Today it's wheels again (and so on).
But before that.
I forgot to take photos of the wheel I built yesterday
so here are the ones I missed.
I took in a PowerTap hub rebuild.
This was yesterday's work.
Before the rebuild, it had an Ambrosio rim, but
Looking down at it, it was actually built quite well.
I'm rebuilding it with the last reserved Nomu Lab Wheel No. 5 rim,
so the rim will definitely be lighter.
First I disassembled and cleaned the hub.
But it turns out the Elite Plus, unlike other PowerTap models,
doesn't disassemble easily—it uses a hub nut system.
I usually take apart and reassemble PowerTap hubs during wheel building because they disassemble easily,
but hub nut types aren't so straightforward.
That's what I wanted to say, but I took it apart anyway.
I felt something slightly odd about the rotation.
The bearing on the non-freehub side appeared to be rusted.
I thought, is this done for...?
But it turned out to be mostly just surface rust from the steel axle,
and after greasing it, the bearing rotated just as smoothly
as the one on the freehub side.
The Elite Plus, unlike other models, has bearings of equal diameter on both sides,
so I considered swapping their positions, but I left them as they were.
The rust on the axle also came right off with oil,
so it wasn't anything serious.
I cleaned up the rest of the parts too.
It feels great.
My usual "halfhearted tape" job, but
the magnet is held down with pretty strong adhesive, so the tape is just supplementary.
What I'm rewinding isn't vinyl tape.
It's a special tape that doesn't have its adhesive degrade with heat or shift around.
Built it.
The customer requested Campagnolo Comp on the freehub side and CX-RAY on the non-freehub side,
so that's how I built it.
With Nomu Lab Wheel No. 5, there aren't spokes long enough to do 8-cross on the non-freehub side,
so it's built 4-cross 46-hole.
But with this wheel, the large flange helped make it possible to do 4-cross 48-hole.
Still, the spokes are over 301mm. That wouldn't work with DT Aerolites.
Now from here is today's wheel work (and so on).
I was asked to rebuild a ZIPP 303.
The hubs are HB-7800 and FH-7850, and the rim is from the same era as the hubs.
After the rebuild, the hubs will be 9000 series for 11-speed compatibility,
and the customer requested 4-cross 46-hole lacing with soldered wire connections.
But I noticed something odd.
The hub name isn't positioned to be visible when looking through the valve hole.
It bothered me. Bothered me! Aargh, it bothered me!
Well, it doesn't affect performance, but still.
Since both wheels had the hub name 90° off from that position,
maybe the builder had a reason for it.
The rear wheel is 4-cross 40-hole.
What bothered me more was that the spokes were too short.
This is how it was before I touched anything.
Rebuilt it. Starting with the front wheel.
I build wheels so that looking through the valve hole shows "DURA-ACE",
but
with Shimano factory wheels, they make this marking visible—the one 180° opposite.
Either way works, but I prefer a build where you can feel the intention of
"I carefully positioned this marking here."
Next, the rear wheel.
It's 4-cross 46-hole, but with 28 holes the non-freehub side isn't fully tangential.
Still, it's better for correcting left-right spoke tension imbalance
than 4-cross 44-hole.
And certainly far better than 4-cross 40-hole.
The tires after the rebuild changed from Veloflex to
Continental Competition.
I talked with another customer today, and
I'm convinced that over the last two or three years
these tires have gotten smaller in diameter.
Even considering the small inner diameter, they never used to be this hard to mount.
If Continental had kept the old tires, I wouldn't have
made my "Stretcher Y" tool (→here).
↑ This is an order to build a Nomu Lab Wheel No. 1 with the leftover old Dura-Ace hub from the ZIPP rebuild.
↑ Wow, the hub polish is beautiful.
You can tell it was well-maintained.
(Since it was on the ZIPP, it may have been used only for races.)
From now on, it'll get plenty of use (laugh).
I was puzzled that I couldn't fine-tune the front wheel's runout,
but the front hub had the tiniest bit of play.
Once I took out the play, I was able to dial in the runout perfectly.
Separately, another hub arrived today. I'll build that tomorrow.
But before that.
I forgot to take photos of the wheel I built yesterday
so here are the ones I missed.
I took in a PowerTap hub rebuild.
This was yesterday's work.
Before the rebuild, it had an Ambrosio rim, but
Looking down at it, it was actually built quite well.
I'm rebuilding it with the last reserved Nomu Lab Wheel No. 5 rim,
so the rim will definitely be lighter.
First I disassembled and cleaned the hub.
But it turns out the Elite Plus, unlike other PowerTap models,
doesn't disassemble easily—it uses a hub nut system.
I usually take apart and reassemble PowerTap hubs during wheel building because they disassemble easily,
but hub nut types aren't so straightforward.
That's what I wanted to say, but I took it apart anyway.
I felt something slightly odd about the rotation.
The bearing on the non-freehub side appeared to be rusted.
I thought, is this done for...?
But it turned out to be mostly just surface rust from the steel axle,
and after greasing it, the bearing rotated just as smoothly
as the one on the freehub side.
The Elite Plus, unlike other models, has bearings of equal diameter on both sides,
so I considered swapping their positions, but I left them as they were.
The rust on the axle also came right off with oil,
so it wasn't anything serious.
I cleaned up the rest of the parts too.
It feels great.
My usual "halfhearted tape" job, but
the magnet is held down with pretty strong adhesive, so the tape is just supplementary.
What I'm rewinding isn't vinyl tape.
It's a special tape that doesn't have its adhesive degrade with heat or shift around.
Built it.
The customer requested Campagnolo Comp on the freehub side and CX-RAY on the non-freehub side,
so that's how I built it.
With Nomu Lab Wheel No. 5, there aren't spokes long enough to do 8-cross on the non-freehub side,
so it's built 4-cross 46-hole.
But with this wheel, the large flange helped make it possible to do 4-cross 48-hole.
Still, the spokes are over 301mm. That wouldn't work with DT Aerolites.
Now from here is today's wheel work (and so on).
I was asked to rebuild a ZIPP 303.
The hubs are HB-7800 and FH-7850, and the rim is from the same era as the hubs.
After the rebuild, the hubs will be 9000 series for 11-speed compatibility,
and the customer requested 4-cross 46-hole lacing with soldered wire connections.
But I noticed something odd.
The hub name isn't positioned to be visible when looking through the valve hole.
It bothered me. Bothered me! Aargh, it bothered me!
Well, it doesn't affect performance, but still.
Since both wheels had the hub name 90° off from that position,
maybe the builder had a reason for it.
The rear wheel is 4-cross 40-hole.
What bothered me more was that the spokes were too short.
This is how it was before I touched anything.
Rebuilt it. Starting with the front wheel.
I build wheels so that looking through the valve hole shows "DURA-ACE",
but
with Shimano factory wheels, they make this marking visible—the one 180° opposite.
Either way works, but I prefer a build where you can feel the intention of
"I carefully positioned this marking here."
Next, the rear wheel.
It's 4-cross 46-hole, but with 28 holes the non-freehub side isn't fully tangential.
Still, it's better for correcting left-right spoke tension imbalance
than 4-cross 44-hole.
And certainly far better than 4-cross 40-hole.
The tires after the rebuild changed from Veloflex to
Continental Competition.
I talked with another customer today, and
I'm convinced that over the last two or three years
these tires have gotten smaller in diameter.
Even considering the small inner diameter, they never used to be this hard to mount.
If Continental had kept the old tires, I wouldn't have
made my "Stretcher Y" tool (→here).
↑ This is an order to build a Nomu Lab Wheel No. 1 with the leftover old Dura-Ace hub from the ZIPP rebuild.
↑ Wow, the hub polish is beautiful.
You can tell it was well-maintained.
(Since it was on the ZIPP, it may have been used only for races.)
From now on, it'll get plenty of use (laugh).
I was puzzled that I couldn't fine-tune the front wheel's runout,
but the front hub had the tiniest bit of play.
Once I took out the play, I was able to dial in the runout perfectly.
Separately, another hub arrived today. I'll build that tomorrow.