Another day, another wheel (and so on).
A customer left a front wheel built with an XR200 rim for me to work on.
It's the counterpart to the rear wheel I built with a Hope hub yesterday.
DT 350 front hub, 20H, built 4-cross Italian style
The spokes are Starbright (star-pattern; they attract magnets but not as strongly as older versions).
15G plain, but they're tensioned incredibly tight—even I wouldn't go that far.
In that respect and for having almost no lateral wobble, the build was solid,
but the centering was off by about one sheet of paper, and the radial runout was rather pronounced.
I thought maybe just adjusting it would be fine,
but the customer wanted it rebuilt with a CX-Ray rim,
so a rebuild it would be.
But looking more carefully, it really did need to be rebuilt.
The brass nipples with a 3.4mm wrench face were being turned with a tool that's too short in height, causing the nipples to be partially stripped.
If these were aluminum nipples, they'd break at this tension—you couldn't go that tight.
For 3.4mm nipples, a tool with a short wrench height would be something like Sugino's spoke wrench for tension disks.
Even loosening them to partially deflate the tension so I could cut the spokes and disassemble was a struggle.
Also, spoke threads were slightly visible coming out from under the nipple,
which clearly meant the spokes were too short.
It's built.
CX-Ray, 4-cross Italian style
Aluminum nipples, spoke length flush with the end of the nipple.
Naturally, I've also dialed out the radial runout,
and the wheel in the image above is spinning.
There's a white band-like wear mark in the rim's brake zone,
and when you spin the wheel, this white band bounces up and down.
Originally, that white wear mark was the true circle,
and it was the rim's profile that was bouncing up and down.
A customer left a front wheel built with an XR200 rim for me to work on.
It's the counterpart to the rear wheel I built with a Hope hub yesterday.
DT 350 front hub, 20H, built 4-cross Italian style
The spokes are Starbright (star-pattern; they attract magnets but not as strongly as older versions).
15G plain, but they're tensioned incredibly tight—even I wouldn't go that far.
In that respect and for having almost no lateral wobble, the build was solid,
but the centering was off by about one sheet of paper, and the radial runout was rather pronounced.
I thought maybe just adjusting it would be fine,
but the customer wanted it rebuilt with a CX-Ray rim,
so a rebuild it would be.
But looking more carefully, it really did need to be rebuilt.
The brass nipples with a 3.4mm wrench face were being turned with a tool that's too short in height, causing the nipples to be partially stripped.
If these were aluminum nipples, they'd break at this tension—you couldn't go that tight.
For 3.4mm nipples, a tool with a short wrench height would be something like Sugino's spoke wrench for tension disks.
Even loosening them to partially deflate the tension so I could cut the spokes and disassemble was a struggle.
Also, spoke threads were slightly visible coming out from under the nipple,
which clearly meant the spokes were too short.
It's built.
CX-Ray, 4-cross Italian style
Aluminum nipples, spoke length flush with the end of the nipple.
Naturally, I've also dialed out the radial runout,
and the wheel in the image above is spinning.
There's a white band-like wear mark in the rim's brake zone,
and when you spin the wheel, this white band bounces up and down.
Originally, that white wear mark was the true circle,
and it was the rim's profile that was bouncing up and down.