Another day building wheels (long story).
Built the front wheel for a fixed gear with a
60mm deep tubular rim.
It's the matching set to yesterday's rear wheel.
Since they're the same model from the same manufacturer just with different rim depths,
you could roughly estimate the inner diameter difference as
88mm minus 60mm = 28mm,
but it's not that hard to measure precisely, so
I actually measured it: the diameter difference came out to 28.3mm,
and the radius difference was 14.15mm.
The 0.15mm radius difference
is easily absorbed by the redundancy in the spoke threads anyway,
and besides, with a full set of off-the-shelf spokes
for one wheel, the variation between the shortest and longest
measured lengths compared to the nominal length
is often more than 0.15mm anyway.
Nut-retention large flange fixed gear hub, 20 holes
Current Aero Star Bright, 4-4 Italian lacing.
I'll do the nipple weld later.
The nipple weld is what the customer wanted,
but if this were a road wheel,
(setting aside whether I'd do radial lacing)
I might actually tell them "let's skip the weld,"
but for a fixed gear wheel, I want them to experience
the full "hardness violence" that a spoke wheel can deliver.
Heh heh.
I switched to star-pattern spokes,
specifically the current Aero Star Bright,
because the spoke specific gravity is just right.
For this batch, the measured value came out to 91.9%,
roughly in the 91-92% range.
Looking at the photo above, you can see that
with something like Sapim or DT aero spokes,
regardless of length, the plain section on the thread end
is basically fixed at around 6mm of cutting room,
whereas Star spokes have much more variation here—
with the actual sample I had, you could easily cut 20mm.
I actually cut about 10mm from the state shown in that photo.
Since the plain section length varies quite a bit,
the spoke specific gravity spread is a little wider.
That said, these are already 90%-range spokes,
so even if I cut the plain section on the rim end down
to almost nothing but threads,
the spoke specific gravity barely changes.
This current Aero Star Bright (SB)
passes through unmodified round flange holes just like
the older Aero SB3 (Star Bright III type),
but while the Aero SB3 has completely flat
square aero sections,
the current Aero SB has a rounded bulge,
so while it's fairly stubby-looking,
it technically qualifies as
an elliptical aero spoke.
It's so stubby that the current Aero SB won't fit
the slit on a tool that can just grip the flat section of a CX Sprint.
The rear wheel used CX Sprint spokes at 78% specific gravity
with 24 holes, but since the front is 20 holes,
I wanted a bit more spoke specific gravity,
so I went with the current Aero SB.
In terms of "spoke quantity" (specific gravity × hole count)
without accounting for spoke length,
the front wheel is 91 × 20 = 1820,
and the rear is 78 × 24 = 1872,
but when you factor in actual length,
since the rear rim is higher (= shorter spokes),
the front wheel comes out to a larger total.
In other words, the front wheel has a greater
total volume of spoke material.
There was an old Star spoke problem with
clearly non-Starbright material stamped with the Starbright mark—
what I call fake Starbright or crap Starbright—
mixed in batches, but with this current Aero SB,
that's completely gone.
The paper inside the spoke bag with the product name and length
has a management number stamped on it,
and they've implemented a level of traceability—
production date, lot number—
that older Star spokes never had.
That said, I'm not completely trusting them,
and I'm not planning to actively use them going forward either.
↑Front wheel
↑Rear wheel
On both rims, the WARNING sticker at the valve hole phase
only appears on one side
(it should have been on both originally),
and the positioning aligned with
the arrow sticker saying "build as a true rim,"
so I built them with
the WARNING sticker on the right side for both wheels.
Built the front wheel for a fixed gear with a
60mm deep tubular rim.
It's the matching set to yesterday's rear wheel.
Since they're the same model from the same manufacturer just with different rim depths,
you could roughly estimate the inner diameter difference as
88mm minus 60mm = 28mm,
but it's not that hard to measure precisely, so
I actually measured it: the diameter difference came out to 28.3mm,
and the radius difference was 14.15mm.
The 0.15mm radius difference
is easily absorbed by the redundancy in the spoke threads anyway,
and besides, with a full set of off-the-shelf spokes
for one wheel, the variation between the shortest and longest
measured lengths compared to the nominal length
is often more than 0.15mm anyway.
Nut-retention large flange fixed gear hub, 20 holes
Current Aero Star Bright, 4-4 Italian lacing.
I'll do the nipple weld later.
The nipple weld is what the customer wanted,
but if this were a road wheel,
(setting aside whether I'd do radial lacing)
I might actually tell them "let's skip the weld,"
but for a fixed gear wheel, I want them to experience
the full "hardness violence" that a spoke wheel can deliver.
Heh heh.
I switched to star-pattern spokes,
specifically the current Aero Star Bright,
because the spoke specific gravity is just right.
For this batch, the measured value came out to 91.9%,
roughly in the 91-92% range.
Looking at the photo above, you can see that
with something like Sapim or DT aero spokes,
regardless of length, the plain section on the thread end
is basically fixed at around 6mm of cutting room,
whereas Star spokes have much more variation here—
with the actual sample I had, you could easily cut 20mm.
I actually cut about 10mm from the state shown in that photo.
Since the plain section length varies quite a bit,
the spoke specific gravity spread is a little wider.
That said, these are already 90%-range spokes,
so even if I cut the plain section on the rim end down
to almost nothing but threads,
the spoke specific gravity barely changes.
This current Aero Star Bright (SB)
passes through unmodified round flange holes just like
the older Aero SB3 (Star Bright III type),
but while the Aero SB3 has completely flat
square aero sections,
the current Aero SB has a rounded bulge,
so while it's fairly stubby-looking,
it technically qualifies as
an elliptical aero spoke.
It's so stubby that the current Aero SB won't fit
the slit on a tool that can just grip the flat section of a CX Sprint.
The rear wheel used CX Sprint spokes at 78% specific gravity
with 24 holes, but since the front is 20 holes,
I wanted a bit more spoke specific gravity,
so I went with the current Aero SB.
In terms of "spoke quantity" (specific gravity × hole count)
without accounting for spoke length,
the front wheel is 91 × 20 = 1820,
and the rear is 78 × 24 = 1872,
but when you factor in actual length,
since the rear rim is higher (= shorter spokes),
the front wheel comes out to a larger total.
In other words, the front wheel has a greater
total volume of spoke material.
There was an old Star spoke problem with
clearly non-Starbright material stamped with the Starbright mark—
what I call fake Starbright or crap Starbright—
mixed in batches, but with this current Aero SB,
that's completely gone.
The paper inside the spoke bag with the product name and length
has a management number stamped on it,
and they've implemented a level of traceability—
production date, lot number—
that older Star spokes never had.
and I'm not planning to actively use them going forward either.
↑Front wheel
↑Rear wheel
On both rims, the WARNING sticker at the valve hole phase
only appears on one side
(it should have been on both originally),
and the positioning aligned with
the arrow sticker saying "build as a true rim,"
so I built them with
the WARNING sticker on the right side for both wheels.