Another wheel day (and so on).
A customer brought me a Velocity small-diameter rim and
a wheel built with a Chris King hub.
They want me to build a wheel using that hub with some recommended 700C rim
and silver spokes with silver nipples,
so I'm building Nomu Lab Wheel #5.
As for the Velocity rim wheel,
they want it built with some random hub,
but the current setup is all-black Campagnolo, 28H, JIS four-cross lacing,
and they want black spokes on the next wheel too,
so I carefully disassembled the wheel
and tried to distinguish the original inpokes from the original outpokes
to reuse the spokes, but
↑the front wheel spoke length is about 2 threads short of the nipple slot,
↑on the rear wheel freewheel side,
the spokes shown in the image are about 1 thread short of the slot,
though most are nearly flush,
↑on the non-freewheel side, they were reusing the same spoke length,
so they ended up 4–5 threads short of the slot.
It's unlikely that the next Chris King hub
will have a larger flange (depending on lacing method the spokes might get shorter),
so these spokes are too short to reuse.
I also considered using the 28 original outpokes from both wheels
for radial lacing on the front,
but with 28H radial lacing—even if not with 24H—
the hub barrel becomes harder to wipe clean, so
I decided reusing the spokes wasn't worth it
and cut them away after releasing some tension.
Built.
R45 hub, 28H, all CX-RAY, four-cross Italian lacing.
The thing about how radial lacing on 28H and above makes the hub barrel hard to wipe
isn't really a performance issue, but
with 700C rims at 32H and above in radial lacing,
loose spokes where you can wiggle them with your fingers become more likely,
so even though this is 28H and not 32H, I went with tangent lacing.
A customer who came in today told me
"When I built a wheel with DT Revolution spokes
I got some wobble at around 90 kgf and had a rough time,"
but on the same rim, as you reduce the spoke count
the tension required per spoke increases,
so fewer-spoke setups are more prone to wobble.
For instance, with Nomu Lab Wheel #5 rim there's
32H and also 20H (roughly two-thirds the hole count),
but if you build a 20H wheel at the same loose spoke tension
that barely works for a 32H wheel,
the 20H wheel won't be usable.
Conversely,
you can't build (and won't build) 28H or 32H radial front wheels
at the same tension as a 20H radial front wheel.
That slightly-lower tension region compared to 20H
is where the risk appears—where one spoke ends up super loose.
Of course I take precautions so it happens as rarely as possible,
but it's rare, not never.
A customer brought me a Velocity small-diameter rim and
a wheel built with a Chris King hub.
They want me to build a wheel using that hub with some recommended 700C rim
and silver spokes with silver nipples,
so I'm building Nomu Lab Wheel #5.
As for the Velocity rim wheel,
they want it built with some random hub,
but the current setup is all-black Campagnolo, 28H, JIS four-cross lacing,
and they want black spokes on the next wheel too,
so I carefully disassembled the wheel
and tried to distinguish the original inpokes from the original outpokes
to reuse the spokes, but
↑the front wheel spoke length is about 2 threads short of the nipple slot,
↑on the rear wheel freewheel side,
the spokes shown in the image are about 1 thread short of the slot,
though most are nearly flush,
↑on the non-freewheel side, they were reusing the same spoke length,
so they ended up 4–5 threads short of the slot.
It's unlikely that the next Chris King hub
will have a larger flange (depending on lacing method the spokes might get shorter),
so these spokes are too short to reuse.
I also considered using the 28 original outpokes from both wheels
for radial lacing on the front,
but with 28H radial lacing—even if not with 24H—
the hub barrel becomes harder to wipe clean, so
I decided reusing the spokes wasn't worth it
and cut them away after releasing some tension.
Built.
R45 hub, 28H, all CX-RAY, four-cross Italian lacing.
The thing about how radial lacing on 28H and above makes the hub barrel hard to wipe
isn't really a performance issue, but
with 700C rims at 32H and above in radial lacing,
loose spokes where you can wiggle them with your fingers become more likely,
so even though this is 28H and not 32H, I went with tangent lacing.
A customer who came in today told me
"When I built a wheel with DT Revolution spokes
I got some wobble at around 90 kgf and had a rough time,"
but on the same rim, as you reduce the spoke count
the tension required per spoke increases,
so fewer-spoke setups are more prone to wobble.
For instance, with Nomu Lab Wheel #5 rim there's
32H and also 20H (roughly two-thirds the hole count),
but if you build a 20H wheel at the same loose spoke tension
that barely works for a 32H wheel,
the 20H wheel won't be usable.
Conversely,
you can't build (and won't build) 28H or 32H radial front wheels
at the same tension as a 20H radial front wheel.
That slightly-lower tension region compared to 20H
is where the risk appears—where one spoke ends up super loose.
Of course I take precautions so it happens as rarely as possible,
but it's rare, not never.