I've got beers, help me build my wheels

Can someone help me build my wheels? I'd like to try my first build but would also like my wheels to be strong... expertise and help for beer? I'm hoping my rims (silver CPX 33 at cyclesurgery) will come in this week and still have to choose lacing, figure out spoke lenghts and buy spokes. Hopefully all before this weekend. Any takers? Sunday maybe? At polo or my place around the corner of there? Mr Arup?

Lacing - you said you want your wheels to be strong, which means 3 cross. Simply don't do radial. It's a no no.

Spoke lengths - what hubs do you have? If they're pretty well known many spoke calculators have the measurements already.

Spokes - double butted I would use. They're thicker at the ends than the middle, and according to Jobst Brandt (wheel building genius, his book is very good) they build the strongest wheels. I won't bore you why, you can read about it yourself. I'd recommend DT Swiss spokes (I can't remember which ones are the double butted ones).

Buying spokes - just ring a few bike shops. Expect to pay about 50p per spoke including the nipple.

Also, have you read Sheldon Brown's web site about wheel building? That's what I learnt from, and I've built 4 wheels now and they've been fine. It's all in the spoke tension. In fact, if you can get hold of a spoke tension meter it's very useful, but not necessary. Remember to oil the eyelets on the rims (I can't remember if CXP33s have them or not).

:) Lots of random info there!

Meneer I'm planning on building a wheel soon as well, but i know less than you do because i haven't yet read eeehhhh's post (which i know will be very informative). I have my hub (phil wood single-sided fixed awaiting a 110mm respacing kit for my stupid bike) and a velocity deep v. But... does anyone know where i can get coloured spokes from? Either yellow or purple. Not really necessary but thought i'd ask before i go out and buy some silver dt swiss ones.

ACI double b'd spokes have a good rep - you can get 'em for pence too, I think cyclebasket do them for 14p each or something. £6 del charge though, bit of an arse if you only want spokes.

And yeah, go for 3-cross. May not look as bling as radial but you look a lot cooler with your hub flanges still in one piece.

meneer, i'll give you a hand building em. there is a spoke length calculator online somewhere, i actually need to check it out as i might be building another pair soon.

spocalc.xls is the magic Google incantation for working out spoke lengths. Sapim or DT Swiss double-butted spokes are worth the money, although they're both imported from Chicken, so you might have trouble getting them thanks to the fire.

There's not much point to having anything other than 3x, unless you're looking for a blingy pattern (3 leading, 3 trailing is beautiful f'rinstance.)

My advice is to take it slowly - lacing is the easy bit. And truing is easier to do a little bit at a time, rather than trying to get a perfect wheel in one hit.

Yeah, take your time with truing. When you thread the nipples on for the first time, try and get them so that they are all the same number of turns on. Makes bringing up the tension evenly across the wheel a lot easier.

High tension + evenly distributed + with no spoke twist (when tensioning, overshoot the point you want to tension to, then turn back. hold the spoke whilst you do it, and you can feel the spoke twisting back to normal) + nice 'n' true = good wheel.

There's no reason your wheels can't look a bit different without radial spokes.

I just built two wheels up this week, my first wheel build and it went okay.
Took my time, allowed an evening per wheel and just used the bike frame/forks to hold wheel while truing.

Front: 36h 3 leading 3 trailing.
Rear: 36h 3-cross crows foot.

I would say the crows foot was easier to do, and it feels so solid. I used ACI spokes too.

No pics yet.

I would also like to give this a shot, if only to correct the lacing on the wheels I got recently.

Maybe we could club together with some beers and have a building masterclass.

I'd be keen for that too.

x 3

me too. with beers and a small teaching fund for the teacher. if we did a day, would bulk buy spokes (and other stuff perhaps)

bulk buy spokes only works if we all need the same length, no? got my rims in, I'm almost ready to go... Anyone know which rimtape is good to buy for my CXP33?

depends on how much psi you adding to them? if going for mega high 140-150 psi get some continental fancy ones, i got some from BLB which are the same as cyclebasket (green plastic) for 50p and htey're good for 130psi i think. also used some cheapo rubbery ones from LBS as well no hassles.

So how about not this sunday but the next.

My lady is away so I'd be free to tinker with bike stuff all day.

Give people time to sort out bits and pieces.

Venue?

love to help but in ireland watching the WRC that w/e, woot!!

Sticking with your bogan car enthusiast styles!

:)

i never went to ireland, wales or scotland when i was here for 3yrs last time. so thought i'd see some countryside and if it so happened to involve cars (first car related thing in 6mths ain't bad)

Hows the serenity......Brrraaaammmmm....Pap.....Pap.

Although I enjoyed having a go at building the wheels (in a masochistic - my thumbs are still numb from pressing spokes about - kind of way) and would deffo do it again, I can't join you for the beers. West Lancs-London is a big chunk of time when you've got a young family!

Let me know how it goes.

BTW: Check out http://www.sheldonbrown.com/wheelbuild.html, this helped me through. Spocalc was spot on with the spoke lengths for me too.

If nobody minds, I might be up for +4ing that bad boy. Can confirm in a day or two.
I could even chuck some rum and/or tequila into the equation (occupational hazard).

I just built my CXP22 rims with on-one double fixed hub and ACI double butted spokes for £75 the pair. Well pleased with the result. Take your time, I used Rodgers ebook from wheelpro.co.uk, 3rd wheelset Ive built. Would offer to help, but divorce papers would be in the post!

In 20 years always stuck to DT DB (Competition 14/15g) with zero problems. As noted above, they are believed to build into stronger wheels as well as being a bit lighter.

Buy them here individually at 40p each:

http://www.sjscycles.co.uk/product-DT-Swiss-14--15g-DT-Competition-Stainless-Steel-Double-butted-2-1.8mm-spoke-with-12mm-brass-nipple-851.htm

dogsballs love to help but in ireland watching the WRC that w/e, woot!!

Welcome to Ireland.. fucking cold today, eh?

That's the ones! DT competition. I've used them for my 2 sets of wheels now. They've been fine

I might be able to help if you guys want - depends how much work I get from uni tomorrow.