage of our clients are really big riders or tandem pairs who have broken and bent nearly everything on their bikes and have decided that investing in a set of custom wheels that will not fail is a good idea.

Most of the wheels I build are for people who have not been happy with stock wheels and am also the wheel builder for our frame shop where we specialize in building custom touring bikes and tandems so I tend to build some of the strongest wheels out there while other folks have more of a focus on lightweight racing wheels.

My partner is a very skilled wheel builder and used to build what he called 0/0 wheels for racing (when he built racing bikes) and I have a set of these that he built 20 years ago... measured out they are still .001 / .001 and he took things to an extra level by gently heat treating his built wheels to de-stress them before putting on any final touches. He also builds his own hubs so has total control over those and has had custom rims made to his specifications and we still have a number of blanks that can be drilled for whatever spoke pattern we desire.

As for the OP... if your wheels come out 5 by 5 and all the tensions are balanced you are going to have a great wheel but the materials you use will be the limiting factor so if the run out is 10/10 and everything else is done right you will still have a wheel that is better than most anything you can buy.

krome

The europeans have a standard that covers wheel trueness. EN 14764. I'm going on memory, but they are happy with 1mm lateral tolerance for rim brakes and 2 mm for disk brakes. Radial was about the same if I recall (1mm or so). It is a pretty loose tolerance. I'd consider it good enough for "consumer grade". I'd hope that a professional mechanic would do better, and hold at least 1mm regardless of brakes used. From a use standpoint, not competition, I'd say the euro spec is fine for general use. For rim brakes, I'd want as good as reasonably possible. If I'm in competition (which I don't ever plan to be in) I might want to use a dial indicator, but that is getting a little overboard, IMHO.

I presume the euro spec I mention is their equivalent to the Consumer Product Safety Commission's role in the US. I'd treat it as a minimum standard for most things bicycle related. Not ideal or best.


Edit: to the OP
"Quality build" is a vague metric. If I'm building up cheap rims on cheap hubs with cheap spokes, I'm gonna hold myself to a different standard than if I'm using a quality rim, with quality hubs and quality spokes. I expect the wheels to be true enough for their intended use. I could say "I'm never using cheap parts" but I also would say that you need to do what the customer desires, within reason. Saving money is a reason. Time equals money. Truing rims to a higher than needed tolerance usually takes more time. Cheap, accurate, durable, pick any two.

Crankycrank

Thanks for all the replies everyone. This is for some new Mavic Open Pro Ceramics and I have been able to get within .5mm so think I'll leave it at that. Thanks again.

SuperFatDave

FIRST OF ALL THANK ALL OF YOU FOR THE IFFO YOU SAHRED!!!
I am 240lbs and if I ever see 200 or 210lbs again I'll be livin a dream.
With a couple of exceptions I have been riding handbuilt wheels since the early/mid 90's.
My wheels had to be replaced to due braking surface wear. I have never broken a spoke since switching to handbuilt wheels.
My friend and mentor and a number of coworkers use the squeeze method. He checked my first 7 wheels this way, as it's the way he checked the wheels he built for me.
An equal number of my coworkers use tension meters to get the tension as high and consistent as possible.
I am in the process of converting one of my bikes from v brakes to cable actuated disc. I have another bike that goes between being a single speed and using a 7 speed internally geared hub. I also have a Trek 520, Trek/Gary Fisher Utopia and soon I will be assembling a Surly Karate Monkey, so I will have a variety of 6 bolt disc touring/29er wheels to share amongst thos e 3 bikes.
Oh, and throw in the road wheelset that I may build for my 220lb cousin.
So I just want to continue learning as there is still much to learn ... I just want to build my wheels to the best standards that I can find and then achieve.
AGAIN THANKS FOR THE INFO YOU SHARED!!!
Now I just gotta get over the power tool phobia I have [ SMILES ].

mechBgon

I have the TS-2di add-on kit for my TS2.2. It's 99% for show, 1% for telling Trek's QC guy just how egg-shaped their factory wheels REALLY are. In actual use, I true and round much more efficiently by sight and sound, and have no particular tolerance numbers in mind, it just depends on how good the wheel will let me get it. If you true better with dials then that's fine too.

If you want to focus on your wheelbuilding skills, then stressing the wheel repeatedly as you level-up the spoke tension is a good technique to work on. Thread treatment is also worthwhile; my favorite's linseed oil (unboiled) if you don't mind waiting a long time for it to cure. DT's ProLock nipples are an exception, just use them as-is with dry threads.