i'm pretty much with you, and like many, i am no pro. but then again the only wheel build problems i have ever encountered were the result of pro builds. a broken spoke (1995) one month and 200 miles after a pro build. and a tacoed wheel from a new bike (trek), 1983, after about the same time.

currently i have six bikes and all the wheels were built by me without the use of a truing stand or dishing tool. most of those were rebuilt with new spokes and/or different rims over the years so maybe i've built about 20-25 wheels give or take.

it never even occurred to me to use one.

+1

Supposedly if you pluck the spokes in a certain spot, they should sound like a middle "F" or something if properly tensioned.

In my case, I wouldn't trust my ear and I agree that the tension is difficult to get right by feel without a lot of experience. To me though there's a lot of valid methods for getting a wheel true. So yeah, if I was building a wheel and given the choice between a tensiometer and a truing stand, I take the tensiometer.

$60 is a ton of money?
https://www.amazon.com/Sunlite-Deluxe...sxp_grid_i_1_2
No tax or shipping charge even.

Or maybe my time is more valuable than yours. One of my wheels has been going strong since 1993 with no broken spokes, many thousands of miles. That only happens if you spend some extra money for a better rim and the wheel is build near perfect true, dish and round. The time saved in far less frequent truing that one wheel was well worth the $40 I payed for my truing stand.

Let us know how your wheel build is holding up in about 14 years.

New wheels bought on or off a bike does not mean a "pro build". Performance machine builds the wheels it sells and machine builds are crap. Colorado Cyclist hand builds the wheels it sells and at least the last wheel I bought from them was near perfect. Trek and most manufacturers do not true the wheels before shipping. They rely on the LBS to do the final work of the wheel build, 50/50 chance of a good build.

At least most here are smart enough to read the right books before their first wheel build.

I guess what people are saying is that you don't need a truing stand to get a perfectly true wheel (or so close that it simply doesn't matter). Having a truing stand makes it easier.

It's not that I object to truing stands and I have periodically been in the market for one. What it usually comes down to though is I'd rather spend the $60 (or whatever) on something else.

I have two cheap wheels sitting in my garage from 1975 that have never broken a spoke as far as I know. My '92 Bianchi has seen regular use and no broken spokes. Until a couple of years ago I had an '87 Peugoet, - no broken spokes. In fact I can only remember breaking one spoke ever, and it was on a hand built set of wheels (not by me).

Perhaps it's not about what you do and how you do it, it's more about having the curiosity and courage to do it in the first place. By all means, true your wheels any way you can. If you don't get it quite right, you'll realize that from the feedback you get (from the wheel, not this forum!) and that means that you have learned something that you will use the next time.

-G

Listen, I can see you're a high strung fellow, so I'll just say that you should do it your way, and I'll do it my way, and I'll take Jobst Brandt's advice over yours. Have a good day.

Listen, most people here including myself are not building wheels regularly. Without that experience I doubt we can easily distinguish a middle F ping, or a flat spot without a relatively inexpensive tool designed for the task.
After your 4 wheels, if you feel you’re on a par with Jobst (the king of wheel builders) and can build a wheel - that lasts - with your thumb and a ball of twine, by all means go for it. The professor built a nuclear reactor with four coconuts. The only place such extraordinary feats occur are bike forums and Gilligan’s Island.

Yes, because that's exactly what I said: I am as good a wheel builder as Jobst Brandt. (In case you can't tell, I'm being sarcastic).

Seriously man? I honestly am shocked that these statements inspire so much controversy. I didn't say my wheels are perfect, I didn't say I was a pro, I didn't say I was some kind of special genius. All I said was you can true (or build) a wheel, and do a good job, without a truing stand. And you can. If you don't think so, I invite you to try it. I'm sure you can do it too. Jobst sure thinks you can.

I've built exactly one wheel and I did it mostly because pre-built IGH wheels are fairly expensive. So while I certainly wouldn't mind having a truing stand (or a repair stand for that matter), I'm kind of on the fence on whether or not I'd use one enough to justify the cost. It would have been cheaper (and less time consuming) to lace the wheel myself and then take it the the shop for tensioning and truing than it would have been to get a good truing stand.

To me a truing stand isn't doing anything magical, so I don't see it as a necessity. My wheel turned out fine and while I've only got a few hundred miles on it, I suspect it will still be in good shape years from now. And if it's not, it will have been the result of improper tensioning rather than a problem with truing.

Wheel building isn't something I figure I'm going to do a lot of, but it's nice to know that I can if need be. For the most part I'm happy to buy the wheels pre-built and would only build my own if I needed something more specialized like a dyno-hub.

FWIW I haven't bought a headset tool, crown race installer, or star-nut installer. Yet I've manage to install all of the above. Just like building your own wheels, there's a certain satisfaction that comes from fabricating or improvising your own tools.

I'd get a truing stand if I had the table space for one and wanted to build a bunch of wheels.

In the meantime, if I just need to true a wheel, I just put the bike on my repair stand (which folds out of the way against a wall) and use the brake pads. I'd probably use the same method when building a wheel from the ground up (or "from the hub out").

I understand why a truing stand is useful -- and I think its best place is on a workbench with a stool -- but it still needs to be checked for being properly centered anyway.

The $60 one folds up and can be stored in a small space out of the way. It can be used on a work bench or with you just sitting on the floor.

Look who is really high strung.

Curiously, there's a Portland wheelbuilder who was quoted in Bicycling Magazine recently as saying that you should pluck your spokes rather than rely on a tension meter. Certainly the Portland bike industry is full of curmudgeons who insist on old school ways of doing things, but I don't think that's what's going on in this case, and I know that Bicycling Magazine isn't against people buying things they don't need.

Personally, I have a truing stand and a tension meter. I've been experimenting with plucking, but I double check with my tension meter. I don't think having perfect pitch is the important thing. You need a certain minimum tension and should go beyond a certain maximum tension, but it's just as important that the spokes have even tension relative to one another. In this regard, pitch can help you spot a spoke that's not like the others. I couldn't identify a middle "F" if my life depended on it, but I can tell which tone is not like the others.

With regard to learning to true a wheel without screwing it up (if anyone is still talking about that), I'm a firm believer that building a wheel with new parts is the best way to learn this. While double-butted spokes are great for high quality wheels, straight gauge spokes are outstanding for learning. If I had it to do over again, I'd start by buying a basic rim and hub and some straight gauge spokes and build it up.

I love the amount of controversy that has emerged over replacing a broken spoke!

As a former bike mechanic and shop manager I can attest that the "right tool for the right job" is always the default position in a professional setting. However, as a long distance tourist, and a guy that rides to places where often the right tool is several days away, being creative around a repair is not only satisfying but a downright necessity at times.

I had a friend who was often so astounded at my ability to improvise a remote repair that he used to claim I "made my own tools" after I'd fashioned some kind of temporary fix from a discarded beer can found by the side of the road.

That said, a truing stand makes the job go faster, more exact and will ultimately give me a somewhat better/more reliable build than working without one. I've built wheels for a tandem (without a stand) that lasted for years but I know that at some point, at the first opportunity, I threw those wheels in a stand and got the tension and dish even more accurate.

The perfectionist in me wants a stand and dishing tool the improviser wants to mount pencils or chalk on an old fork in a 2x4 and bench vise and true away. It ultimately does come down to the skill level and patience of the builder.

BTW, for those without perfect pitch- there's an app for that.

It's fun, isn't it. I was thinking to myself that on the mechanics forum this would have been all about the importance of even tension and the dangers of a wheel that "spins true" but is harboring latent disaster in its uneven spokes, probably accompanied by a debate over the proper way to stress relieve spokes. Here it's all about DIY tools.

I wonder what it would look like on other sub-forums. I'm guessing the touring forum would have a similar stand/no-stand debate, along with a diatribe or two on the importance of high spoke count wheels and maybe a discussion of the number of extra spokes you should carry with you at all times. The roadie forum would probably have had a very short thread where everyone agreed that's what professional mechanics are for, or maybe a follow-up question about who makes the lightest spoke wrench. The ss/fg forum would have been a debate about whether you really need true wheels if your bike has no brakes. The C&V forum would have degenerated into reminiscing about some obscure truing stand that hasn't been made for 25 years but is really the only acceptable tool for the job. The cyclocross forum would have said that's why you need pit wheels and you should really upgrade to tubulars for your next set.


That's awesome. My wife has an app like that on her iPhone, but I'd never thought of using it to true my wheels.

Ha, Andy, I think you're spot on about the different forums! One thing that might help explain my position is that I usually post mostly on C&V.

I have a hard time believing that the "default pitch" for plucking spokes would be a middle F. Shorter spokes, like on the rear drive side, would have to be looser than the non-drive side spokes to get the same pitch. Plus, you'd get interference from the other spokes that cross the one you're plucking. Don't get me wrong -- I agree that listening to them will quickly point out which ones are under- or over-tensioned (Easton says that their wheelbuilders fine-tune with pitch) -- but I don't think that there's a so-called correct pitch.

I wouldn't mind being corrected on this one, though. I can hum you an F right now, and probably within 10-20 "cents", too.

There's actually a table of proper pitches and spoke length:



My wheel was built with an iPhone and zip ties.

I have a piano app for my iPhone and I tried it. It was an interesting exercise but again, since I'm not much of a musician or a mechanic I don't put much faith in my own abilities to determine when the notes of two different "instruments" are the same. I can however tell when the braking surface of a rim is hitting a zip tie.

See, I knew it...

Monty Python Bridge of Death Keeper:

1. What is your name?
2. What is your quest?
3. What is the proper pitch for a 282 mm spoke?

Arthur:

"Butted or Straight Gauge?"


Keeper:

"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh"

To get all nerdy about musical pitches:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AvxPc...&feature=share

Basically an F11, minus the 7th, inverted somehow.

Or an F9 sus4