Thanks guys. Very useful to get info from guys that have actually done this. Jeff, that green Superior restomod looks like a sweet ride. Nicely done! Did you decided on tires? Thanks for the bit of history about the Schwinn school.
I think that the ~80kgf spoke tension feels much tighter than the original (I didn't have my spoke tension meter when I took the things apart). It seems to me that there's a high limit to spoke tension, and you have a choice of how low you can go below that. The lower you go, the more likely you are to have spoke problems (breakage, spontaneous self-untruing, etc.).
I'm doing the rear wheel asymmetricaly (1.8mm DS, 1.65mm NDS) and was planning on going much higher than 80 (more like 110 or so). I'll see how this goes and will sneak up an 100 kgf DS and see where the NDS are at that point.
Pretty fun to finally lace a wheel. I considered this for a long time. I remember seeing Perry O. (Racine Cyclery) do it when I was a kid working in the shop. Perry would use a Yankee Screwdriver (I think it was actually a VAR tool) to start the nipples and was really impressive to watch him making a wheel. He really got after it and was very skilled. Good memories working at that shop.
Once I'm done with these wheels I'm planning on cleaning up the Superior to vintage/riding condition (Jeff sets a high bar, though!). In parallel, I'll probably relace my Campy low flange hubs from my (now sold) paramount. The wheels have straight gage 2mm spokes - I think we can do better than that. And, as has been pointed out, butted spokes may actually be effectively stronger than straight gauge.
Just as an aside, since I don't have a bike for my Campy wheels, it will be interesting to see how the Superior rides with them.
Last edited by WizardOfBoz; 07-15-19 at 09:15 AM.