I laced up my first wheel yesterday. It’s a rear wheel for my ever improving Fujiyama. It turns out that building a wheel is pretty darn simple – mechanically at least.
I should mention that I didn’t do completely on my own though. Cyrus, of the Kickstand, was my more than able trainer. He’d ordered the parts for me and calculated the spoke lengths, something I didn’t learn to do. I showed up at the Kickstand, after picking up the spokes from McCully on my way up to Kaimuki. Cyrus cheerfully looked at the spokes, showed me where to get to work (he’d cleared a small space), then showed me how to start lacing a three cross pattern.
I actually managed to get the spokes and nipples onto the wheel without losing anything or crossing a spoke the wrong way. Even so no one is going to hire me to build wheels anytime soon. I wasn’t exactly fast.
Cyrus had some great tools to make the job easier, including a little spoke nipple tool that would hold and screw the nipple on the spoke…apparently it was a custom job from a tool builder in Oregon. He also showed me one I could make from a spare spoke and nipple combination…guess which is which…
Once the wheel was together, it was time to tension the spokes, true things up, and finally, give it all a go.
This took more time. I definitely wouldn’t hire me. Still with careful coaching I got the wheel 98% trued. Cyrus was nice enough to finish it off, explaining what he was doing and why. I’d definitely hire him. I could probably finish off another wheel at this point, but it would take some time and probably involve some starts and stops.
In any case, by mid-afternoon (and I’d started around noon), I had a wheel. We mounted it up and I got give my new Sturmey-Archer S2 Duomatic. I’ll have more on that later, but suffice to say I’m pleased with my new wheel building skills. I may not build a lot of wheels in the future, but I no longer think it’s some dark magic.
I don’t have a good picture yet, but I took one in the dark of the hub itself…
Slower, cheaper, less useful…