Do any of you tour fully loaded on a tandem with a 36-spoke rear wheel?
If so:
-What brand/model hub, spokes, rim?
-How has it held up?
-How is the 36h ride vs. a 40h or 48h wheel?
Respectfully, I'm not interested in debating the "why" just now. I'm looking only for 36-spoke case studies.
And by "loaded," I mean the bike.

We have Spinergy TX2 24 spoke wheels from House of Tandems. They have been fine.

Built my own wheels, 36H, Chris King hubs, Kinlin XC-279 rims, 490g. Those rims are still available on ebay, but the 36H drilling maybe not. Have to look around. In any case, the idea is that deep-ish rims are very strong, never had a broken spoke. Camp-toured with 14-15 spokes, fine, even on cobbles. There are other, similar rims.

sapporoguy: I had a mountain bike Tandem that I purchased that had 36 spoked wheels. This was in 1990 and the strength of the wheels was not enough. The parts were entry level, so spoke breakage was a problem. I built up 48 holed wheels for it. You want to find components strong enough to build a 36 spoked wheel set. Are you using 700c or 26" wheels ect. The andra 30 or 40 rims are the absolute strongest rims. Weather your purchase them for disk or rim brakes I would purchase the rim brake model. The side wall of the rim is machined. This makes it much nicer to build and true with dial indicators. I would use Phil Wood Tandem hubs if possible they are heavier. Sapim spokes would be my choice. Not knowing your rider weight, this is the stronger components available for a 36 spoked wheel set.

Yes, currently with 36 hole rohloff/SON28 hubs, 559 ryde andra rims, sapim double butted spokes (I built wheels). Generally loaded for camping with an overall weight of ~470 lbs (bike/gear/people). The wheels have remained true on 1-2 month tours on varied surfaces, ~20,000 mi, without spoke breakage. I do regularly check truing, sometimes with minor tweaks. The rohloff has no dish, average 110kgf tension both sides (the rohloff is much appreciated). On our older dished derailleur santana: 48/40 hole phil wood hubs, velocity dyad rims, wheelsmith triple butted spokes. Good for 100,000+ miles on long tours without spoke breakage.

I have a Co-Motion Pangea Rohloff. I picked it up March 2014. I am very heavy and the shop I purchased it from Ignored my request for stronger rims. I ordered in Sapim 14g spokes and Andra 40 36 hole rims. I rebuilt the wheels. I have the Son SL 28 also. I ordered the rims with the machined sidewalls. I use dial indicators when I build wheels. Rim and hubs centered to .005" and stayed that way until someone suggested I put the Rohloff spoke rings on a couple of years ago.

Loaded touring with a 36h wheel... well there will be several folks who respond with good results, but generally doing this is really good way to practice carrying your tandem home. You really need a better wheel.

rims are far stronger then they used to be so you don't need as many spokes.

That maybe the case but remember there are far fewer spokes to handle the unbalanced forces involved when one or 2 spokes do fail. With 48 spokes, you have 47 spokes left to handle the unbalanced forces. With 32, you have 31 spokes left to handle the same unbalanced forces. Your wheel will be much more out of true when a spoke do fail and more likely to fail as a result.

On a dished wheel, only half the spokes carry the load.

I had a minor collision with our tandem in a paceline. My front spokes ate the tail lamp of the bike in front of us. I didn't see any damage, but months later on a double century, a spoke broke, a CX-Ray BTW. I tied it off and trued the wheel as best I could. No problems in the 150 miles left. That's the only spoke I've broken in many 10s of thousands of miles.

I've only broke one spoke in the 30 years we've used 48-spoked wheel in Vermont by getting the rear wheel stuck in a deep pavement crack. Did not notice for 2 days.

My point is simply that the engineering margin of error is smaller with fewer spokes. At one extreme, wheel with few paired spokes, tend to handle broken spokes badly. At the other extreme where we are with 48-spoked 26" wheels, a broken spoke is not a big deal though quite rare.

For a touring tandem, my preference is for un-dished wheels where both sides are tensioned the same. YMMV.

How would you make an un-dished back wheel and still keep the rim centered in the frame?

145mm spacing and Phil Woods cassette hub has worked for us. Note I upgraded the drive train to 11s cassette from 8 speed without a need to re-dish the wheel. I did send the rear wheel back to Phil Wood for a guts upgrade last year (new rachet ring,...) and it didn't affect the wheel dish.

I'd love to see a picture of the wheel, from the top down.

Not much to see since there is a fender and 50mm tires which obstruct the view. When I have a chance to service the rear wheel, I'll get a photo. If you use the same spoke length on both side and tension them to the same tension, you will get, by definition, an un-dished wheel.

I did find one photo of the modified one-sided 2x11 drive train as suggested by ChrisW. Perhaps you may find this interesting?

Sorry, but I'm just having difficulty picturing a rear wheel without a dish. Seems like the wheel would be very far from centered--unless it's something like a single-speed. The photo that you attached doesn't really add much clarity.

If you take a hub and axle assembly which is centred (no offset) and build a wheel with spokes of the same length tensioned to the same tension and a rim without offsetted drilling, you will get an un-dished wheel. Can only be done to my knowledge with 145mm rear spacing or more (ie. 160mm).

I understand the concept, but I've never seen it--which is why I asked for a photo. There just doesn't seem like there would be enough room for the hub and cassette to fit with an undished wheel, at least while keeping the wheel centered.

Edit: Since scycheng was unable to provide a photo or link, I went searching. Looks like Santana has used a special 160mm hub to make a "dishless" wheel. That hub requires, of course, a custom frame. They don't seem to think that the 145mm standard will work well. Here's the link: https://santanatandem.com/wheel-tech/

I've also found older references to a 145mm Phil Wood dishless rear hub, but I don't see it on their website. Maybe it was discontinued? I did find a 145mm referenced on a few wheel-building websites, but nothing about it being dishless.

My conclusion is that dishless rear wheels exist, although they are incredibly rare--apparently because they are unnecessary. I've never had a rear tandem wheel fail on either my MTB tandem or road tandem.

My unstated but perhaps obvious point is that we have a much wider choice of 36H rims. As I posted above, a deeper rim is always a better choice, IMO anyway. Does a much better job of spreading the load among spokes.

Philosophically, I prefer parts on a touring tandem to be over-engineered enough that they don't fail in practice.

My emergency ride home is pedalling behind me. No denying that the newer rims are stronger. I still prefer 48 single butted/swaged Sapim spokes on a touring tandem. Boring, heavy and reliable. I have had problems finding a replacement front rack of any sort in bigger towns in Provence so what we are pedalling had better not fail.

Literally, it's a case of YMMV.

I purchased a Burley Bongo Tandem in 1991. It came with suzie 36 spoked wheels. I couldn't get 5 miles up a canyon without spokes breaking on the rear wheel. I ordered in two sets of dishless 48 holed Phil Wood hubs. They used seven speed freewheels. With the pregnant wife and pulling two children in a cart the spokes didn't break on the Phil wood hubs. If you really want the strongest 36 spoked wheels. I would use quality dishless hubs and Ryde Andra 40 rims. These are old school box rims and there very heavy.

In that case may as well remove all those spokes that aren't being used

The only half the spokes carry the load is a joke. Dishless wheels are stronger because of equal tension on both sides. More spokes definitely makes a stronger wheel and having both dishless and more spokes is great. My old tandem once equipped with 48 spoked dishless wheels never broke spokes. In over 30 years there has been a couple of cracked rims.