Wheel Building - A First Attempt!

by A. Tong

This isn't much of a tutorial for you readers.  More of a summary of my wheel building experience.  I've wanted to lace up some wheels for some time now but never had a reason to.  Looking at my bike parts inventory, I had 2 front wheels and only 1 rear.  Turns out I also had an extra rear hub and rim laying around so I decided to go for it and try to build a wheel.  

I didn't start out with any great parts.  This wheel build was just to see if I could do it!  The rear hub was a standard Shimano and the rim was an old, but straight, Bontrager.  The spoke and spoke nipples where brand new. 

All the essentials for a wheel build.  Spokes, nipples, a hub, and out of the picture, but an obvious item, is the rim.  A truing stand makes building wheels a piece of cake. 

If you are like me, building a wheel wasn't something I thought I could do.  I've trued wheels before and that was difficult enough, let alone trying to do one from scratch.  Turns out it's a lot easier than I thought it was going to be.  I referenced Sheldon Brown's website and just followed what he wrote.  My only tip would be to read the entire article first before starting.  If you don't, your first attempt might look like mine.  See FAIL below!

All laced up and ready to go....or is it?  If you look closely, all the spokes have been laced from the inside out.  This first try = fail

After I took out all the wrong spokes and relaced them from the correct side, things were peachy!  The real trick to wheel building isn't lacing the wheel but truing (both laterally and vertically) and dishing the rim properly.  I have to say my initial fear that building a wheel from scratch compared to fixing a badly dented wheel was unfounded.  If you follow the steps in the link above and tension the spokes equally as you go, the wheel is almost straight by the time you are done.  A half turn of the spoke wrench here, a quarter turn there and you are done!  Below is the finished product!  I'll write a follow up on this wheel.  After all, a successful wheel build is more than lacing and getting it straight.  It's all about how it works as a wheel! 

Attempt 2 was much more successful!

If you are thinking of building a wheel but not sure if you have the ability, I say go for it!  It's not that difficult and kinda therapeutic.  The cost of building a wheel is only $30-50 so you aren't saving much by doing it yourself, but I'll be building another one again!