# Balloon Tire Wheel Build



## SirMike1983 (Jul 12, 2010)

I will be re-building a set of ballooner wheels later this week. I've built wheels for old Raleigh 3 speeds in the past, but never ballooner wheels. 

This build with be with vintage rims and hubs, but with new galvanized spokes. The spokes are the thin gauge (direct replacements for the old thin ones I removed). My question is when you do the build, do you "weave" the spokes like you do on an old Raleigh? That is to say you take spokes where the head faces into the hub (strung from the center out to the outside of the hub side) and weave them in the opposite spokes on the same side? Or do you just run them to the rim without inter-weaving with the other spokes on the same side?

The stock set up on these wheels was not inter woven but I'm wondering if I'll lose strength by not weaving the spokes on the same side.


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## chitown (Jul 12, 2010)

53Phantom posted this on the resto-tips section showing a 36 hole wheel. Not sure if this is the way you were thinking of lacing them.

http://thecabe.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?10579-Lacing-a-wheel.-It-s-easier-than-you-think.


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## 53Phantom (Jul 12, 2010)

Thanks Chris...you beat me to it ; )


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## SirMike1983 (Jul 12, 2010)

Nice video-- so I would still do the part at like 5:15 where she says "over, over, under" in terms of weaving the spoke in? That would be the same even with smaller gauge spokes like a balloon tire wheel?


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## 53Phantom (Jul 13, 2010)

Yes...over, over ,under, skip a hole.


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## militarymonark (Jul 13, 2010)

i have a thread about this


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## SirMike1983 (Jul 13, 2010)

Thanks for the tip.

Do you have a link to that thread? I searched through the restoration forum and didn't find anything.


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## militarymonark (Jul 13, 2010)

http://thecabe.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?413-spoking-wheels


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## cyclingday (Jul 13, 2010)

*OG to the nth degree!*

I pondered this same question, and after looking at many original wheel sets from the balloon tire era, I came to realize that for some reason, they didn't cross the spokes in the over/under pattern like a modern wheel set does. So to stay with the original character of that era, I started building my antique wheels that way. The hubs and rims are so beefy that I don't think that they suffer from a lack of stiffness in any way.
 We knock ourselves out to try and keep these bikes as original as possible,  I just figured that is one more way to stay true to  the bike. One other detail that I noticed that the early builders didn't pay much attention to, was starting the pattern so that the valve stem ends up between two parallel spokes. It definately helps with the modern chucks on todays tire pumps.


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## SirMike1983 (Jul 14, 2010)

That's exactly the part I was wondering about. Most of the originals I've seen do not do that interlacing. I was wondering if it was because the thin 80 gauge spokes don't work with interlacing, or perhaps because it took too much time to do etc. 

I was wondering this because I assumed interlacing lent extra strength to the wheel and if possible I would do it.


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## cyclingday (Jul 14, 2010)

It definately add strength to the wheel to lace them with the over/under crossing, but I just think that back in the day, they hadn't thought that it was nessesary. The thinner the guage spoke the easier it is to lace, so the stadard wheels of the day could have easily been laced that way, but for some reason they just didn't do it.


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## Aeropsycho (Jul 15, 2010)

SirMike1983 said:


> That's exactly the part I was wondering about. Most of the originals I've seen do not do that interlacing. I was wondering if it was because the thin 80 gauge spokes don't work with interlacing, or perhaps because it took too much time to do etc.
> 
> I was wondering this because I assumed interlacing lent extra strength to the wheel and if possible I would do it.




I think your right on the time factor they made millions of bikes and most were not considered as a sport or transportation so they probably slapped them together fast!


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