Another day with wheels (and so on).
I rebuilt the Tni off-the-shelf Carbon 38 rim wheel.
↑Before rebuild
It's built with Tni Evolution hubs and Sapim Race spokes.
Sapim Race features 2.0–1.8–2.0mm butted round spokes,
which is the same spec as DT Competition,
but the proportion of the 1.8mm section is larger overall,
so by weight it's actually lighter than Competition.
This pair's list price is ¥105,000.
Nomu Lab Wheel No. 2 uses the same hub and rim,
but with all CX-RAY on the front and all Competition on the rear—
¥43,000 each retail, ¥86,000 a pair.
Since the No. 2 rim is out of stock,
I once bought this Tni off-the-shelf wheel, broke it down,
changed the spoke selection and lacing pattern,
and tried to sell it as Nomu Lab Wheel No. 2.
Running the numbers, the profit margin is razor-thin.
Frankly it's a thankless job, but clearing customer orders takes priority.
That's what I thought, but I got back "We can't build it because the rim is out of stock."
Apparently this wheel is assembled domestically.
They're sharing the same inventory for retail rims and spares with off-the-shelf wheels.
So I had no choice but to give up on rebuilding the off-the-shelf.
Now, this is an off-the-shelf Tni wheel, but a customer who happened to come by the shop before
looked at Nomu Lab Wheel No. 2 and said "The spoke tension is completely different,"
and mentioned they might do a rebuild.
That's because this off-the-shelf wheel had slack tension, especially on the rear wheel.
So they asked the shop where they bought it to re-tension the spokes,
and got told "We'd have to ask Tri Sports."
The Carbon 38 has "Can be tensioned up to 130 kgf" on both the rim sticker and instruction manual,
but without asking the distributor, there's no problem at all
with raising spoke tension within the allowable upper limit.
In the end the shop where they bought it wouldn't do it (even though they bought it there),
so I re-tensioned it at my shop,
and while I was at it, I swapped the non-drive side to CX-RAY spokes
and changed it from a 44-spoke to a 46-spoke lacing pattern.
Built.
I reused the drive-side spokes.
I won't go into detail on tension (though I did measure it),
but I was able to get an average of 1.75 turns of re-tensioning on the drive side.
On a properly built wheel, you normally can't re-tension the drive side that much.
It was just loose to begin with.
Even so, it hasn't exceeded 130 kgf. I don't like tensioning them too high anyway.
The customer also wanted nipple-dressing, so I did that,
and since the spoke wrench deformation was very similar left-to-right,
they might have wanted to see it before dressing.
I thought I could get away with just re-tensioning the front wheel,
but I rebuilt it with CX-RAY.
Having only the rear non-drive side be aero was a balance issue,
and besides, it's what the customer wanted.
I rebuilt the Tni off-the-shelf Carbon 38 rim wheel.
↑Before rebuild
It's built with Tni Evolution hubs and Sapim Race spokes.
Sapim Race features 2.0–1.8–2.0mm butted round spokes,
which is the same spec as DT Competition,
but the proportion of the 1.8mm section is larger overall,
so by weight it's actually lighter than Competition.
This pair's list price is ¥105,000.
Nomu Lab Wheel No. 2 uses the same hub and rim,
but with all CX-RAY on the front and all Competition on the rear—
¥43,000 each retail, ¥86,000 a pair.
Since the No. 2 rim is out of stock,
I once bought this Tni off-the-shelf wheel, broke it down,
changed the spoke selection and lacing pattern,
and tried to sell it as Nomu Lab Wheel No. 2.
Running the numbers, the profit margin is razor-thin.
Frankly it's a thankless job, but clearing customer orders takes priority.
That's what I thought, but I got back "We can't build it because the rim is out of stock."
Apparently this wheel is assembled domestically.
They're sharing the same inventory for retail rims and spares with off-the-shelf wheels.
So I had no choice but to give up on rebuilding the off-the-shelf.
Now, this is an off-the-shelf Tni wheel, but a customer who happened to come by the shop before
looked at Nomu Lab Wheel No. 2 and said "The spoke tension is completely different,"
and mentioned they might do a rebuild.
That's because this off-the-shelf wheel had slack tension, especially on the rear wheel.
So they asked the shop where they bought it to re-tension the spokes,
and got told "We'd have to ask Tri Sports."
The Carbon 38 has "Can be tensioned up to 130 kgf" on both the rim sticker and instruction manual,
but without asking the distributor, there's no problem at all
with raising spoke tension within the allowable upper limit.
In the end the shop where they bought it wouldn't do it (even though they bought it there),
so I re-tensioned it at my shop,
and while I was at it, I swapped the non-drive side to CX-RAY spokes
and changed it from a 44-spoke to a 46-spoke lacing pattern.
Built.
I reused the drive-side spokes.
I won't go into detail on tension (though I did measure it),
but I was able to get an average of 1.75 turns of re-tensioning on the drive side.
On a properly built wheel, you normally can't re-tension the drive side that much.
It was just loose to begin with.
Even so, it hasn't exceeded 130 kgf. I don't like tensioning them too high anyway.
The customer also wanted nipple-dressing, so I did that,
and since the spoke wrench deformation was very similar left-to-right,
they might have wanted to see it before dressing.
I thought I could get away with just re-tensioning the front wheel,
but I rebuilt it with CX-RAY.
Having only the rear non-drive side be aero was a balance issue,
and besides, it's what the customer wanted.