Another day, another wheel (abbreviated hereinafter).
Can't hide it with any discretion anyway, so never mind.
A customer brought in carbon wheels from a brand called GS Astute
for repairs.
The customer lives in Kyoto, but bought these wheels in Tokyo years ago.
Since there's nowhere nearby willing to repair them (they turned him away),
he's brought them to our shop several times now.
This time the issue was "broken spoke replacement."
When you replace a broken spoke and hope no other spokes follow suit,
sometimes other spokes break in succession anyway—
it's not always the case, but it happens frequently.
Interestingly, the newly replaced spoke almost never breaks again;
it's always the original spokes that go.
Over the past three times, I've replaced spokes with Sapim CX,
and since we only keep silver CX in stock,
the replaced spokes are easy to spot.
In this case too, the silver spokes never broke.
For the fourth replacement, the customer temporarily installed the fourth spoke himself.
Seems there really is no "shop" nearby.
Once spokes develop a habit of breaking, a complete spoke respoke is best,
so we decided to replace all the spokes and rebuild the wheel.
The original spokes were from a manufacturer called Pillar,
but they're not particularly prone to breaking.
Many factory-built wheels also use Pillar spokes.
Rebuilt.
Per the customer's request, I used red nipples,
though they're different from the original red nipples.
Our red nipples come in two varieties—same maker and size
but separated into paper boxes and nylon bags.
This time I used the nylon bag version.
There's no performance difference between the two.
I explained the reasoning behind the separation only to this customer,
and they were able to confirm the visible difference once they knew what to look for.
The hub is a BITEX 24H, sibling to the Leaf Hub.
(Which one is the older sibling is unclear.)
Before rebuilding, both sides used CX-equivalent spokes in 4-cross lacing;
after rebuilding, they're in semi-comp 4-cross with reinforcing bands.
Despite the rebuilt spokes being thinner than before,
the customers confirmed that spoke deflection is less on both sides.
Especially on the non-drive side, which was pretty wobbly before—
the rebuilt version without reinforcing bands is remarkably stiffer.
I changed the drive-side lacing pattern from reverse Italian-equivalent
to Italian-equivalent. Ehehe.
Can't hide it with any discretion anyway, so never mind.
A customer brought in carbon wheels from a brand called GS Astute
for repairs.
The customer lives in Kyoto, but bought these wheels in Tokyo years ago.
Since there's nowhere nearby willing to repair them (they turned him away),
he's brought them to our shop several times now.
This time the issue was "broken spoke replacement."
When you replace a broken spoke and hope no other spokes follow suit,
sometimes other spokes break in succession anyway—
it's not always the case, but it happens frequently.
Interestingly, the newly replaced spoke almost never breaks again;
it's always the original spokes that go.
Over the past three times, I've replaced spokes with Sapim CX,
and since we only keep silver CX in stock,
the replaced spokes are easy to spot.
In this case too, the silver spokes never broke.
For the fourth replacement, the customer temporarily installed the fourth spoke himself.
Seems there really is no "shop" nearby.
Once spokes develop a habit of breaking, a complete spoke respoke is best,
so we decided to replace all the spokes and rebuild the wheel.
The original spokes were from a manufacturer called Pillar,
but they're not particularly prone to breaking.
Many factory-built wheels also use Pillar spokes.
Rebuilt.
Per the customer's request, I used red nipples,
though they're different from the original red nipples.
Our red nipples come in two varieties—same maker and size
but separated into paper boxes and nylon bags.
This time I used the nylon bag version.
There's no performance difference between the two.
I explained the reasoning behind the separation only to this customer,
and they were able to confirm the visible difference once they knew what to look for.
The hub is a BITEX 24H, sibling to the Leaf Hub.
(Which one is the older sibling is unclear.)
Before rebuilding, both sides used CX-equivalent spokes in 4-cross lacing;
after rebuilding, they're in semi-comp 4-cross with reinforcing bands.
Despite the rebuilt spokes being thinner than before,
the customers confirmed that spoke deflection is less on both sides.
Especially on the non-drive side, which was pretty wobbly before—
the rebuilt version without reinforcing bands is remarkably stiffer.
I changed the drive-side lacing pattern from reverse Italian-equivalent
to Italian-equivalent. Ehehe.