Another day, another wheel (and so on).
A customer brought in a PowerTap hub rear wheel for me to work on.
32H, #15 plain Rocc Italian lacing with brass nipples.
Almost all the spokes are Starbrite.
By "almost all," I mean 30 out of 32 spokes are Starbrite (marked with an "H" on the spoke head), but
2 of them were stainless steel (not the generic term, but spokes actually called "stainless").
Those two must have gotten mixed in during a spoke replacement repair.
Or maybe they were like that from the start.
Starbrite spokes are supposed to have unusually strong magnetic properties,
but these ones don't react to a magnet at all, just like stainless steel—
they're the modern "Starbrite in name only" type.
From my experience, spoke magnetism and spoke head integrity are definitely related.
A #15 spoke without magnetic properties creates ideal conditions for head failure,
so those two mixed-in spokes probably became that way during the repair work.
Also, there were spots where the spoke crossings hadn't been woven properly.
The image above shows proper weaving.
↑This one wasn't woven properly
Woven
Not woven
The unwoven section didn't have a stainless spoke, so the weaving wasn't forgotten during repair—
it was probably like that from the beginning.
By the way, this wheel has equal-diameter large-flange hubs on both sides with equal-diameter spokes and equal spoke counts.
The freewheel side had decent tension (well below the limit),
but the non-freewheel side was quite slack.
Or maybe that's normal, and I'm just thinking that because I haven't worked on a normal wheel in a while.
I didn't inspect it before disassembling, but there's no possibility of the rim being severely offset toward the freewheel side,
so this is the result of these spokes under these build conditions.
Similar to when I did the unusual non-rotor-side lacing on the Novatec large-flange front hub wheel I built recently—
simply using a large-flange hub doesn't automatically give you a stiff wheel.
For people who've only ever done equal-diameter equal-spoke builds,
or who will never think about any other build methods or soldering techniques in their entire lives,
they'd get a somewhat better rear wheel if you handed them a high-low flange hub instead.
The idea that large-flange hubs make stiff wheels is only straightforward when there's no significant dish,
and in cases like single-speed track hubs or freewheel hubs (at most 8-speed),
even accounting for the weight increase, there might be value in choosing them.
But then people will say, "Wait, disc front hubs don't have much dish!"
True, but front hubs have a 100mm over-locknut dimension,
so the difference in flange widths left and right becomes more critical than on rear hubs.
For modern rear hubs, when you consider everything holistically,
large-flange hubs don't beat high-low flange hubs.
Then what about a normal front hub without dish? Well, rigidity alone would be good,
but the fact that you barely see large-flange hubs from current hub and wheel manufacturers
suggests they didn't see enough benefits to overcome the weight penalty.
Also, the fact that front wheel building became "basically radial lacing"
probably contributed to this.
Large flanges really shine with tangential lacing using as many crosses as possible.
With track hubs, where weight increase isn't as much of an issue because of the rigidity gain,
I actually think large-flange builds work better than small-flange for the front wheel.
There was threadlock compound applied between the nipples and eyelets.
This semi-glued the nipples to the rim,
making it time-consuming to disassemble the wheel.
I cleaned the hub and greased the bearings.
Done building.
PRO hub 32H, half-comp 48-spoke lacing with solder welding. The customer wanted it tight, so that's exactly what I built.
A customer brought in a PowerTap hub rear wheel for me to work on.
32H, #15 plain Rocc Italian lacing with brass nipples.
Almost all the spokes are Starbrite.
By "almost all," I mean 30 out of 32 spokes are Starbrite (marked with an "H" on the spoke head), but
2 of them were stainless steel (not the generic term, but spokes actually called "stainless").
Those two must have gotten mixed in during a spoke replacement repair.
Or maybe they were like that from the start.
Starbrite spokes are supposed to have unusually strong magnetic properties,
but these ones don't react to a magnet at all, just like stainless steel—
they're the modern "Starbrite in name only" type.
From my experience, spoke magnetism and spoke head integrity are definitely related.
A #15 spoke without magnetic properties creates ideal conditions for head failure,
so those two mixed-in spokes probably became that way during the repair work.
Also, there were spots where the spoke crossings hadn't been woven properly.
The image above shows proper weaving.
↑This one wasn't woven properly
Woven
Not woven
The unwoven section didn't have a stainless spoke, so the weaving wasn't forgotten during repair—
it was probably like that from the beginning.
By the way, this wheel has equal-diameter large-flange hubs on both sides with equal-diameter spokes and equal spoke counts.
The freewheel side had decent tension (well below the limit),
but the non-freewheel side was quite slack.
Or maybe that's normal, and I'm just thinking that because I haven't worked on a normal wheel in a while.
I didn't inspect it before disassembling, but there's no possibility of the rim being severely offset toward the freewheel side,
so this is the result of these spokes under these build conditions.
Similar to when I did the unusual non-rotor-side lacing on the Novatec large-flange front hub wheel I built recently—
simply using a large-flange hub doesn't automatically give you a stiff wheel.
For people who've only ever done equal-diameter equal-spoke builds,
or who will never think about any other build methods or soldering techniques in their entire lives,
they'd get a somewhat better rear wheel if you handed them a high-low flange hub instead.
The idea that large-flange hubs make stiff wheels is only straightforward when there's no significant dish,
and in cases like single-speed track hubs or freewheel hubs (at most 8-speed),
even accounting for the weight increase, there might be value in choosing them.
But then people will say, "Wait, disc front hubs don't have much dish!"
True, but front hubs have a 100mm over-locknut dimension,
so the difference in flange widths left and right becomes more critical than on rear hubs.
For modern rear hubs, when you consider everything holistically,
large-flange hubs don't beat high-low flange hubs.
Then what about a normal front hub without dish? Well, rigidity alone would be good,
but the fact that you barely see large-flange hubs from current hub and wheel manufacturers
suggests they didn't see enough benefits to overcome the weight penalty.
Also, the fact that front wheel building became "basically radial lacing"
probably contributed to this.
Large flanges really shine with tangential lacing using as many crosses as possible.
With track hubs, where weight increase isn't as much of an issue because of the rigidity gain,
I actually think large-flange builds work better than small-flange for the front wheel.
There was threadlock compound applied between the nipples and eyelets.
This semi-glued the nipples to the rim,
making it time-consuming to disassemble the wheel.
I cleaned the hub and greased the bearings.
Done building.
PRO hub 32H, half-comp 48-spoke lacing with solder welding. The customer wanted it tight, so that's exactly what I built.