Wheel Truing, some questions.

wayne0308

Hi there,

I've been reading up on wheel truing (Sheldon Brown and Park tool websites) and I'm thinking about giving it a go myself.

Rather than get a truing stand I can probably take the Sheldon Brown approach and maybe use a turbo to hold wheel so that it's free to rotate? Would that work okay?

I'm just wondering how much skill does it take? Can someone learn to do this on their own? From what I've read it can get a bit ticklish...

I think the LBS could do it for me for somewhere in the region of 10-20 euro. However if I make a complete mess of it and give up how much would it cost to have the wheel rebuilt?

Cheers.

kumate_champ07

I learned it on my own. practice makes perfect. first wheel will be hard to do, you'll prob get the spoke patern wrong a few times and have to start again.
after 3-4wheels you wont need to look at instructions and you should be finished in 1/4 the time it took before.

if you like building/fixing things you'll enjoy it, it's very satisfying.

I'd recommend the tacx wheel truing stand, ribble has it for the cheapest price online. Its serving me well at the moment but Im sure I'l prob need something better eventually. I also got the park tools wag3 dishing tool. its very handy to have.

Its not as hard as people think but theres alot to learn to have it optimal

wayne0308

Cheers kumate_champ07, I'll check out that stand now. I'm usually pretty good with things like this but when I try something new I'm usually a bit wary I guess. I suppose it can't hurt to give it a go.

doozerie

As to whether you can learn the skill of truing wheels on your own, yes, you definitely can. Many people have, me included. It isn't rocket science, it just requires that you be methodical. At the start it can be slow and laborious work, but your speed and quality improve the more wheels you work on. Before you know it, you'll be thinking about building your own wheels.

As regards a truing stand, pretty much anything that'll allow you to spin the wheel freely will do. So a turbo trainer should work, an old set of front forks stuck upside down in the ground will work, etc. What the truing stands offer though are guides that'll allow you to easily see whether the rim is pulling from side to side or up/down, and those with decent guides will help ensure that the rim will be dished/centred correctly once built. You can make up your own guides for your own truing stand, of course, commercial truing stands just provide the convenience of decent guides (not in all cases mind you!) combined with a stable and adjustable (for angle) wheel holder, but obviously you pay for that convenience.

For truing wheels, you can also just leave the wheel in the frame of the bike and use the brake blocks as your guides. That works well. It is better to take the tyre and tube off when truing. For building wheels from scratch a truing stand is a better choice, whether it is home-made or commercial.

thehangtenguy

I build/tru my own wheels and i highly recommend it. It is very satisfying thing to learn. I decided to take on the job because i waa getting sick of sometimes up to a week, waiting for the LBS to do the job. Lots of info to be found on the net and most decent bike maintaince books will have a chapter on the subject. The first wheel i built took 3 evenings to get right but the more wheels you do, the better you get at it. I tru my wheels in the frame of the bike with tire.tube and rim tape removed. I use a big lump of bluetack with a needle stuck in it on the chainstay as my adjustable truing guide. Not all guides tell you this but I recomend you use some 3 in 1 oil on each nipple before you tension them and dont forget stress the spokes before the job is complete.

tomasrojo

I've never built a wheel, but I've trued plenty of wheels and replaced plenty of spokes. I've always put the bike on a stand and used the brake blocks as a guide. As someone said, you should remove the tyre and tube, but I don't bother and instead just let all the air out of the tube (it can explode during the truing otherwise). You have to concentrate a bit harder, as the slack and therefore uneven tyre spinning around does distract the eye a lot.

The results have been perfectly acceptable, as far as I'm concerned. Good enough for utility cycling, which is all I want them for.

wayne0308

Cheers for the replies guys. I had a look though my tool box and found a spoke wrench last night so I'm willing to give it a try this weekend starting this morning. College is closed yet again so may as well. I might post back here if I run into trouble. Which might be quite a bit

Clydes

Having used multiple LBS for this my experience was very hit & miss so like you I started DIY. I scoured the www and bought 3 books. wheelpro is by far the best imo.

If you are really interested then invest €10 for online for immediate download, read it and then be patience initially. It also shows you how to DIY a stand

CramCycle

I used this for reference:

http://bicycletutor.com/wheel-truing/

and I bought a tensiometer for 50euro off ebay, unable to do the tension by ear thing, very handy.