Spokes and truing

phy2sll2

Hi all. Quick question(s) about wheels.

Firstly, I bought a spoke wrench the other day and successfully trued my wheels. I no longer have to choose between being able to stop and not having to work against rubbing brakes! However, all the spokes seem to be at very different tensions. Is this normal? The rim was moderately out of true when I started so I expect the answer is that you can't have both a true wheel and even tension in the spokes.

Secondly, I managed to strip a spoke nut. I'd like to replace it. Do I have to replace the whole spoke? In which case:how do I know what size to get? Is there a way to avoid this happening in the future?

Last but not least: I did this all with the tyres on - am I stupid? I'm a bit worried about the spokes poking through the rim.

Very grateful for any help you can give me!

nicklouse

tension should be the same each side.

nipples can be replace by them selves.

have a read of sheldons wheel building pages. Links below.

Blue Meanie

When removing a lateral wobble (buckle) you feel obliged to add tension to pull the rim over, you can instead remove tension from the other side. Knowing when to add or remove is the tricky bit.
Watch out for creating high/low spots when attacking warped rims.
I built a few wheels and trued a few hundred (incliding most of my own) and I shudder to think of those first few.
If the tension will not go even around the wheel, maybe it's new rim time? Which could be your first build (rim swap)

tgotb

Blue Meanie wrote:

When removing a lateral wobble (buckle) you feel obliged to add tension to pull the rim over, you can instead remove tension from the other side. Knowing when to add or remove is the tricky bit.
Watch out for creating high/low spots when attacking warped rims.
I built a few wheels and trued a few hundred (incliding most of my own) and I shudder to think of those first few.
If the tension will not go even around the wheel, maybe it's new rim time? Which could be your first build (rim swap)

What he said.

Even spoke tension is everything (apart from the difference between drive side and non-drive side on a rear wheel, obviously). One of my shortcuts when building a wheel is to go round it a few times pinging the spokes and evening out the tensions, before I even start looking at whether or not its true. This alone often gets me to within a couple of mm...