iab

I am by no means an expert wheel builder, but on Saturday I built a pair Fiamme reds, 3x, in a few hours.

I am on about the 4th day of building the front wheel of some 650A wood wheels. It is like truing a noodle.

I am trying to keep the tension between 50-60. When building other wheels, I always start by building the tension slowly, keeping it even and then tweaking to true. I then go back to get the tension even again. Usually, that does not take the wheel too out of true, but I keep the tension to be even in the end. It may take a couple of more iterations like that, but the method has served me well with several bullet-proof wheel sets.

Well, that method doesn't work at all with these wood rims. You get the tension even and the wheel is all over the place. It takes much more than tweaking to get to true. And then when you get true, tension is no where near even. I get tension even, and it is again completely out of whack. There is no "honing the edge".

Am I keeping the tension too high at 50-60? I know when the tension is too high on the aluminum rims, a small difference in tension will really throw thing out of whack.

Ragooch

Depends how straight the rims are to begin with. Vintage wood rims can be all over the place and are probably better as display pieces than riders. If using modern Ghisallo's you should be able to build a decent wheel.

I've only done a couple of these but found it best to tension them up over a couple of days letting them "settle" in between. They should end up pretty low tension. Even tension is key to a good wheel but you can only do what you can do. Of course no spokes should be rattling but you might not be able to get them as even as you want.

I always tie and solder wheels like this as it seems like it would add strength to any of the pairs that need to be looser to keep things straight and round.

Email Ric at Wheel Fanatik as well.

sailorbenjamin

Does Ghisallo have any advise or tension specifications?

onetwentyeight 

I have only built one set of wooden wheels but I found using washers from Ric at Wheel Fanatik helped a lot in helping keep tension even. I imagine without them the heads of the nipples can seat into the wood unevenly causing tension to go out of wack as they settle in.

https://wheelfanatyk.blogspot.com/200...-building.html

iab

I should mention these are NOS D'Alessanro Milano rims. I am using washers.

reverborama

If I was ever going to build a wheel like that I would call Evan Hatcher at Hatcher Cycle (7-six-3) 477-69(five)niner. He's the guy around here that restores the really old bike with wooden rims and welded chains.