Another wheel day (details omitted).
A customer left me some carbon rims from Hong Fu with me.
WO spec. The glossy finish is apparently a recent model.
These rims are basically a safety margin embodied,
and because of that, the rim width is extremely wide.
When you stack two together, you can really see it—like the current ZIPP,
the brake zone portion tapers very slightly toward the outer rim circumference.
The widest section measured 26.4mm,
and the outermost edge was 24.0mm.
↑The spoke tension can apparently go up to 180 kgf,
but the conditions on the spoke and nipple side don't really allow it,
so the rim's effective spoke tension limit is practically unlimited.
The hub is an HB-7400 with slit holes that the customer brought in.
18-hole.
This second-tier grade hub from the Dura-Ace era,
the 600 (equivalent to today's Ultegra), also came in an 18-hole spec,
and that was incredibly helpful back in the day.
Shimano hubs originally prohibited radial lacing,
and the 5501 hub from the 7700-era 5500-series 105
and its minor revision "5501-A"
was the first road hub to allow radial lacing.
For Dura-Ace, it was the 7800 series.
But an 18-hole (9 per side) front hub
is impossible to build with purely tangential lacing,
so you're forced to do radial lacing.
Rather than doing exotic patterns like ЖЖЖ or XIXIXI lacing,
you're better off doing ||||||||| lacing—that is, radial lacing.
So I'm going to build it with non-rotor radial lacing.
As a side note, for some reason Shimano never makes a "20-hole front hub."
Not even back in the 7700 hub era when they made almost anything.
The current HB-9000 goes from 18 to 24 holes.
This represents a real opportunity loss for handbuilt wheels.
There are carbon rims that have 20-hole capability but no 18-hole option.
Come to think of it, I've built wheels on 9000 hubs many times,
but nearly all of them were on carbon rims.
I've rarely built a 9000 32-hole hub with a low-profile aluminum rim.
The rear hub is an FH-6600 that the customer brought in.
This is the "last 24-hole rear hub to be made at any grade other than Dura-Ace."
Recently someone asked me in a comment why I don't build Shimano-based Mulab wheels,
and the answer is simple: "because there's no 24-hole hub."
I'd want a 20-hole front, but if that's not possible, at minimum I'd gladly use
a 24-hole front and rear if it came in Ultegra or 105.
These days, rear hub compatibility with 11-speed is an essential requirement.
(This FH-6600 freeebody can't be converted to 11-speed,
but that's not an issue given the customer's current situation.)
Ball bearings inside cartridge bearings
can be quite large in some hubs—like little medicine pills—
but cup & cone style bearings like Shimano hubs use,
with their larger balls, generally offer better durability.
Built.
CX-RAY non-rotor radial lacing.
For the front hub, the customer brought it in with the grease and bearing adjustment
quite tight, but once you build the wheel (when the flanges are pulled),
the bearing adjustment gets slightly loose, so
you really can't get the proper bearing adjustment except with the wheel assembled.
The rotation is so smooth that there's barely the hint of play.
It's a delicate call, but if this were my wheel,
for race-only use I'd leave it as is,
but if I were riding it regularly I'd tighten it just a touch more.
For the rear wheel, I did a Strong freeeside / CX-RAY non-freeeside
46-hole lacing with cross-lacing.
The customer originally wanted Champion on the freeeside,
but I pushed it further with Strong.
Except for extremely extreme cases,
this is the maximum difference of a functional left-right asymmetrical build.
Writing this again after a while: the non-freeeside tension was so good
that the cross-lacing might not have even been necessary. Heh heh.
I might have only done one cross-lacing and had the customer
squeeze the crosses to check, but anyway.
↑The butted section ended up hitting right at the cross point.
If this were black spokes or on the non-freeeside,
it could cause a pretty significant squeaking noise.
Since it's silver spokes on the freeeside, it should be okay.
"Would silver spokes really squeak?" you might wonder,
but once when a butted section from a Revolution spoke happened to rub
on the non-freeeside, it made quite a terrible noise.
A customer left me some carbon rims from Hong Fu with me.
WO spec. The glossy finish is apparently a recent model.
These rims are basically a safety margin embodied,
and because of that, the rim width is extremely wide.
When you stack two together, you can really see it—like the current ZIPP,
the brake zone portion tapers very slightly toward the outer rim circumference.
The widest section measured 26.4mm,
and the outermost edge was 24.0mm.
↑The spoke tension can apparently go up to 180 kgf,
but the conditions on the spoke and nipple side don't really allow it,
so the rim's effective spoke tension limit is practically unlimited.
The hub is an HB-7400 with slit holes that the customer brought in.
18-hole.
This second-tier grade hub from the Dura-Ace era,
the 600 (equivalent to today's Ultegra), also came in an 18-hole spec,
and that was incredibly helpful back in the day.
Shimano hubs originally prohibited radial lacing,
and the 5501 hub from the 7700-era 5500-series 105
and its minor revision "5501-A"
was the first road hub to allow radial lacing.
For Dura-Ace, it was the 7800 series.
But an 18-hole (9 per side) front hub
is impossible to build with purely tangential lacing,
so you're forced to do radial lacing.
Rather than doing exotic patterns like ЖЖЖ or XIXIXI lacing,
you're better off doing ||||||||| lacing—that is, radial lacing.
So I'm going to build it with non-rotor radial lacing.
As a side note, for some reason Shimano never makes a "20-hole front hub."
Not even back in the 7700 hub era when they made almost anything.
The current HB-9000 goes from 18 to 24 holes.
This represents a real opportunity loss for handbuilt wheels.
There are carbon rims that have 20-hole capability but no 18-hole option.
Come to think of it, I've built wheels on 9000 hubs many times,
but nearly all of them were on carbon rims.
I've rarely built a 9000 32-hole hub with a low-profile aluminum rim.
The rear hub is an FH-6600 that the customer brought in.
This is the "last 24-hole rear hub to be made at any grade other than Dura-Ace."
Recently someone asked me in a comment why I don't build Shimano-based Mulab wheels,
and the answer is simple: "because there's no 24-hole hub."
I'd want a 20-hole front, but if that's not possible, at minimum I'd gladly use
a 24-hole front and rear if it came in Ultegra or 105.
These days, rear hub compatibility with 11-speed is an essential requirement.
(This FH-6600 freeebody can't be converted to 11-speed,
but that's not an issue given the customer's current situation.)
Ball bearings inside cartridge bearings
can be quite large in some hubs—like little medicine pills—
but cup & cone style bearings like Shimano hubs use,
with their larger balls, generally offer better durability.
Built.
CX-RAY non-rotor radial lacing.
For the front hub, the customer brought it in with the grease and bearing adjustment
quite tight, but once you build the wheel (when the flanges are pulled),
the bearing adjustment gets slightly loose, so
you really can't get the proper bearing adjustment except with the wheel assembled.
The rotation is so smooth that there's barely the hint of play.
It's a delicate call, but if this were my wheel,
for race-only use I'd leave it as is,
but if I were riding it regularly I'd tighten it just a touch more.
For the rear wheel, I did a Strong freeeside / CX-RAY non-freeeside
46-hole lacing with cross-lacing.
The customer originally wanted Champion on the freeeside,
but I pushed it further with Strong.
Except for extremely extreme cases,
this is the maximum difference of a functional left-right asymmetrical build.
Writing this again after a while: the non-freeeside tension was so good
that the cross-lacing might not have even been necessary. Heh heh.
I might have only done one cross-lacing and had the customer
squeeze the crosses to check, but anyway.
↑The butted section ended up hitting right at the cross point.
If this were black spokes or on the non-freeeside,
it could cause a pretty significant squeaking noise.
Since it's silver spokes on the freeeside, it should be okay.
"Would silver spokes really squeak?" you might wonder,
but once when a butted section from a Revolution spoke happened to rub
on the non-freeeside, it made quite a terrible noise.