Spoke Tension
 

Greetings-
when measuring spoke tension with the Park TM-1, are the wheel manufacteur's spoke specs for rims with installed tires at full pressure, or are they for rims only? I notice a significant difference between the two. Taken without tires, tension is somewhat over, or at high end of the specs. With iinstalled tires, tension is well within.

generally tension is measured without tire inflated

With wheel stress relieved and properly dished:

"Without tire inflated."

=8-)

If measuring tension and comparing to a published spec it must be done without tires inflated. The reason is very simple if you take a moment to think about it.

If tire inflation causes the tension to change, than the amount of change would vary according to the pressure. That means a manufacturer cannot publish a tension spec with tires inflated unless he also specified the inflation pressure at which the measurement is to me made.

There's also the practical consideration of requiring a wheel builder to mount and inflate a tire in order to check tension, then to remove it when done, or to work on the wheel more.

It's analogous to your height. You measure it without shoes on otherwise the measurement would change daily depending on which shoes you wore, this would mean that a woman would have to give her her height as a range that varied through a range of 5 inches or so.

Thanks all
FB what you say is very logical. Makes sense. I kinda thought that, but wanted to be sure.
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