Friday, July 26, 2013

We Have Wheels

The spokes ordered in the last post arrived.  I finished lacing and initial tensioning.  The spoke lengths I ordered seem to be spot-on.  They have good thread engagement and there is no protrusion of the spoke through the bottom of the nipple.



  I used Sapim Leader straight gage (2mm/14ga) stainless steel spokes and 12mm nipples.  The rear wheel is laced 3X, and the Dynohub wheel is laced 2X on Dyno side flange and 3X on the smaller flange.  Because these are modern spokes I had to used spoke washers with the thinner Sturmey Archer flanges.


Using spoke washes is a nuisance, especially on the special key-hole spoke holes on the small flange of the Dynohub.  Next time I'm going to put more effort into saving the old spokes.  Raleigh started using stainless steel spokes as far back as 1939, they were advertised as "Staybrite" spokes.  Even though the old spokes looked dull and corroded, they would probably clean-up real nice with a little effort.

I used 10mm rim tape with the CR-18 rims, the rim holes are located in a very narrow channel in the bottom of the rim.



Just need to finish the final tensioning, truing, and dishing of the wheels, then mount the tubes and tires.

Please share your comments and experiences.

4 comments:

  1. Robert, great to read about your experience here… I just received a Dynohub in the post and have an AW rear hub I'm getting ready to lace. Can you give a little detail on what problems you had with washers on the "keyhole" side? How did you deal with it? Why 2x on the dyne side and not stay 3x on both…

    Sorry for being a pest with the comments. I LOVE your site!
    charles

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  2. I had a difficult time keeping the washers in proper position until tension could be applied to the spokes. It's just more finicky then lacing without washers.

    2X was used because that's how the original Raleigh wheel was laced. I also have a old publication from Raleigh Industries on wheel building instructions, and that is what is recommended as well. With some the high flange hubs 3X causes severe spoke angles. I ran into this problem when lacing the rear wheel on the Scorcher Project, the spoke length calculator used did not recommend 3X for the high flange 5-speed hub, only 2X.

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  3. I followed your Spoke length numbers, I am very pleased with my wheels. I found following the method in the Sturmey Archer wheel building manual extremely helpful, however I deviated a little to maintain tension on the keyhole flange so I didn’t require pegs. I alternated so pairs of spikes opposed each other 180-degrees then worked on the holes 90 degrees from those. I totally agree washers made the job more difficult than it should have been. I appreciate your blog, it encouraged me to attempt my first wheel build, thank you.

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  4. Thank you for leaving this posting up. I am about to try to replicate your work with the front wheel.

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