If you had to choose between two tools needed to build a good wheel, which one one you pick: Spoke Tension Meter or Dishing Tool? I have most of all the other tools required to build a wheel but these two.
Cheers

I'd use the homemade dishing tool (cans and coins) and get the tension meter. Or skip it.

I have still never used a tension meter. I built many wheels before tension meters were invented, so I haven't felt the need.

I do like having a dishing tool, but I don't consider it essential. I've occasionally used two stacks of books or whatever what was on hand.

The most essential tool is a set of excellent spoke wrenches.

If lacing wheels, it's nice to have a modified screwdriver for driving nipples in. I just file the sides of the blade so the middle sticks out. I did this with a super-cheapo screwdriver. Works well.

Mine, its the Bicycle research nipple screwdriver https://www.bicycleresearchtools.com/nd1.gif
It makes getting the turns per nip count, around the wheel, as you go around bringing the tension up , easier..

I can flip the wheel over in the truing stand to fake the dish gage .

I'd say neither unless you've built or plan to build a number of wheels. You don't need either, but a dishing gauge is more convenient than the can and coin method. As for the tension meter, if you build using a wide variety of spoke gauges and rims, than a tension meter is a useful tool to ensure that your spoke tension is within your target range. But then, o0f course, it helps to know hat that range is.

Yup, I used that nipple driver years ago. It's definitely much nicer, but it's hard for the home mechanic to justify the cost. I only build a couple of wheels a year.

got it decades ago .. likewise the Park stand .. used finds ..

Between the two, I'd go with the dishing tool. I built probably twenty wheels before I got a tensionmeter but I relied on the dish tool extensively. By the way I made a dish tool. Found a pattern for one on the internet and cut it out of plywood with a jigsaw to which I attached a wooden ruler which slides up and down. Works like a charm. I also made a nipple driver in the manner previously mentioned. There are a lot of "work around" alternatives to expensive Park tools.

Tension meter.
You can flip the wheel in the truing stand or even the bike for dish.

If you want to work quick, dishing tool.

...and make your own nipple driver using the .69 bits at the hardware counter bucket.


If you want to ensure consistent tension on the non-drive side spokes AND have an idea number-wise where you're at for all sides of a wheel - tension meter.

...but many of us here can bypass the tension meter for the NDS consistency issue by just spinning the wheel and rapping the spokes for a rogue spoke sound test.


But as FB slightly hinted - you can go without both for awhile - and focus on simply honing skills basic to wheel building: Truing, recognizing rim response to tension and stress relieving a wheel.


Most of us here have built quite a few wheels without either...and no one has died because of it as far as I know.


=8-)

All I use are:
* old spoke to dip the nipples in oil and start them thru the rim on to the spoke.
* spoke wrench.
* home built truing stand with center zero stainless steel metric ruler (better than a dishing tool).
* Harbor Freight dial indicator on a magnetic base - can measure both radially and axially.
* ears - for determining adequate tension. Resonance frequency is a the best indicator of tension in a rod (spoke).

I have no problem getting wheels to ±.005" both radially and axially; of course the tires are no where near that good.....

I bet we'd all love to see pictures of this stuff.

I second that!

Come on guys. This isn't the dark ages.

We need video.

If you want to build a set of wheels quick and dirty, get the dishing gauge. If you want to build a set of wheels that will be as strong as possible and hold their trueness, get the tensionmeter.
I find a tensionmeter seriously invaluable. Plucking spokes and listening to the tone is something they did in the 1970's because they didn't have the cheap tech we have now.

Ditto to all of the above. I've built perfectly suitable and durable wheels using nothing more than a flipped-over frame to true the wheels. Dishing was just a process of flipping the wheel around to compare the offset to one fixed point.

It helps to have learned on a quality truing stand. The Park Tool TS-2 has a centering feature. While not perfect, it really helps shorten the learning curve of getting a wheel round, true, and centered.

I'm going to jump in and say "nipple driver".

After lacing the wheel, the first thing that I do is to stick my thumb nail into the last spoke thread and run the nipple up till it stops. That starts each spoke at the same point. Then I build tension into the wheel by counting the same number of turns on each spoke. I once built a 40 spoke (dishless) tandem wheel that required no truing at all using this method.

Most of the wheels I've been building lately are deep section carbon rims. I tried long toothpicks and kabob skewers for inserting and starting the nipples, and then I tried a Wheels Mfg nipple starter. It locks onto the nipple so you can put it down into a deep rim and get it started.
It worked well in theory, but it did not really hold the nipple securely, and I'd often find myself shaking a loose nipple out of a rim.
Then one day, a friend of mine was here visiting while I was building a wheelset. He saw the tool I was using, and said," hey, that looks just like the screw starter tools I have."
He is a retired industrial instrument installer, and has all kinds of cool tools he no longer uses. He went to his car and came back with one of these.
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I've been using it ever since and never lost grip on the nipple, even in rims as deep as 80mm.

I use my awl. It holds the nipple just tightly enough to insert it into the rim and twist it a turn or so onto the spoke. And I don't have to align it with the slot in the nipple. I HATE it when a nipple gets lost in the rim extrusion.

For the relatively few wheels I build, I just use a spare spoke to hold the nipple.
Put it on the spoke "backwards" a couple turns, insert onto the "real" spoke and spin it on a few turns from the hub side.
I haven't had to fetch a nipple out of a double wall rim yet.

I don't use a dishing tool. I just flip the wheel in the stand or dropouts. I like a tensiometer for the same reason I like a torque wrench, it makes functionally important parameter quantitative that otherwise you'd just be guessing about. Kinda like using a volt meter to determine whether an outlet is 120 or 220 rather than just going by feel.

How often do you test voltage by feel?

I have a stand, nipple driver, dishing tool, nipple (screw) starter, Park spoke wrenches and a Wheelsmith tensiometer. I only need the spoke wrenches and tensiometer. The other tools make the job easier.

I worked with an old guy who was the head of the maint dept, he flicked fuses with his finger to find a burnt out one.

He would grab YOUR arm and say "see lookit this" and flick his finger across each one, the one that did not zap you was the blown one. He used a rapid flick that would not allow the power to "lock" him to the energized component. Still I thought of it as incredibly stupid, but he was 70 at the time and had been doing it for 55 years he said.

Bill

+1

and +N on the suggestion to get a good spoke wrench.