Wheels again today (and so on).
I received a Super Champion wooden rim
from a customer.
I'll be building both front and rear wheels with it, but today I'm doing the front wheel.
It's the type that doesn't require special washers or nipples—
the eyelets are embedded from the outside of the rim.
When I aligned the two rims perfectly at a certain phase,
there were small gaps at several points,
so it was warped somewhat.
Built it.
Campagnolo earth-mark Record
large flange hub, 36H
NJS track-use #15 Aero Star Bright spokes
Italian 88-style lacing.
Nipples are DT 3.2mm hex brass.
The customer's request was just that they wanted silver spokes—anything else was fine,
so considering spoke tension as a destructive factor to the wooden rim,
I chose spoke gauge, shape, and lacing pattern
that would be gentlest on the rim.
↑This is the finished state, but during initial assembly
when I aligned the spoke threads to where they're hidden
by the inner edge of the nipple,
the radial and lateral runout were surprisingly large.
The biggest factor in this
isn't the slight rim warp—
it's that the eyelet embedding depth
varies from hole to hole on the rim.
So as you can see in the images above,
the nipple protrusion from the rim also varies,
and this creates variation in spoke tension.
Even the lowest-tension spoke among the 36
needs to be tensioned enough that it won't rattle excessively
after some use,
but at the same time I need to be careful
that the highest-tension spoke doesn't exceed
the threshold for splitting the rim holes.
In theory these requirements can both be met,
but the margin is very narrow, so it's difficult.
I received a Super Champion wooden rim
from a customer.
I'll be building both front and rear wheels with it, but today I'm doing the front wheel.
It's the type that doesn't require special washers or nipples—
the eyelets are embedded from the outside of the rim.
When I aligned the two rims perfectly at a certain phase,
there were small gaps at several points,
so it was warped somewhat.
Built it.
Campagnolo earth-mark Record
large flange hub, 36H
NJS track-use #15 Aero Star Bright spokes
Italian 88-style lacing.
Nipples are DT 3.2mm hex brass.
The customer's request was just that they wanted silver spokes—anything else was fine,
so considering spoke tension as a destructive factor to the wooden rim,
I chose spoke gauge, shape, and lacing pattern
that would be gentlest on the rim.
↑This is the finished state, but during initial assembly
when I aligned the spoke threads to where they're hidden
by the inner edge of the nipple,
the radial and lateral runout were surprisingly large.
The biggest factor in this
isn't the slight rim warp—
it's that the eyelet embedding depth
varies from hole to hole on the rim.
So as you can see in the images above,
the nipple protrusion from the rim also varies,
and this creates variation in spoke tension.
Even the lowest-tension spoke among the 36
needs to be tensioned enough that it won't rattle excessively
after some use,
but at the same time I need to be careful
that the highest-tension spoke doesn't exceed
the threshold for splitting the rim holes.
In theory these requirements can both be met,
but the margin is very narrow, so it's difficult.