Park TS-8 wheel jig - mmm, not gob-smacked
Triophile
Posts: 44
WARNING: the following contains whingeing and mild ranting..!
After reading reviews on a number of different portable wheel jigs (I do a bit of teaching of bike maintenance and building for a bike project here in London), I thought I might go for the Park TS-8, especially as it looked pretty rigid. I'd been slightly hesitant, as the exploded diagram didn't exactly fill me with confidence in terms of the design for the sliding section which accomodates different widths across the lock nuts, but Park stuff is generally pretty good, so I thought I'd give it a go.
Well, it turned up a couple of days ago, and unfortunately the way that sliding section works is as mediocre as I'd feared. Park claim this jig can be used to dish wheels by simply turning them round, which would be true if there wasn't so much play in the sliding section. There seems to be a couple of problems:
1) The clearance between the sliding part and the box-section it slides inside is just too large, and one poxy grub screw doesn't stop it moving around, even if I hold the sliding section down with a thumb inside it as I do the crappy grub screw up. I've had to resort temporarily to shoving the tapered ends of a couple of cables ties into the gaps to improve the stability of the fixing of the sliding section.
2) That poxy grub screw should have a proper handle on it, like the one that holds the sliding gauge in place. Seeing as they have the same thread pitch, I'm going to try and order another of the ones with the handle on it and chuck the grub screw.
3) The grub crew's in the wrong place on the box section - if it's there to cut down on movement in the sliding section, it should be in the middle of the box section, not towards one end.
4) They need another grub screw on the top of the box section to cut down on vertical movement.
£80 for what is basically three pieces of angle iron and some box section wouldn't be so bad if the design wasn't a grade-A bodge in terms of anchoring the sliding part to get a proper degree of repeatability, and I say this as someone who is generally a fan of Park stuff, though it can be overpriced and sometimes hit and miss (I much prefer their triple spoke key to the individual 'Pro' ones, which I find easier to grip).
OK, end of rant and whingeing - sorry, had to get if off my chest.
After reading reviews on a number of different portable wheel jigs (I do a bit of teaching of bike maintenance and building for a bike project here in London), I thought I might go for the Park TS-8, especially as it looked pretty rigid. I'd been slightly hesitant, as the exploded diagram didn't exactly fill me with confidence in terms of the design for the sliding section which accomodates different widths across the lock nuts, but Park stuff is generally pretty good, so I thought I'd give it a go.
Well, it turned up a couple of days ago, and unfortunately the way that sliding section works is as mediocre as I'd feared. Park claim this jig can be used to dish wheels by simply turning them round, which would be true if there wasn't so much play in the sliding section. There seems to be a couple of problems:
1) The clearance between the sliding part and the box-section it slides inside is just too large, and one poxy grub screw doesn't stop it moving around, even if I hold the sliding section down with a thumb inside it as I do the crappy grub screw up. I've had to resort temporarily to shoving the tapered ends of a couple of cables ties into the gaps to improve the stability of the fixing of the sliding section.
2) That poxy grub screw should have a proper handle on it, like the one that holds the sliding gauge in place. Seeing as they have the same thread pitch, I'm going to try and order another of the ones with the handle on it and chuck the grub screw.
3) The grub crew's in the wrong place on the box section - if it's there to cut down on movement in the sliding section, it should be in the middle of the box section, not towards one end.
4) They need another grub screw on the top of the box section to cut down on vertical movement.
£80 for what is basically three pieces of angle iron and some box section wouldn't be so bad if the design wasn't a grade-A bodge in terms of anchoring the sliding part to get a proper degree of repeatability, and I say this as someone who is generally a fan of Park stuff, though it can be overpriced and sometimes hit and miss (I much prefer their triple spoke key to the individual 'Pro' ones, which I find easier to grip).
OK, end of rant and whingeing - sorry, had to get if off my chest.
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Comments
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yep sorry for your loss. send it back and upgrade to the TS-2.
still not the best i have used but ok."Do not follow where the path may lead, Go instead where there is no path, and Leave a Trail."
Parktools :?:SheldonBrown0 -
£80? And it doesn't work? :shock:
Build your own. I've simply welded some L shaped sections of steel along with some nuts and bolts to get a U frame.
loo W ool1
loo H oo l
loo E oo l
loo E oo l
loo L oo l
l--oooo--l2
l_______l
I just made sure it was absolutely straight. In the place marked as 1 I cuted the hole where axle goes and on 2 I welded a M10 nut. On each nut is a bolt threaded on it to the position needed to better see where rim is out of true. You can also add a nut and a bolt on the bottom to check vertical alignement
I didn't painted mine so it's all rusty, but it works.0 -
There were two problems with the TS-2 for me:
1) It really isn't portable (and I need to be able to lug it around easily between classes, along with other tools)
2) Despite the fact that it's supposed to be self-centring, even Park admit the TS-2 needs re-aligning every now and again, and I've read posts from owners who've said that theirs were mis-aligned straight out of the factory. Aligning it requires either a known properly-dished wheel (seems a bit of a farce using a wheel to align a wheel jig) or Park's alignment tool, which is ludicrously expensive at £50 for a triangular piece of metal.
Given my experience with the TS-8 and the comments on the TS-2, I suspect I might end up looking elsewhere for a better wheel jig eventually. On the other hand, one thing worth trying is to get a local welder/metal workshop to drill a hole in the top of the box section and weld a nut over it, so I could add a bolt to hold the sliding section in place vertically. OK, it would ruin the paintwork, but it would solve the problem and probably not cost more than about £20.
I did think about getting a jig made, but I don't really have the time (and I had hoped the Park would be better designed). Oh well...
Cheers, Jon.0
