radial lacing phils
 

I was thinking of radial lacing a phil to a deep v. i thought that it would look cool and at the same time it would be the simplest way to learn how to lace. I was wondering how easy or hard it is to get the truing down...i was going to pay the lbs for 50 labor to build it for me but then i thought mmaybe i could do it myself. i dont want to screw anything up, but i've heard that deepvs are pretty rigid and sturdy out of the box. Are there any tips or advice anyone could give me, if I were to do it myself? I know sheldonbrown has some stuff but not specifically to radial stuff. Any links, tips, dos and don't are greatly appreciated.

Well from my experience radial lacing is quite easier to do than the standard lace. The only thing you will have to learn either from experience or from the book is to get the right amount of spoke tension . And on radial lacing you must back off the nipple to relieve the twisting effect of the spoke or else it will unwine when hitting bumps on the road. And you must lube the threads with something to help ease of threading. Most say use spoke prep and some say some kind of lubricant. Just research on this to find out what is best to use. I use a tefflon lube myself with no problems. You'll will need a good truing stand too. I learned how to spoke a rim from just imatating an already spoked rim and from reading up on it at books from the library and talking to shop people. You have to make sure in the beginning to shoot for the roundness of the rim first before going for the trueness as you begin tightening the spokes. I don't use a dish tool for the dishing of the rim, rather I just place the rim on the frame and final true the rim to fit center to the rear axle of the bike. And then fine true the rim to the brakes using one side of the pads with the closest contact as possible, and keeping in mind the centering of the rim to the frame. Also there is such a thing as over tightening the spokes; I learned that from trial and error, so finding the right amount of tension can be had from using a spoke tensioning device to test for it or you can kind of wing it and develop a sense for how much tension, which is what I do. I have built 11 rims to date: 7 road, 2 mtb and 2 cylocross rims within 8 years. Of course the first set I built took alot of tweaking at first but after that the rest got easier to do. On any of my rims I rearly have to adjust them, so I must be doing something right.

you had problems putting together a kmc bmx chain. you should probably shell out the $50

did he really? well maybe he could learn a valuable lesson here...not fable-wise, but rather a useful tool that is wheel lacing.... beer instead of studying is a bad m-f-ing idea

find a different shop! $50 to build a wheel is pretty steep, unless that includes spokes.

most shops charge 30-40 (at least in phila)

i had two wheels built in NYC recently that cost $90 including spokes. i think it was $25/wheel for labor and .50/spoke.

do it yourself, if you mess it up too badly you can always take it to the shop

yeah, if i had time i wanted to do it myself, but i just didn't have the time and i wanted some new wheels! STAT!

3x

why don't you teach yourself on beater wheels? taking old ones apart and putting them back together. practice getting them true and whatnot. leave the wheels that you want to outlive you to the people with experience, or until you've got more experience.

Radial lacing on a rear wheel is a bad idea. you didn't say if you were going to build a front or rear. radial lacing puts stress on the weakest part of the hub and the weakest part of the spokes. Looks cool and is ok for a front wheel if you're using regular brakes, but not a good idea on a rear wheel or if you're using disc brakes.

Dolface, QP, and isotopesope all get the +1 from me. Truing a radial wheel isn't harder than truing any other kind of wheel. Lacing one is stupid simple, so it's not really a "challenge", where are 3x is actually a useful skill that you can probably pick up in about 15 minutes. Do a 3x wheel, sheldon brown has a great step-by-step for it.

Spokes for radial built wheels should never be greased.