Wheelbuilding Error: HELP!

[giverdada]

hey friends.

so, like the usual newb i am when it comes to building wheels, i screwed it up on the first go round. not sure where exactly i went wrong though, and am hoping to avoid it after a complete tear-down and startover. that said, can anyone pin point a common error i must have committed to get this far and have it all wrong?

i usually follow jobst brandt's book for lacing, and then some other guy's technique for tensioning. this has been a good recipe for me for the most part, and i don't usually get the lacing wrong. this evening, however, i did. i am working with a chris king classic road rear hub, a velocity a23 non-oc, and 32 sapim race spokes. two different spoke calculators and my measurements all agree on the spoke lengths i have. i'm going for three cross. but the cross is the problem. the non-drive side went together absolutely beautifully. the drive side was fine until the final set of spokes went in, and it looks like the cross is completely unrealistic, like 1cm too short. it would seem that the non-drive side spokes are a hole too far for the drive-side final cross spoke. where did i screw it up??? in the twist? in the placement of the first spoke on the drive side? any help is appreciated. thanks a lot. i usually love this process and am very slow and painstaking about it, but tonight i want to rip out the hair i don't even have. thanks.

n.:crap:

[EricEstlund]

I don't use the JB method, but it sounds like you may be off 1 pair of spokes on the offending flange. It's possible that you also dropped those same spokes off by one hole and thus threw the lacing/ cross pattern.

Unlace the side that isn't working and reassess.

[Louis]

I have no idea if this will work or not, but if you really can't spot the problem (which you presumably can't, otherwise you would not have posted the question) you could make a large image of a matching properly laced wheel (just half, the side with the "offending flange," print it out on transparent "view foil" plastic (not as easy to find as it used to be 10-15 years ago), cut out the middle to make room for the protruding portions of the hub (at least the axle) then overlay that onto the spokes. The incorrect portion should be self-evident.

[doode]

Not sure where the breakdown occurred but I'd recommend starting over for good practice. Can't be more than 15 min worth of work?
I use to build 48h bmx wheels. Those took a long time to lace!
Check out gsport George wheel page for another take.


http://www.gsportbmx.co.uk/custom/wheel_build/wheels.html

[ultraman6970]

You have to post pictures of the wheel in the flanges to see the lacing, is the only way to know what could be wrong.

Personally i never had a problem like that where the last set of spokes is too short, that makes no sense, If one side of the wheel is ok then the other side if you put the spokes wrong you will find issues right away.

Wonder if you pulled the wrong 1st spoke when you started the other side. Thing I have done several times hehe :)

No idea how you put the wheels together but if you put the wheel right what you can do is to leave the side that was ok intact... then lose only 8 spokes from the side that is wrong and check the cross again, maybe you have a few spokes in the wrong side of the rim or you crossed the things wrong. To know you have to lose the last 8 spokes and do them again.

When you drop the spokes you drop one flange and at the same time the opposite flange, then you finish one side of the wheel and then you have the last 8 (in your case) spokes to drop, at that point the things will fall in place by itself. The easiest way to verify what hole in the hub goes to which hole in the rim is to just "present" the spoke over the holes, maybe you have the last 8 spokes wrong (who knows how did you start the wheel too)

Hope this helps.

[giverdada]

thanks for all the input fellas. seems i had started the wrong side first when crossing, and hadn't twisted the hub enough either. anyway, i took it back down to only pairs of spokes, twisted the hub, started the crossing on the drive side, and all went swimmingly. man. one of these days i'll do it mistake-free and get it right. now it's mostly tensioned and just needs a lot more patience on my part to bring it to trueness and roundness. thanks again.

n.:banana:

[jvp]

I had the same issue building up a set of vintage zeus hubs, I thought the spokes were too short but double and triple checked the spoke length. Turned out the spokes were a little tight in the hub flange holes, and I wasn't twisting the hub far enough. Had to delace the hubs some to get enough twist, then all went well.

[ultraman6970]

At least to me the twisting part is always tricky.