HI All, Having abortively tried to retain the original front rim for the rebuild of my 1940 G3 WO following my off, there were too many buckles in the rim to be safe and I bit the bullet and purchased a new one from Devon Rim Company in raw steel and a new set of butted stainless steel spokes as per original pattern. The services was absolutely top notch and the rim (Made In England ) was also to original spec, very good quality and reasonably priced at £89.00 for the rim and £83.00 for the spokes.
Having never rebuilt a wheel, but always wanted to have a go and previously been to frightened cos it looked to be on the too difficult shelf, I consulted Youtube and found a very informative site that covered re rimming/spoking and a follow on video on truing up. I thought if I made a ticket of it I could always go to my local wheel man with the bits.
1. Building:
I took a photo for each side of the wheel for reference purposes. After removing the spokes from the wheel, which surprisingly came out with no bother and retaining for future reference, I put the new rim in some suitable timber packing (see photo) and started to insert the short butted spokes into the brake drum side of the hub. The short spokes come in two bundles and are clearly marked as inner and outer. I then threaded the nipples onto the spokes leaving about a 1/16th of an inch of thread showing. I then turned the wheel over and repeated the process with the longer spoke on the hub side. I then tightened the nipples hand tight an equal amount on all of the spokes.
2. Truing:
Obviously, if you are doing this for a living, you buy a purpose made truing jig. Not wanting to go to this expense, I came up with a cunning plan. I made a dummy over length axle from some suitable diameter bar stock, clamped it up tight horizontally in a machine vice that I had bolted to the table of my stand drill and slid on some collets that I turned up on the lathe out of bar ends. I then mounted the wheel on my contraption, attached a magnetic dial gauge stand on the table and set up the dial gauge against the high spots on the rim after 1 revolution of the wheel which were duly marked with a sharpie pen. I then proceeded to adjust the nipples on the appropriate side of the rim until the dial gauge was reading zero all the way through a revolution of the rim. I then tightened all of the nipples a 1/4 of a turn, checked that the dial gauge was reading zero through a further revolution and that was it, Job Done!
Not only did I save myself £45 which can be spent on being much needed bits, I gained another skill and spent a very satisfying 2 1/2 hours doing it
Its 'wheely' not that difficult
- Tommy RE
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Its 'wheely' not that difficult
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Last edited by Tommy RE on Tue Mar 20, 2018 9:01 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Its 'wheely' not that difficult
Nice job and well explained ...
- vincentvv
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Re: Its 'wheely' not that difficult
This is what we 'greenhorns" need!
Not fired is always a misser!
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Re: Its 'wheely' not that difficult
How to remove spokes ?
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Re: Its 'wheely' not that difficult
All I can think of is " why didn't I think of that?" I have rebuilt various spoked wheels with the whole lot wobbling about on me bench or my knees. I get there in the end but with a real palaver compared to your way.
- clive
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Re: Its 'wheely' not that difficult
I too have built up wheels, as well as having them built. You describe checking for "wobble" in the rim but did you also check that the rim was centred to the hub? The adjustment for that is a bit less easy as it entails adjusting nipples opposite each other and on both sides. You may have been lucky with a new rim and got it properly centred as you laced it up.
clive
if it ain't broke don't fix
if it ain't broke don't fix
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Re: Its 'wheely' not that difficult
And the DTI read zero you are a better man than I am Tommy RE ..............best I can ever get is .020" TIR.
Colin
Colin
only dead fish go with the flow
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Re: Its 'wheely' not that difficult
Hi
I rig up a wheel truing fixture from a length of square tube gripped in two sash cramps, the assembly is then placed in a vice and two magnetic welding squares used as axle supports. I now use strong magnets to hold steel rules to the clamps to indicate the axial and radial deviation, (though the photo shows an earlier version using a DTI clamp holding a pointer). I don't use a DTI as I feel it's unnecessarily accurate - it's easy enough to see a quarter of a mm deviation by eye and I don't see any point in trying to better this.
Regards Mick
I rig up a wheel truing fixture from a length of square tube gripped in two sash cramps, the assembly is then placed in a vice and two magnetic welding squares used as axle supports. I now use strong magnets to hold steel rules to the clamps to indicate the axial and radial deviation, (though the photo shows an earlier version using a DTI clamp holding a pointer). I don't use a DTI as I feel it's unnecessarily accurate - it's easy enough to see a quarter of a mm deviation by eye and I don't see any point in trying to better this.
Regards Mick
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- Tommy RE
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Re: Its 'wheely' not that difficult
Beginners luck Colin, and probably, a well made rim. I did have an .020" deviation from external rotational true, but I thought that was acceptable. Mick, as for using a DTI. Thats what I had to hand that would fix to a magnetic holder, not for uber accuracy.cbranni wrote:And the DTI read zero you are a better man than I am Tommy RE ..............best I can ever get is .020" TIR.
Colin