I'm considering this truing stand, and wonder what you guys think. I'm not (yet) building wheels from scratch, but would like to perform some rudimentary straightening.

While I don't do enough truing to justify a pricey alternative, I would like something a bit more user-friendly than an upside-down fork. Thanks!

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Bike-Wheel-...kAAOSwqVBZYGLw

Don't you mean this for your C&V bike?

https://www.ebay.com/itm/PreciRay-TR...E/352286098261

Your truing stand looks nice, and is quite cheap. Perhaps worth it to try out. It isn't clear how it deals with 100mm, 126mm, 130mm, 135mm, and other wheel widths. Perhaps the seller could better explain how it adjusts.

Hmmm, it appears to have two width settings.

Think used. If you are patient, you can get a nicer Park pro truing stand at a reasonable cost.

That should work fine for occasional wheel truing and building......
Only thing you could add to make it easier to use is a wheel dishing tool that would speed up centering between the locknuts., but you can just flip the wheel a couple of times on the stand and you should be able to center it without one.

My concern is that it looks light. I'm guessing that play will develop relatively soon in the pivots and the rods that hold the caliper don't look very beefy. I have a very crude stand I have used for 30 years. Nothing fancy and several fasteners have broken, but repairing them with good ol' American hardware has been cheap and effective. IT doesn't fold up but takes very little closet space with the caliper arm up.

A dishing tool can be a real plus.

Ben

A lot of things work just fine as truing jigs.

I've posted this pic before. After about 10-15 years of not building a wheel (previously a few hundred at various LBS's) I decided to build a set, but didn't have a jig at the time. Ten cents worth of zip ties did the job:

Used Park ts-2, tension meter, and wag-5 cost a total of $150 or so. As wrk101 said, be patient and buy quality.

My first thought, as another poster mentioned, is the light weight, and you may find you have to modify it to keep it stable on your work bench. My guess is home made will work just as well for simple truing jobs. Keep an eye on Richmond and Norfolk CL and a nice will pop up soon enough. There was a Park stand on Richmond CL not too long ago.

You’ve gotten several good ideas here. I like the zip tie method. On the other hand, if you’re willing to wait a bit perhaps CL might have something. That’s where I bought the Park TS 2.2 for a steep discount.

Of course, if you’re only building a few wheels it wouldn’t be cost effective.

I've got one very similar to the one in the eBay ad. It is indeed lightweight--in other words, flexible, that's how it acccomodates various rear hub widths. It is sufficient for trueing up a wheel but is worthless for centering the wheel (setting dish). If you remove the wheel and flip it over, it may or may not flex back to its original position. It's just too flexible to have a repeatable position for centering.

But mine did come with three decent spoke wrenches. Woo hoo.

My advice--save your money and use your bike frame as your centering stand. If you intend on building a bunch of wheels, get a better stand.

For years I used a Cycle Pro folding stand that was more than adequate for the occasional wheel tune-up. Niagara has a Sunlite copy that sells for about $50.

https://i.imgur.com/CNd8WFQ.jpg

As has already been stated, the Park TS-2 is the way to go. There's a good reason why it's the industry standard. If you can find a used one for under $100, you're golden for a lifetime. I personally don't care for Parks cheaper version, the TS-8. Kinda cumbersome to use and only allows truing from one side at a time.

Also, if you're handy with wood, Roger Musson gives detailed instructions on how to build a truing stand and dishing tool in his excellent Professional Guide To Wheel Building. I recommend it.

https://i.imgur.com/LYjQTLy.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/hD7jVU1.png

I true "one side at a time" even in a TS-2. Not sure that's a problem, it's not like the two sides of a wheel move independently. I flip the wheel from one side to the the other many times during the process.
I also have an old one-sided portable stand not unlike the Feedback Sports model. It's very sturdy, but my main complaint about it is the indicators are at the bottom of a vertical post (not slanted like the Feedback,) so they're hard to see unless the stand is almost at eye level. But it works fine. A little slower than the TS-2

the heavy duty park shop stands WILL out live their owners , so now estates of shop owners offer tools for another generation..

I hate crappy tools. The one in the OP is a crappy tool.

Get a used TS-2.

I know a lot of people who stick an allen wrench under one side of the calipers. I do the same.

The Park design doesn't stay centered. If it did, wheel dishing tools would be obsolete.

I bought a stand similar to the OP's a few years ago. I will say it is just OK - a bit flimsy. I wouldn't spend the $$ again.

Thanks a ton for all the replies and advice.
I'm glad I asked, and will make do with DIY ideas as I wait for a used Park.

one more DIY rear frame off a BMW R75 even has a flat base

There are a lot of good truing stands out there, old, used, & new... In my case, about a decade ago I snagged a used TS-6 from a fellow who upgraded to a TS-2; I paid, like- $30 for it.

It isn't self-centering (it does require the use of a centering gauge), but it's heavy & definitely gets the job done. (The image below, courtesy of VeloBase.)

In the end though, I think it just comes down to skill & practice: the more wheels you build, the better you get at it.

The pro Park stands aren't really self centering either. Used TS-6 like above would be ideal for home use. Used Park pro is always a good choice if you can find one.

I think you're better off with the zip tie method illustrated above than a really cheap stand. Zip ties and a dishing gauge... I'm sure there's a home brewed version of the latter.

That said I use a cheap Minoura stand these days - and I take heat from my bike geek friends for doing so. It is floppy and imprecise and not as good as a Park. But it folds away to nothing and is good enough for me. It's the skill, not the stand. Like [MENTION=381793]gugie[/MENTION] I've built hundreds of wheels in bike shops BITD, and spent countless hours in front of a Park pro stand. However for occasional use at home, I don't need that much.

I had a cheap Spin doctor truing stand (built quite a few wheels on it) for a few years which I passed on to my nephew when I was able to snag a used, slightly better Minoura (from a seller in this forum), which the Spin Doctor was supposedly based on.
The Minoura has a better feeler caliper portion that adjusts with a single adjuster wheel, plus Minoura includes a centering T gauge to help center the caliper to the stand before you start working on a wheel.
Not as robust as a Park, but it works great for the occasional wheel build and truing. Fols and stashes away nicely in my tool bag too. If you want to really spend on tools do it first on really essential ones like a good repair stand, as such will give you much more bang for your buck compared to other tools like a truing stand.

Wow, Clifford, that thing is amazing!
I'm not sure he'll get his asking price, but looking the quality and complexity of it, he'll probably get a fair portion of that.

It wasn't a completely random suggestion. Someone posted some photos of one on Bike Forums a while ago, I think at their co-op. But, yes, that price was a little over the top.

I actually bought on on E-Bay a while ago, for $350 + $100 shipping.

It is pretty sweet to use, and certainly helps me work out my hops and wobbles. And, while not exactly self centering, with a couple of flips, one can get very precise centering. The whole thing is quite rigidly built.



Of course, I think the latest thing is to simply add micrometer gauges to some of the high end stands. So, I'd probably modernize before dropping $1K on 50 year old truing stand, but the Var stands are really nice.

Really, anything will do. I own a TS-2. We have two homes but not two truing stands. Once, I needed to build a wheel for myself and wanted to do it before I could fetch the truing stand, so I just used my bike. I wasn't in a hurry, so it worked out just fine.

That's the kind of machine that is really only useful for repetitive wheelbuilding in a production environment. (But I'd still love to have one just because it's so dang kewl.)

Not that tools of all kinds aren't cool, but I really don't understand the need for dial gauges. Your eyeball on a regular stand can get you to within .010" (0.25mm) without trying that hard, which on close to 100% of rims is less than the factory's runout spec. How much more precision do you need? It's far more important to get the tension right and even than to have .005" runout. If you can do both, bully for you. Just get first things first.