re-dishing wheels question

[zott28]

Can someone explain to me why and when you need to re-dish a wheel when changing from a Shimano hub body to a campagnolo one? It seems that some people freely offer either hub body while selling wheels, while other say it's not that easy.

[Peter P.]

I think you mean "cassette" body and not "hub" body, no?

A wheel is dished to center the rim between the axle ends, not the hub flanges. The width of the cassette body does not influence the wheel's dish, unless installing a new cassette body requires you to change the axle width from say, 130-135mm.

I've never heard of swapping out hub bodies.

[oldpotatoe]

Can someone explain to me why and when you need to re-dish a wheel when changing from a Shimano hub body to a campagnolo one? It seems that some people freely offer either hub body while selling wheels, while other say it's not that easy.

For most hubs, like DT, mavic on their wheels, Campagnolo from a Campagnolo one to their HG or the reverse, you don't need to redish the wheel.

Campagnolo freehub bodies are taller than shimano type but the axle end or the design of the hub/axle takes care of that.

[aaronf]

As pointed out by oldpotatoe, most manufacturers have planned for the wider width of the Campy freehub body and no re-dishing is required. But some, like PowerTap and HED have opted to keep the right flange as far to the right-of-center as possible with each setup.
With a Shimano body the flange can sit a couple of millimeters further right-of-center than with the wider/longer Campy freehub body. Keeping the right flange further from center creates more angle of the spoke and helps even out tension of the right side compared to the left.
Ideal would be a front hub or rear track hub where the flanges are equidistant from the centerline of the hub and hence the angle the spokes make to the rim is the same on the left as on the right. But to fit the gears on the rear hub something has to give and it's right flange placement.
I suspect manufacturers that require re-dishing work on the assumption that most people are not constantly swapping between Campy and Shimano.

[ergott]

You have to recenter the rim with:

Tune
White Industries
American Classic
Power Tap

You don't have to recenter the rim with:

DT
Campagnolo
Bontrager (DT)
Reynolds
Zipp

The reasons are stated above.