Another day with wheels (and so on).
A customer left me with a front wheel from a Rovaul CLX50.
The spokes on the tangent-laced side were creaking,
so they wanted me to tie them to eliminate that noise,
but I thought—why not just rebuild the whole wheel while we're at it?
So that's what we ended up doing.
Actually, we've rebuilt the rear wheel here before
(they said the engagement got better),
and they're using that rear wheel paired with a different front wheel,
so this one had been sitting unused.
The white cosmetic decal on the rim side is pretty cheap sticker,
layered over a gray one with the same text.
If I peel it all off, it just becomes a standard-looking
Rovaul wheel.
The area around the valve hole seems to peel easily,
probably because it gets touched a lot by hand
or the pump head keeps tapping it.
Since I'm taking it apart anyway, it doesn't matter,
but there was a slight centering offset—the kind
that would pass inspection at most manufacturers.
Disc front wheels have dish, so centering offset can happen
from extended use, but this offset is in the opposite direction.
I took the wheel completely apart.
You might think—why not just replace the 7 spokes on one side?—
but doing a complete teardown and rebuild lets me reach
the final result I'm after more satisfyingly, and the work time
doesn't change much anyway.
The spokes in the image above are the 14 spokes I'm reusing from the left side.
Also, when you do a complete teardown, you sometimes find
spokes that are deformed enough to need replacement
(though if they're that badly deformed, you'd notice it during a partial teardown rebuild too).
If you do this kind of finishing on the spoke ends,
the wheel builds up really nicely.
I was planning to introduce it, but got blocked by consideration.
↑Even though this wheel is structurally 3×7, a 21H,
my habit is to lay out the nipples in groups of 4
as a check that I've recovered all the nipples from the disassembled wheel.
4×5+1 = 21 nipples.
This was done after I'd built the wheel,
but the bearing rotation was grinding, so
I swapped both sides to domestic steel ball bearings.
The original bearings weren't Rovaul OEM—
they were Tni ceramic bearings.
This isn't related to the X-12 through-axle over-tightening issue.
The customer knows better and doesn't over-tighten anyway.
Built.
I've increased the spoke weight proportion on the low-spoke side
(this time it's not CX Sprint)
and tied the final cross on the high-spoke side.
As for rim weight, unlike yesterday's Zentis and such,
I have sufficient samples, so there's no need to publish it.
Of course I measured it, but I'm not telling.
↑wow this guy has bad vibes
Like yesterday's outfit, the crab-ray section is
not fully rendered—my apologies.
Please look at this image!
↑Stop it already!
A customer left me with a front wheel from a Rovaul CLX50.
The spokes on the tangent-laced side were creaking,
so they wanted me to tie them to eliminate that noise,
but I thought—why not just rebuild the whole wheel while we're at it?
So that's what we ended up doing.
Actually, we've rebuilt the rear wheel here before
(they said the engagement got better),
and they're using that rear wheel paired with a different front wheel,
so this one had been sitting unused.
The white cosmetic decal on the rim side is pretty cheap sticker,
layered over a gray one with the same text.
If I peel it all off, it just becomes a standard-looking
Rovaul wheel.
The area around the valve hole seems to peel easily,
probably because it gets touched a lot by hand
or the pump head keeps tapping it.
Since I'm taking it apart anyway, it doesn't matter,
but there was a slight centering offset—the kind
that would pass inspection at most manufacturers.
Disc front wheels have dish, so centering offset can happen
from extended use, but this offset is in the opposite direction.
I took the wheel completely apart.
You might think—why not just replace the 7 spokes on one side?—
but doing a complete teardown and rebuild lets me reach
the final result I'm after more satisfyingly, and the work time
doesn't change much anyway.
The spokes in the image above are the 14 spokes I'm reusing from the left side.
Also, when you do a complete teardown, you sometimes find
spokes that are deformed enough to need replacement
(though if they're that badly deformed, you'd notice it during a partial teardown rebuild too).
If you do this kind of finishing on the spoke ends,
the wheel builds up really nicely.
I was planning to introduce it, but got blocked by consideration.
↑Even though this wheel is structurally 3×7, a 21H,
my habit is to lay out the nipples in groups of 4
as a check that I've recovered all the nipples from the disassembled wheel.
4×5+1 = 21 nipples.
This was done after I'd built the wheel,
but the bearing rotation was grinding, so
I swapped both sides to domestic steel ball bearings.
The original bearings weren't Rovaul OEM—
they were Tni ceramic bearings.
This isn't related to the X-12 through-axle over-tightening issue.
The customer knows better and doesn't over-tighten anyway.
Built.
I've increased the spoke weight proportion on the low-spoke side
(this time it's not CX Sprint)
and tied the final cross on the high-spoke side.
As for rim weight, unlike yesterday's Zentis and such,
I have sufficient samples, so there's no need to publish it.
Of course I measured it, but I'm not telling.
↑wow this guy has bad vibes
Like yesterday's outfit, the crab-ray section is
not fully rendered—my apologies.
Please look at this image!
↑Stop it already!