Another day of wheel building (and so on).
I built the front wheel for Nomunlab Wheel #5.
Evolitе hub 20H CX-RAY reverse Nupo spoke radial lacing
with blue aluminum nipples.
The rim shows some wear, but this is a rebuild of Nomunlab Wheel #5's front wheel—I'm working on it right in front of the customer using an undocumented warranty. I've replaced every part except the rim. I was prepared to swap the rim too if it showed runout on a glass surface plate, but the rim checked out. I'm building it completely from just the rim, but for my "wheel building count" purposes, today doesn't count (my own arbitrary rule that doesn't matter).
Now I'm continuing on the Niseki carbon wheel from the other day.
This is an Akamatsu Systema rear hub, but it uses a Shimano freebody with the hub shell and other parts custom-made.
Examples of rear hubs using a Shimano freebody as-is include
this Systema hub,
HED disc wheels,
TNT hubs,
and Spinnergy REV-X hubs.
The reason they buy freebodies from Shimano and use them is because, according to my spiritual mentor back then, it's cheaper than custom-making one. But nowadays, Systema only makes front hubs. When I asked why, they said, "Because it's better to just buy regular Shimano rear hubs."
This is my speculation, but I think it has to do with the fact that the 7800-series rear hub switched to a pawl spring design (a Campagnolo ripoff), departing from the traditional Shimano hub structure. The 7900 and 9000 series returned to Shimano-style freehubs, but due to spline differences (→here), they're incompatible. Furthermore, since the R9100 series has no rear hub, it's becoming impossible to just buy regular Shimano hubs anymore.
28H all-radial JIS lacing with crossed sections on both sides. I'm not sure why JIS lacing was chosen. If this crossed section is a "knotted" type, there is the advantage (?) that the spoke wrapping direction at the final cross is the same on both sides.
With my current "knotted crossed Version 4," the overlap at the final cross on the non-freewheel side of Italian lacing is something my hands remember well, so spoke binding goes smoothly (same goes for the anti-rotor side of disc front hub reverse Italian lacing). But this "Italian/JIS right side & JIS left side" binding is mirror-reversed in every motion, which I struggle with. The non-freewheel side of disc rear hub JIS lacing is exactly that, so I've been getting quite a workout lately.
The nipples were completely corroded. When I applied the tool and turned them, they just snapped off. Truing alone would have been impossible. The contact area between the round nipple and the rim hole is large, so removing rusted and seized nipples from the rim holes took tremendous effort. Just getting the rim to a bare state took over an hour. Separately, removing the adhesive film tape residue left on the rim from the TUFO rim tape took over 30 minutes to the point where it wouldn't interfere with wheel building. So all the prep work before lacing took almost two hours.
↑This is the front wheel I built the other day
↑and this is the rear rim. Though the rim height is the same, the specs are different. It's not a rear-specific design—I think it's just a different generation. The finishing work to add thickness to the rim holes is more pronounced on the rear rim. That alone would be fine, but the front rim could be built with 14mm nipples, while the rear rim requires 16mm nipples, otherwise there's barely enough purchase for the wrench. Since I just barely had enough 16mm nipples, I got this far, but I can't finish building this one today.
A customer entrusted me with a Campagnolo Racing Zero rear hub. The reason it's just the hub is they broke the rim. Wait, hold on. Where are the spokes? There's not a single spoke on it.
According to the story, a nearby shop told them that replacing the rim would also require replacing all the spokes. They decided not to go through with it, but the shop removed (probably cut) all the spokes at that point, so not a single spoke remains. In my experience, even with rim damage so egregious that wheel rebuild is necessary, I've almost never had to replace more than five spokes. Even if the rim is completely buckled or beaten to hell by a chain drop, I've sometimes not had to replace any spokes at all. In fact, replacing three or more spokes usually happens with chain drops or rear derailleur wrap-arounds—rim replacements typically let you reuse the spokes almost entirely. Man, I hate those sloppy shops. Show me a rear wheel damaged so badly it needs all 21 spokes replaced. I'd love to see it.
I explained to the customer that spoke prices are higher than rim prices, so rebuilding from just the hub would be quite expensive, but they were okay with it, so I ordered the parts. Rear right spokes + nipples are ¥2,044 each including tax, so 14 pairs comes to ¥28,616. Rear left spokes + nipples are also ¥2,044 including tax, so 7 pairs comes to ¥14,308. Together that's ¥42,924. Yikes.
But here's the thing—there's a complete kit of 14 rear right spokes + 7 rear left spokes, which has a list price of ¥24,699 including tax. The spoke complete kit doesn't include nipples, but the shop has enough spare nipples to throw in for free, so we managed to keep costs down.
So this is the complete kit, and the rear right spokes are stamped "one line horizontal," while the rear left spokes are stamped "three lines vertical." The customer wants a fashion statement—they requested one red spoke. With Fulcrum's official fashion design, the red spoke goes on the non-freewheel side right at the valve hole, so
I swapped one of the "three lines vertical" spokes for a red one.
Totally irrelevant, but you can infer the tools and process steps from the machining marks left on the rim hole edges.
Done.
Since there was no work disassembling the original rear wheel, that part was easier. Even including hunting down nipples one by one with a magnet from just a bare rim, it didn't take an hour. By the way, Nomunlab Wheel #5 from the beginning took about 20 minutes to lace from just the rim.
I built the front wheel for Nomunlab Wheel #5.
Evolitе hub 20H CX-RAY reverse Nupo spoke radial lacing
with blue aluminum nipples.
The rim shows some wear, but this is a rebuild of Nomunlab Wheel #5's front wheel—I'm working on it right in front of the customer using an undocumented warranty. I've replaced every part except the rim. I was prepared to swap the rim too if it showed runout on a glass surface plate, but the rim checked out. I'm building it completely from just the rim, but for my "wheel building count" purposes, today doesn't count (my own arbitrary rule that doesn't matter).
Now I'm continuing on the Niseki carbon wheel from the other day.
This is an Akamatsu Systema rear hub, but it uses a Shimano freebody with the hub shell and other parts custom-made.
Examples of rear hubs using a Shimano freebody as-is include
this Systema hub,
HED disc wheels,
TNT hubs,
and Spinnergy REV-X hubs.
The reason they buy freebodies from Shimano and use them is because, according to my spiritual mentor back then, it's cheaper than custom-making one. But nowadays, Systema only makes front hubs. When I asked why, they said, "Because it's better to just buy regular Shimano rear hubs."
This is my speculation, but I think it has to do with the fact that the 7800-series rear hub switched to a pawl spring design (a Campagnolo ripoff), departing from the traditional Shimano hub structure. The 7900 and 9000 series returned to Shimano-style freehubs, but due to spline differences (→here), they're incompatible. Furthermore, since the R9100 series has no rear hub, it's becoming impossible to just buy regular Shimano hubs anymore.
28H all-radial JIS lacing with crossed sections on both sides. I'm not sure why JIS lacing was chosen. If this crossed section is a "knotted" type, there is the advantage (?) that the spoke wrapping direction at the final cross is the same on both sides.
With my current "knotted crossed Version 4," the overlap at the final cross on the non-freewheel side of Italian lacing is something my hands remember well, so spoke binding goes smoothly (same goes for the anti-rotor side of disc front hub reverse Italian lacing). But this "Italian/JIS right side & JIS left side" binding is mirror-reversed in every motion, which I struggle with. The non-freewheel side of disc rear hub JIS lacing is exactly that, so I've been getting quite a workout lately.
The nipples were completely corroded. When I applied the tool and turned them, they just snapped off. Truing alone would have been impossible. The contact area between the round nipple and the rim hole is large, so removing rusted and seized nipples from the rim holes took tremendous effort. Just getting the rim to a bare state took over an hour. Separately, removing the adhesive film tape residue left on the rim from the TUFO rim tape took over 30 minutes to the point where it wouldn't interfere with wheel building. So all the prep work before lacing took almost two hours.
↑This is the front wheel I built the other day
↑and this is the rear rim. Though the rim height is the same, the specs are different. It's not a rear-specific design—I think it's just a different generation. The finishing work to add thickness to the rim holes is more pronounced on the rear rim. That alone would be fine, but the front rim could be built with 14mm nipples, while the rear rim requires 16mm nipples, otherwise there's barely enough purchase for the wrench. Since I just barely had enough 16mm nipples, I got this far, but I can't finish building this one today.
A customer entrusted me with a Campagnolo Racing Zero rear hub. The reason it's just the hub is they broke the rim. Wait, hold on. Where are the spokes? There's not a single spoke on it.
According to the story, a nearby shop told them that replacing the rim would also require replacing all the spokes. They decided not to go through with it, but the shop removed (probably cut) all the spokes at that point, so not a single spoke remains. In my experience, even with rim damage so egregious that wheel rebuild is necessary, I've almost never had to replace more than five spokes. Even if the rim is completely buckled or beaten to hell by a chain drop, I've sometimes not had to replace any spokes at all. In fact, replacing three or more spokes usually happens with chain drops or rear derailleur wrap-arounds—rim replacements typically let you reuse the spokes almost entirely. Man, I hate those sloppy shops. Show me a rear wheel damaged so badly it needs all 21 spokes replaced. I'd love to see it.
I explained to the customer that spoke prices are higher than rim prices, so rebuilding from just the hub would be quite expensive, but they were okay with it, so I ordered the parts. Rear right spokes + nipples are ¥2,044 each including tax, so 14 pairs comes to ¥28,616. Rear left spokes + nipples are also ¥2,044 including tax, so 7 pairs comes to ¥14,308. Together that's ¥42,924. Yikes.
But here's the thing—there's a complete kit of 14 rear right spokes + 7 rear left spokes, which has a list price of ¥24,699 including tax. The spoke complete kit doesn't include nipples, but the shop has enough spare nipples to throw in for free, so we managed to keep costs down.
So this is the complete kit, and the rear right spokes are stamped "one line horizontal," while the rear left spokes are stamped "three lines vertical." The customer wants a fashion statement—they requested one red spoke. With Fulcrum's official fashion design, the red spoke goes on the non-freewheel side right at the valve hole, so
I swapped one of the "three lines vertical" spokes for a red one.
Totally irrelevant, but you can infer the tools and process steps from the machining marks left on the rim hole edges.
Done.
Since there was no work disassembling the original rear wheel, that part was easier. Even including hunting down nipples one by one with a magnet from just a bare rim, it didn't take an hour. By the way, Nomunlab Wheel #5 from the beginning took about 20 minutes to lace from just the rim.