Wheelbuilding / Wheel Building / Wheel build help

50% of the spokes will be shorter

^ serious?
I think all the spokes are the same length
Looking at the picture above I'm wondering whether the spokes are actually longer than they'd be with an equispaced hub....
If each pair of holes is brought together so that rather than 7 hole pairs per side there are just 7 holes through which 2 spokes can be poked.... Rather than taking the direct radial route to the rim, each of the spokes will need to be slightly longer to reach the corresponding hole.
I don't know if this will have a noticeable effect - time will tell!

A normal radial build has the shortest possible spoke length for that rim and flange diameter. Anything else requires spokes that are longer or the same. In your case i think it's the same - the odd hub drilling matches the odd lacing pattern - angles between adjacent rim holes and adjacent hub holes are the same, it's just that hub holes are arranged 2 on one flange, 2 on the other, instead of alternating like normal, sane designs. I believe cxp33 can cope with that odd pattern (no drilling offset), and your spoke length is close enough, so although lateral truing may be a little more difficult i think you should be ok.

Cheers moth, that sounds about right - I'm reassured (if slightly daunted by the truing) - I'll see how I get on....

Draw it out on a piece of paper with compass and protractor like the good old days.

Fair point!
I've got solidworks 3d cad on my computer, it's just I can't be arsed!
I'll lace the spokes and see what happens - if there's a problem I'll draw it up and see what length of spoke I actually need!

It all went very nicely in the end and was quite easy to true.
Oddly, the spokes were close to their practical limit - you could only just get a screwdriver onto the nipple at the final tension... must have been a miscalculation on my part.
I like the look of it, and the build quality on those sonic hubs is breathtaking so I'm quite a happy bunny all round.
Cheers for help & reassurance!

Now i'm confused. You've not followed the odd lacing pattern that the hubs seem to be designed for (each close pair of hub holes to a pair of adjacent rim holes), but instead tried to do something more conventional (adjacent rim holes to alternate hub flanges), and possibly ended up with something even stranger which should require 2 slightly different spoke lengths.

(If you look directly down the axle, do half of the spokes appear to cross spokes from the other flange?)

Having the spokes come part way up the slot in the back of the nipples is within tolerance (and arguably ideal) for 12mm nipples. As for why that doesn't seem to match what you expect from calculation: the conventional calculation takes no account of length lost where spokes weave at the last cross, or length gained from stretch and straightening of the elbow. Presumably these roughly cancel out in cross patterns, but maybe radial builds need a bit more attention to detail. I don't have the experience to say.

i need a set of wheels truing. does anyone know somewhere in South/West London that's decent and well priced?

I'll put my head above the parapet. In SW4 if that's any use.

top man.. i'll PM you now..

Interesting hub. I wonder if you could make a 1x or 2x with these? Am I nuts?

@ moth
Glad I posted a photo, At the time of building (late last night after a couple of drinks) I just didn't feel comfortable with right, right, left, left, right right... seemed a bit odd...
Thinking about it though I'm worried that now now as a result of my efforts to make it more conventional I'll end up with an irregular distribution of force..... Perhaps I'll swap back to the intended pattern.

@skully - the design would lend itself well to 1cross - probably best to do it as 14 crossed pairs right right, left left etc as per the original.

Done and dusted - Best to go with the original design intent - all went together pretty neatly in the end.

Just wanted to give Arup http://www.yogarup.com/wheels/ a big plug to say thanks for building me an awesome set of wheels recently, Campy Record on TB14's. I understand why he gets so many mentions on this site now, easy to deal with, chilled and does a fantastic job. If you are thinking of getting a set of wheels hand built he should be your first call.

i need a set of wheels truing. does anyone know somewhere in South/West London that's decent and well priced?

try arup
recommendation one post above

Quick question; how important is it to test the spoke tensions without the tyre inflated? Very?

the correct tension should be acheived without tyre inflated, not sure of the values but maybe its 10%less when inflated. dont add extra, use the max values for tyreless

Gotcha, cheers!

Cheers for the recommendations guys. My queue of orders just keeps getting longer and so many coming back for seconds and thirds.

I've got a set of video tutorials on youtube if you need help.

Just wanted to thank Richard (AKA 36X18) for he patience and superb wheel building skills! Hugely recommended to those who need wheel assistance...

Ater some advice on spoke length. Bilding some novatec bdw's onto halo rims with sapim race spokes, rear is 36 hole and front 32 hole, both are gonna be 3x. Using this guy: http://leonard.io/edd/ my front spoke length should be 283, and rear should be 278.6 .

Sapim race spokes only come in even numbers from where i'm getting them, so, how long should my spokes be, you're meant to go down aren't you so 282 and 278?

Also that calculator assumes 14mm nipples but the sapim polyax's that come with the spokes are 12mm, i've done a bit of research and apparently the threading is the same length so no change to spoke length, can anyone confirm this?

Yes to rounding down.

IIRC, Sapim spokes are the same thread length regardless of nipple length, but DT have longer threads in longer nipples. Or the other way round :-)

If you use the DT calculator, you can put the nipple length in as a variable. It has always worked out right for my builds.

Yeah i think thats what i remember someone else writing tester, re the thread lengths. And thanks, will have a go with this DT one

best price on brass nipples and dt competition spokes?

Looking to be much cheaper to buy archetypes + hope hubs all seperately