Current Projects chat and miscellany

One thing I have found is the spoke tension isn't totally even around the wheel. None are really loose or anything like that. They're all nice and tense, but some are a little less tense. Will this be a problem? Will I need to re-tension the wheel after a bit of riding?

You want the tension of each spoke to be within about 10% of the average of all of them otherwise it is likely to go out of true after a while, and some spokes will be taking more stress than others. If you have a spoke tensiometer this is pretty easy and you can adjust spoke tension without putting the wheel out of true as long as you even out the adjustments you're making - e.g. if you tighten one spoke then loosen the nearest one on the other flange by roughly the same amount (possibly slightly more because pulling the rim towards the first spoke will increase the tension on the opposite side).

The main things that stop a wheel going out of true are 1) over-winding the spokes by a quarter turn and then backing them off by the same amount each time (this removes spoke twist) 2) stress relieving the wheel by squeezing parallel pairs of spokes (or other technique - if you Google it there are a few different methods), and 3) not exceeding the maximum tension the rim can handle, which is usually around 100-110 kgf. You can also find the maximum tension by building it up until the rim deforms and goes out of true when it's stress relieved. Then take the tension back down a bit all around and re-true.