After finding some damaged spokes and worn bearing race I decided to have a go at rebuilding my rear wheel.
Borrowed a truing stand of Nobby (thanks matey )
Spokes and 1/4" bearings from Thattos I was all set.
Quick You Tube training session (t'internet is ace) and I started.
Dismantled the the wheel and proceeded to lace the new hub.
First 16 spokes went a dream (easy peasy)
Then I rotated the hub the wrong way, doesn't matter on some rims but my Mavic 321s have staggered holes.
I noticed this after 2 spokes so no biggy to correct.
The nipples kept falling into the rim, which was very annoying, so I used one of the faulty spokes and feed them through.
Had the wheel laced pretty quickly.
Now for truing.
Got it roughly straight then worked on roundness, then tweaked for straightness again.
A bit tedious to say the least.....
I didn't have a dishing guage so swapped the wheel around to roughly dish it.
Took a few goes to get it close, only a few mil out so I was happy.
During the process I did spend some time de-stressing/settling the spokes, tapping them with the handle of the hammer so they would bed in and also twisting the spokes against each other a few times.
Eventually fitted it to the bike and took it for a ride.
Made some interesting creaking and groaning noises for the first few metres (hope this is normal).
Proper ride out on Tuesday to give it a full test.
All in all I didn't find it too difficult to do, just time comsuming and tedious at times (beer helped, and listening to history channel documentary on the Alamo...)
Some pics..
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The Essentials
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Too Late now.....
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We can rebuild it (we hope.....)
I didn't back the spokes off, good idea.
I watched a You Tube Tutorial so did all the other things.
Like you suggested, started with nipples set fairly equally and worked from there.
Also read mixed feeling about lubing the nipples so they are easier to tension, but some people don't like this as it allows the spokes to loosen easier.
Dishing tool would be great, I was going to try to make one anyway.
Thanks,
Clinton
3 part series, well... part 2 is in two sections so really 4 parts, but then you can probably skip part 1 as it tells you the parts of a wheel.
I think I used the 32 spoke tutorial, can't remember, I will see it it is in my Internet history.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTb3x5VO69Y