I’ve always ridden bicycles and maintained them, but I’ve recently decided I’d like to try building my own wheels. There are books on the subject that imply it can be learned (fairly) easily, yet other sources say it is extremely difficult, many bike mechanics can’t do it, and it should be left to the experts. I realize there is not a huge cost savings as the parts are not cheap, but for more creative reasons I’d like to give it a try.
So, is this something an average person with reasonable skills a helpful book can pick up on his own?
And yes, you can learn it on your own. I haven’t myself, but a good friend of mine, who admittedly is fairly skilled with such things, decided to learn how to build wheels and has built many wheels for himself very successfully. He also fixes mine. He does a great job; as good as (not as fast as, though) any decent bike mechanic.
Anyway, with time and patience, you can do it. Start with a wheel you don’t care about ruining. Practice. Etc.
But I would say, yes, an average person with reasonable skills and a little patience can learn to do it with complete success.
Thanks Knorf. I actually ordered that very book, along with “The Art of Wheel Building” earlier today. I guess I was just looking for someone to say, “sure, go ahead, give it a try!”.
Yup, you can do it if you’re patient and willing to screw up a few wheels while you’re learning. It’s not rocket surgery.
You’re going to need a trueing stand and some other equipment. I’d recommend starting out by trueing some old wheels that you’re not using. It will give you a good feel for how persnickity this can be, before buying all of the tools/equipment/materials needed.
My SO trued his own wheels for a while, but decided not to go on to building. He’d originally planned to do that, but found that he just didn’t have the patience for it.
Just out of curiosity, I have learned about why people build their own things including airplanes and really strange computer setups but I have no idea why someone would want to build their own bicycle wheels? What is that hobby world like and what are the advantages?
Shag, it’s just an extension of the custom bike thingie. Some people have favorite personalized spoke crossover patterns (“chickenfoot”, “twisted”, etc) or fetishistic anodized bits or want to mix and match bits-- fancy rims and spokes and nipples and such-- and just for the street cred of having built it yourself, or the joy of being able to make something bombproof that you can ram into a curb at 40 mph and not have it collapse.
Of course OTOH I know of mechanics who have personalized patterns for crimping the caps that cover the ends of shift cables, so people who see it on the other side of town can say “Oh, Mike overhauled this bike!”
I did get a local mechanic to walk me through my first try, something you could probably do for a few beers. Try to keep distractions low, and be prepared to do some unlacing/relacing.
Everyone always says it’s straightforward, so definitely give it a try. I’ve never got round to learning myself mind.
I can’t be that straightforward to do it well, though. Just going on builds I’ve had over the years from shops, more than a few times I’ve had constantly breaking spokes that necessitated a complete rebuild. Once someone good does it, then they’re fine for years.
I think you can use the bike itself as a rudimentary truing stand when you’re starting off.
According to Sheldon Brown wheelbuilding is a “basic skill” that any bicycle mecanic should know. He has a quite comprehensive how-to. Let us know how you fare - I’ve often thought of trying myself so a success story might give me that final push into finally starting to build my own wheels.
I rebuilt a wheel years ago, when I was assembling a couple town bikes from miscellaneous parts. Jury rigged a bike as a truing stand, and muddled along. Never got that wheel perfectly true, but did get it round and functional - a bit of pulse when braking.
It was an exercise. I would not do it again if I had a choice.
It is not really hard at all. Mostly it takes patience and attention to detail. The Sheldon Brown link above has all the basics you need to know, and the spoke length calculator spreadsheet is wonderful. If you want a book, I like Jobst Brandt “The Bicycle Wheel”, but he is long on the why, and less on the how, so a lot of wrenches dismiss him as a pointy headed intellectual. Peter White has a bit of good info on his site, and is a good source for 14/15 ga spokes if you are going for some very strong tandem/clydesdale wheels.
It is not possible for a manufacturer to offer every possible hub/rim/spoke combination, so if you want anything in particular you will either need to have someone assemble the components for you, or do it yourself. This is also the case if you need to repair a wheel with an expensive internally geared hub or other exotica.
It is a bit time consuming, and a skill that most don’t take the time to learn, so it is pricey to hire it done.
Even if you could buy exactly the wheel you want off the shelf, it is probably machine trued, which is a problem. Until the become tight enough to damage the rims, increasing the spoke tension increases the strength and durability of a wheel. Machine built wheels are invariably supplied with insufficient spoke tension. They will not survive a heavy or strong rider, or on a tandem.
Wheels can either be hand trued, or machine trued. The machines typically do not do a good job, as when the spokes become tight enough, then there is enough friction in the threads that the spokes twist before the nipple starts turning on the spoke. This introduces a variable hysteresis into the adjustment that the machines can’t deal with. As a result, a machine built wheel will have either the spoke tension will be far too low, or go out of true quickly as the spokes unwind.
There are various tricks a hand builder uses to avoid the hysteresis problem. In addition a good hand builder will stress relieve the spokes as a finishing step, which greatly aids durability.
My words of ‘‘wisdom,’’ based on things already posted.
While you don’t need a truing stand for the actual building of the wheel, and it’s true that you can do routine maintenance on a bicycle fork, I would say that you do need access to a proper truing stand to do the final true and tension of a newly built wheel.
Spoke prep is a kinda gooey stuff that keeps the the nipples from unwinding. works great, but it’s sold in large quantities which are a pain for the casual builer. Sooo, I’ve heard that beeswax works good, and I’ve been told that the lightest grade of locktite is essentially the same thing. That’s what I’ve used and it’s worked great.