Wheelbuilders: spoke tension meter?

bails87

I know some people on here have built wheels, some following Roger Musson's ebook.

I did what I hope will be the final tension on my new front wheel last night, but don't have a tension meter so don't know if both sides are around the right tension, right meaning "not so high that the wheels will explode". They feel tight, but one side is tighter than the other (wheel is slightly dished due to disc mounts). So, in order to tighten up the (relatively) loose side and keep the wheel dished correctly I'll have to increase tension on the side that already feels very tight. The loose side isn't actually loose, it's just slightly less tight than the very tight side.

Obviously I want a nice tight wheelset that's going to stay true, but I don't want to overdo it and pull nipples through the rims!

Have other amateur wheelbuilders just compared them to an existing wheelset? Bought a (£60!) tensionmeter? Or taken them to the LBS for a final check?

sketchley

You can (apparently) do it by pitch. So a guitar tuner or something similar could do the job if that is you cannot do it by ear.

http://www.bikexprt.com/bicycle/tension.htm

nicklouse

your tensions will not be even as you have correctly guessed.

Options are as you have said.

Tight does not mean it will stay true......

If it is your first I would as your fafourite LBS (who i hope you got your spokes from and know you are building a wheel) to check out your work and rate it....

bails87

Hmm, roger musson says spoke tone is useless.

You can use it to say that spoke A is tighter or looser than spoke B, but not that either of the spokes are right, apparently.

That one you linked too says that correctly tensioned spokes become quite hard to turn, so maybe I've got more leeway than I thought. The table isn't much help though, as it doesn't cover the double buutted spokes in the legnths I've used. I wonder if they'd change as they're lightweight ones, not standard DB spokes.

bails87

nicklouse wrote:

If it is your first I would as your fafourite LBS (who i hope you got your spokes from and know you are building a wheel)

Nope :oops:

to check out your work and rate it....

And yep, I was thinking it was better to be safe than sorry.


BTW, I did use tone to get the tensions sounding the same for each side, so all the DS spokes make the same tone and all the NDS spokes sound the same as each other.

UndercoverElephant

No need for a spoke meter. Just need the correct pitch:

http://www.bikexprt.com/bicycle/tension.htm

If you have an android phone, download the guitar app G-Strings and pluck away at your spokes - if you built Musson's stand, it'll be quite loud when you pluck so the phone should pick it up. My wheels are roughly an A (440Hz) on the non-drive side, and whatever made them dish correctly on the drive side- true for 6,000 miles now.

Edit: And don't take them to the LBS, you wimp. Ride the damn things and see how you did.

schweiz

I built my first wheels for the singlespeed without using a tensionmeter. I then built a rear wheel with bladed spokes and a 2x/3x pattern and I was concerned about tensions. I bought the Park tensionmeter from the US for about USD 50 which is much less than the UK or Swiss price. Luckily and ex-colleague is a yank and he hand carried it over for me, so there was no postage to pay.

Anyway, after building the rear wheel I checked the first wheels I built and they were about 10% under (90kgf) so I wound all the spokes another 1/4 or half a turn and got it up to 100 kgf.

I've since built a set of CXP33/Ultegra wheels and I did use the tensionometer on the rear to set the tension of the DS spokes. I checked the front too but that was okay from 'feel'.

Also if you're struggling to turn the nipples then the spokes are too tight!

bails87

I'm a putz! Misread the table, 'my' lengths are in there, I'll give it a go tonight, should have known there'd be an app for it.

veronese68

From your description it sounds good. At least all of the spokes on each side sound similar.

bails87

schweiz wrote:

Also if you're struggling to turn the nipples then the spokes are too tight!

Not 'struggling'. But they're certainly tight, I suppose they're at the point where if I made them much tighter I would start to have to really push on the spoke key, which was what was concering me about going any further.


The wheels are true, dished correctly, and with even tones on the spokes, so I'm happy with them so far.

Thanks team, I'll check out the tone tonight and let you know how they are!

tgotb

What the others said. Whenever I've made sure all the spokes on each side made a matching 'ting', I've never had a wheel go out of true.

I built one in a hurry once (needed to ride it the next day) and although it was true I didn't bother to even the tensions out properly. It went a bit wobbly (maybe 2-3mm) over the course of a few hundred miles; when I had the time I slackened everything off and started again, and it's been fine since.

bails87

Seeing as I've just stumbled across this thread while searching for something else I thought I'd add a little update.

The wheels haven't needed any tweaking since I built them, despite the best efforts of the potholes around here. I've done about 4000 miles on them and an really happy with the build. So much so that I'm going to build myself some MTB wheels too.

The WheelPro book is either very good, or wheel building is much easier than people make out!