Wheel truing - Help removing wobble, flat spots, etc

Henry come to a drinks and ask in exchange for a few beers someone will show you

learn to do it yourself henry, it's very logical and straightforward. honestly.
Google wheel-truing and see what videos can show you.
it would take 5 mins to show you in real life.

This^

Its a handy skill to have. As well as maintaining your own wheels. Its a good idea to carry a spoke key on longer rides, just in case.

Henry

I am at hometoday but its in Kew

You could come along and I can show you how it's done.

Have a go.
It is immensely satisfying... and if you cannot master it - Nothing lost.

indeed, if your up north give me a shout.

Calling wheel tweakers. What's the max size of flat spot on a rim that's worth trying to tune out? Any top tips for doing this? I have a dib of about 3-5mm or so over 4-5 nipples. I have the wheel back in true, but is it worth trying to round it?

New rim?

Which model?

No, old one. One of these

Doubtful you will be able to sort a flat spot.

Yeah, I'm not hugely optimistic, but I though it was worth asking around before I binned the idea. I seem to remember that, after a lot of sucking of teeth, I did get someone to sort a minor one once, but on a good set of wheels that was worth the candle.

If you want to have a go, you need to loosen an even number of spokes over the affected area (say 6 in this case) Do it little by little though its easy to f**k up. You are unlikely to get it out all together.

I'm presuming by what you say that it is a dip inwards, if it goes outwards you'll need to TIGHTEN the spokes.

Yes, inwards. Unless you consider the rest of the wheel to be dipping outwards. Philosophical dilemma to add to my woes!

Cheers - will have a go tomorrow.

So I've just trued the stock wheels on my Fuji track (first attempt at truing), the wheels are now nice and true but the spoke tension has gone up slightly. I estimate it was around 75 Kgf originally on both wheels, and I now have 104 Kgf average on the front and 95 Kgf average on the rear. Bike rides very well, but obviously I don't want the rims to start cracking or anything.

Does this 95-105 Kgf range sound reasonable? Rims are Jalco DRX 2000 Double Wall (Stainless single eyelet) - 470g.

I've emailed Maddux who make the rims but no reply...

100kg force sounds like the right ball park to me, on the low side if anything. 70kg force is on the edge of shaking loose with regular riding, and close to what I would be forced to accept on the non-drive side of a wheel for a campy 10 or 11 speed wheel (same offset for those two drivetrains).

Rim manufacturers will always be pretty conservative on what their rims will take. The polar opposite is builders like Jobst Brandt who AFAIK will tension a wheel till it pretzels and then back off a fraction. Optimal, in my view lies between those extremes. Oh, for carbon rims I take the rim manufacturers at their word.

Out of interest how are you arriving at these figures of " around 75 Kgf originally on both wheels, and I now have 104 Kgf average on the front and 95 Kgf average on the rear." ?

Thanks scherrit, yes the wheels felt quite spongy (and comfortable!) before, where as they now ride stiffer like the properly built wheels on my other bikes. I'll probably back off just a bit on the front to put it just under 100, should be a 1/4 turn loosen on all spokes or thereabouts.

allister - I used the Park TM-1 spoke tensiometer, for the final values I took an average of all my measurements in a spreadsheet, I am confident it is correct as the left and right side averaged to exactly the same (to the nth decimal point!) on the rear and the front was very close too, although I had to make some adjustments for dish on the front which may be why there was a very slight difference.

For the original 75 Kgf value I remember checking the spokes originally at random, and they were all around 20 on the Park translation sheet, which is roughly 75Kgf. It was less scientific than my latter measurement though...

**Thanks for the info,

I just read the heading "[B]Spoke tension after truing my first set of wheels" and wondered if you were using one of the DT **tensiometers which are very expensive here in UK and it seemed like a bit of a unusual tool to have for some one not doing a lot of wheels.

I have been thinking of getting one but was not sure what it would add to my building, the Park one is much more affordable though !

[/B]

Yeah that is a bit OTT, I spent my money on the Park TS2.2 and WAG4 instead. Well worth the cost IMO.

same thing here, damn pricey bit of kit.

start in the middle, loosen spokes away from the centre of it progressively (so inner most = 2 or 3 full turns, and outer most = 0.5 turn) etc.

Sounds like you have got a fair old size of flat there though, bit of experimenting will be worth the time to see how good you can get it.

If you get no-where with it, just shove a huge tyre on it so its slightly less noticable.

Cheers - haven't got round (pun) to it yet. Looks like a task fror a glassor 2 of vino and a quiet night. Roll VT of Dougal trying to get the dent out of Father Ted's car...

by experimental I mean by over tensioning the spokes on the next 1/5 of the wheel either side of the flat, and see if that magic's it back into shape*

*BrickMan does not take any responsibility for perfectly round OR velodrome shape wheels.

No worries. I mean, how hard can it be to true these as yet unreleased totally secret only one pair in the word £3.7m development cost Campy Levitrons?

I'm trying to find some info on spoke tensions.

Usually I end up just going up to around 22-25 on my Park TM-1. Which = 111-155Kgf.

TBH I mainly use it to ensure the tension is equal/even. For once I thought I'd actually try and use the 'correct' tension....and I'm struggling.

Rims: Mavic cxp30s (*not *'33)
Hubs: On-One
Build: 32h x3

Nothing seems to give me a better answer than somewhere around 100-120.

My thoughts were CXP30's are deeper so can handle slightly more tension. But they are not eyeletted, so that goes against them.

Anyone got any thoughts or know a good list sight?

Cheers.