Porkchop & Applesauce
I live for the CABE
Found this on line
When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.
Spoke nipple "pull up tool" (photos needed)
- Thread starter Schwinn Sales West
- Start date
#eBayPartner Most Recent BUY IT NOW Items Listed on eBay
Schwinn Sales West
I live for the CABE
LOL...........Miq, I see your going to be one of those difficult students! I need a picture of one half of an ASSEMBLED wheel. LOL
Large flange hub is easier to see because the spokes are spaced out. Only one half of the wheel, showing the valve stem in the side view photo, so we have a reference point.
Perfect, Thank you.
I'll get going, let me put my thoughts together. We will move forward without the centering gauge, maybe a photo will show up later.
While I'm doing that, what kind of questions do you guys have? Obviously, this would be easier if we did this in person, but I think we can make some progress by just discussing it one item/question at a time. I really did not want to do just a basic 101 type wheel build because that has been done many times already, but I'm up for anything you guys want to cover. I would like to discuss some of the tougher wheel building topics.
My outline of topics so far is,
HOW TO USE SPECIAL WHEEL BUILDING TOOLS
WHEEL BUILDING AREA
TRUING, PULL UP, USING A CENTERING GAUGE
SPOKE NIPPER
SPOKE WRENCHES
I'll likely jump around between these subjects to keep it interesting.
John
Schwinn Sales West
I live for the CABE
I would like to discuss truing stands, but we also need to talk about centering gauges, because the Park Tool stand is seldom accurate. Maybe "close enough" for a fat tire cruiser, but not trustworthy enough for a Pro Wheel. Thanks for including the photo, we would need a photo of a Park fork alignment gauge which is how you determine if the truing stand is adjusted correctly, and also used to re-center the truing stand if you find it out of adjustment.
John
Schwinn Sales West
I live for the CABE
OK tonight's wheel building discussion is on "wheel pull up". This is the very first step after you have all of the nipples on the spokes and the wheel is built, but "loose".
Grab a bicycle wheel so you have something in front of you to look at and find what we are talking about.
Go to the Reference wheel photo on post #29, use the second photo. Find the valve hole at 3:00
Find the yellow zip tie at 6:00.
Look at the yellow zip tie pointing at the 5:00 spoke and the spoke next to it at 6:00 (not the zip tied spoke with the brake lever)
I'm going to define those two spokes as the "Cross Over" spokes. Note one goes to each hub flange side, AND they also cross over each other. If you look closely, they repeat by skipping two spokes, then you have two more "Cross Over" spokes. You need to be able to find these two spokes and see that they repeat all the way around the rim.
Take any one of your various "pull-up" #1 or #2 tools, the screwdriver style from Park/DT/or Bicycle Reasearch, or you can try out your drill motor driven spoke pull up bit and tighten ONLY the Cross Over spokes you just located. Assuming you have chosen the correct length spoke size from Marty's nice spoke collection, when you use the pull up bit, or screwdriver it will kick out from the nipple at a point that it is not over. or under tightened. You are only going to tighten 18 spokes in your 36 spoke wheel. The Two Cross Over spokes, skip two spokes, and tighten the next two Cross Over spokes. Repeat the two tighten, two skip, two tighten, two skip all the way around the rim. If the spoke length was correct, you will have a wheel that is almost snug, you were able to make it all the way around the rim before it got "too tight", the wheel will be "round", and the wheel will be "straight", and the rim will be "centered" with in the width of the axle spacing. Yes, frigging MAJIC. Next you have to go back and tighten the remaining 18 of the 36 spokes. The wheel will remain round, straight, and centered. If you tighten the spokes as Marty explained by equally tightening all the spokes in sequence around the rim, you will be able to tension it, but it will not be round, straight, and centered. The wheel is not done yet, but it well on the way for final truing by hand in a truing stand.
By taking the few seconds extra to find the Cross Over spokes, and pulling them up first, you will save yourself tons of time when you get to the final truing step. Truing is a four-part process. #1 The wheel needs to end up with the proper spoke tension. They actually make spoke tension gauges to test the spoke tension. Not important on a Beach Cruiser, but it is on a Pro Wheel with a lightweight rim. #2 The wheel needs to be straight rolling. #3 The wheel needs to have no "hop", we are not building clown bike wheels. #4 The wheel needs to have the distance between the hub lock nuts come out exactly centered in the middle of the rim. Any one of these four requirements is fairly easy to obtain. Getting all four of them at the SAME TIME is the hard part. My advice is not to work on any one of them, but to work on all four of them at one time. By that I mean, do the one that is the farthest off. If it's roundness, work on that just a little, then check the "side to side" runout, pull in the high's, and let out the low's. Make sure the center is close, while keeping an eye on the overall spoke tension. Too tight a wheel, will break spokes, just as "too loose a wheel "will break spokes. Proper tension is important. It's easy to add more tension at the end after you have the wheel in round, centered, and straight. In my experience, it's best to jump back in forth between all four objectives.
You should be able to fill the hub with spokes, lace the spokes into the wheel rim, and "pull up" the wheel to 80%-90% true and straight in under ten minutes. In the Schwinn factory (1958) they filled and laced the wheels by hand but used an oil pressure driven Holland truing machine. They had to build 5000 to 7000 wheels every day to keep the assembly lines supplied.
Tomorrow night we will discuss another wheel building topic.
If you have questions, someone will know the answer.
John
Grab a bicycle wheel so you have something in front of you to look at and find what we are talking about.
Go to the Reference wheel photo on post #29, use the second photo. Find the valve hole at 3:00
Find the yellow zip tie at 6:00.
Look at the yellow zip tie pointing at the 5:00 spoke and the spoke next to it at 6:00 (not the zip tied spoke with the brake lever)
I'm going to define those two spokes as the "Cross Over" spokes. Note one goes to each hub flange side, AND they also cross over each other. If you look closely, they repeat by skipping two spokes, then you have two more "Cross Over" spokes. You need to be able to find these two spokes and see that they repeat all the way around the rim.
Take any one of your various "pull-up" #1 or #2 tools, the screwdriver style from Park/DT/or Bicycle Reasearch, or you can try out your drill motor driven spoke pull up bit and tighten ONLY the Cross Over spokes you just located. Assuming you have chosen the correct length spoke size from Marty's nice spoke collection, when you use the pull up bit, or screwdriver it will kick out from the nipple at a point that it is not over. or under tightened. You are only going to tighten 18 spokes in your 36 spoke wheel. The Two Cross Over spokes, skip two spokes, and tighten the next two Cross Over spokes. Repeat the two tighten, two skip, two tighten, two skip all the way around the rim. If the spoke length was correct, you will have a wheel that is almost snug, you were able to make it all the way around the rim before it got "too tight", the wheel will be "round", and the wheel will be "straight", and the rim will be "centered" with in the width of the axle spacing. Yes, frigging MAJIC. Next you have to go back and tighten the remaining 18 of the 36 spokes. The wheel will remain round, straight, and centered. If you tighten the spokes as Marty explained by equally tightening all the spokes in sequence around the rim, you will be able to tension it, but it will not be round, straight, and centered. The wheel is not done yet, but it well on the way for final truing by hand in a truing stand.
By taking the few seconds extra to find the Cross Over spokes, and pulling them up first, you will save yourself tons of time when you get to the final truing step. Truing is a four-part process. #1 The wheel needs to end up with the proper spoke tension. They actually make spoke tension gauges to test the spoke tension. Not important on a Beach Cruiser, but it is on a Pro Wheel with a lightweight rim. #2 The wheel needs to be straight rolling. #3 The wheel needs to have no "hop", we are not building clown bike wheels. #4 The wheel needs to have the distance between the hub lock nuts come out exactly centered in the middle of the rim. Any one of these four requirements is fairly easy to obtain. Getting all four of them at the SAME TIME is the hard part. My advice is not to work on any one of them, but to work on all four of them at one time. By that I mean, do the one that is the farthest off. If it's roundness, work on that just a little, then check the "side to side" runout, pull in the high's, and let out the low's. Make sure the center is close, while keeping an eye on the overall spoke tension. Too tight a wheel, will break spokes, just as "too loose a wheel "will break spokes. Proper tension is important. It's easy to add more tension at the end after you have the wheel in round, centered, and straight. In my experience, it's best to jump back in forth between all four objectives.
You should be able to fill the hub with spokes, lace the spokes into the wheel rim, and "pull up" the wheel to 80%-90% true and straight in under ten minutes. In the Schwinn factory (1958) they filled and laced the wheels by hand but used an oil pressure driven Holland truing machine. They had to build 5000 to 7000 wheels every day to keep the assembly lines supplied.
Tomorrow night we will discuss another wheel building topic.
If you have questions, someone will know the answer.
John
Schwinn Sales West
I live for the CABE
Yes the Park ruler is handy "sometimes" but it only works when the spoke is out of the wheel. Many times you want to measure a spoke length "in a wheel" and you are out of luck. I always liked just a normal stainless steel desk ruler. You want one that is longer than 12", the 14" or 15" are best. They are able to measure directly from the end and are not recessed like the Park ruler. They also have both the metric and inch sizes, so it's easy to flip back in forth between the two because many of today's spokes are sold in metric sizes, but the old charts are in inches. I do not own a modern Park truing stand. I have a very old cast aluminum style. The desk ruler used on the metric side is my centering gauge by just measuring from the rim edge to the truing stand leg. Then I compare that to the other side. When I get close to done, I just flip the wheel around and measure both sides again to make certain it is perfectly centered.
Let's all agree (LOL) that we will not use the term wheel dish. It's not dished! It's centered! The rims is "centered" over the width of the hub. Even on a freewheel rear wheel. it's still "centered".
John
Schwinn Sales West
I live for the CABE
OK, I see I still have some work to do here.
When we are done with this class you will "look forward" to use that new expensive Park centering gauge you already bought! LOL.
John
Schwinn Sales West
I live for the CABE
You're missing the yellow one? 120 ga.
Blue is 105 GA
Red is .080" Japanese
Green is .080" Union
Black is DT, and Wheelsmith nipples
Yellow is 120 GA
Marty is correct, Park makes pretty good spoke wrenches. Never use the wrong size, or a "loose fitting" wrench because the chrome plated brass nipples will round off very easily.
There's been a ton of different kinds and shapes of spoke wrenches used over the past 100 years. We used to have to take the small hex and round shaped spokes wrenches and hand file the smaller sizes for a good fit. Every shop had an assortment of different sizes before Park became the standard wrench. Lots of "old guys" used an adjustable spoke wrench, it looked like a small Cresent wrench turned on end, but I never liked using one.
John
Schwinn Sales West
I live for the CABE
Miq, we will talk about
Marty, quite a collection of Wald Pencils!
Just so you know, every box of Wald wire baskets, had an envelop with two free pencils. That's a lot of BASKET's for all of those pencils.
John
Schwinn Sales West
I live for the CABE
Having the correct tool for the job is important.
But just buying and having lots of tools will not make your work any better. It's more about understanding what the job requires, and usually it's more important to have the correct knowledge, than the correct tool. With the correct knowledge, you will know how to do the job, and when you can fabricate, or use a different tool to still get a great finished result.
John
But just buying and having lots of tools will not make your work any better. It's more about understanding what the job requires, and usually it's more important to have the correct knowledge, than the correct tool. With the correct knowledge, you will know how to do the job, and when you can fabricate, or use a different tool to still get a great finished result.
John
Major Taylor Archive
I live for the CABE
John - Would you consider doing this in a video ? Your instructions are excellent but I'm a visual learner and it would be helpful to see it being done along with the verbal explanation.
Similar threads
