Wheelbuilding photos and notes

A random collection of wheelbuilding photos and notes.

Wheel truing dial indicator mounted on fork
A light-weight coaster brake wheel with a slim Sachs Torpedo Boy hub:

Wheel being built in truing stand
A custom single-speed wheelset built with high quality components:

Custom single-speed wheelset components
Custom single-speed wheelset
Custom single-speed wheelset detail
A truing stand for extra-precise truing both radially and axially:

Wheel truing stand with dial indicators
Wheel truing stand with dial indicators in operation
Building a Duomatic 102 wheelset:

Custom Duomatic wheelset components
A nice and strong symmetric "flip-flop" fixed and freewheel single speed wheel:

Flip-flop fixed freewheel single speed wheel
Flip-flop fixed gear sprocket lock ring tightening
Wheels with small-diameter flanges can be made stronger by lacing them with four crosses instead of three, so the pull of the spokes is more tangential to the hub flanges. But be aware of spoke head overlap. In this case OK, only barely touching.

Four-cross lacing pattern
Observing the (purely cosmetic) rule of lacing the wheel so the hub's logo is visible through the rim valve stem hole. This involves carefully selecting which hub flange hole the first key spoke goes in:

Lacing the wheel so the hub logo is visible through the rim valve stem hole
A sustainably built wheel using mostly used or leftover parts, which sometimes mean that the spokes are not the same color left and right:

Road bike rear wheel laced with black and silver spokes
Road bike rear wheel made from surplus and used parts
Broken spokes due to metal fatigue in the J-bend near the spoke head can be a problem on wheels with hubs with thin steel flanges like the Nexus 3. This can be prevented by adding small washers under the spoke heads, giving better support/seating of the head and will cause the inner bend of the spoke to rest against the hub flange instead of "floating in the air". Manually "setting" the bend against the flange during the building process is also required.

Spoke head washers used on thin steel hub flanges
More examples of spoke metal fatigue fractures and mounted spoke head washers (and from another angle).

Lacing three-colored sections of a wheel requires some prior planning when the spoke pattern is three cross / 3x:

Three-color spoke wheel lacing
il Tricolore!

Three-color spoke wheel
Another sustainably built wheel using mostly used/refurbished or leftover parts. Let's lace it half'n'half black and silver instead of alternating black and silver spokes, because why not:

Three-speed rear wheel surplus and used parts
Three-speed rear wheel made from surplus and used parts
A Torpedo coaster brake wheel laced with 2x (two cross) pattern of the spokes. The sturdy steel flanges of that hub can handle it, but be careful with aluminium flanges that typically should be laced closer to tangential:

Torpedo coaster brake wheel with two-cross lacing pattern
Building an oldschool all-steel vintage wheelset:

Vintage coaster brake wheelset build
Duomatic R2110 wheelset:

Custom Duomatic wheelset
A high-profile rim wheel with internal nipples, requiring tensioning while truing from inside the rim with a thin E-Torx bit:

Wheel build with high profile rim
Wheel build with high profile rim and internal nipples
Wheel build with high profile and external torx nipples
A heavy-duty 23" rear wheel for a Danish Long John cargo bike built with NOS zinc-gavanized 12G spokes:

Custom heavy duty cargo bike wheel with 12G spokes
A single-speed rear wheel built with old and new parts:

Custom single speed wheel
Gold-colored rims combined with a rebuilt Torpedo three-speed hub:

Custom three-speed citybike wheelset
Tags: bicycle, torpedo
Page last updated 2025-02-09 12:30. Some rights reserved (CC by 3.0)