wheel building

Random Vince

just built my front and rear wheel

the front wheel is fine, its all true and tesioned

however, the none drive side of my rear wheel isnt very tense while the drive side is quite tense

anyone any ideas?

aracer

If it's dished correctly (ie the rim is in the same distance from both ends of the axle) then you should expect to have a lot less tension in the non-drive-side (NDS) spokes. That's just the way it is because of the much greater spoke angle on the NDS. Is one reason why people build with thinner gauge spokes on the NDS, or triplet pattern as with modern Campag wheels (and my brand new handbuilt back wheel), which tends to equalize the spoke stretch a bit.

robbarker

That's normal.

Ideally, get hold of a tensiometer and make sure you've got as much tension as the rim manufacturer will allow on the drive side - this will mean you can bring the non-drive side up to a reasonable number too.

There's a great sticky thread in the tech topic on the mountain bike forum called "what makes a wheel strong": Well worth a read if you haven't found it already.

terongi

Difference in tension perfectly normal.

Tensiometer seems like an expensive and unnecessary precaution.

Best way to test tension of spokes is to pluck them like a guitar and listen to the note it makes.

If rear wheel drive side spokes are sound roughly the same as front wheel spokes and if rear wheel is true overall, then tension in non-drive side spokes will be fine.

If you have access to a correctly tuned musical instrument, then as a rough guide, the note produced by the spokes of a 700 size wheel should be between middle-C and the next C above it. There is naturally a lot of variance within that range.

If the notes produced by any of the spokes is wildly outside that range then there is a problem with the wheel.

Random Vince

its 27 1 1/4 not 700 and the first time i've built a wheel

i play bass guitar and as a result dont notice much change between the spokes unless they're a long way out.

geoff_ss

terongi wrote:

Difference in tension perfectly normal.

If you have access to a correctly tuned musical instrument, then as a rough guide, the note produced by the spokes of a 700 size wheel should be between middle-C and the next C above it. There is naturally a lot of variance within that range.

That's a pretty wide range of tension. C to C is a doubling of frequency and hence tension. The tensions need to be a lot closer than that. My wheels usually last OK, even on a tandem, and I just do it by feel.

btw dishing will always result in much more tension on the geared side so there isn't a problem. For touring wheels, where I seek reliability, I use plain gauge spokes on the drive side. Not sure if it makes sense but I don't (usually) get problems.

Geoff