Originally Posted by
noglider
I don't use a tensiometer when building wheels, and I generally don't use pitch, either. I just use feel. My question is: how much pitch variation is OK? I got as much as a minor third (musically speaking) difference between the lowest pitch and the highest pitch I found in the wheel I built most recently.
I don't use pitch or a tensiometer with any particular purpose when working on my wheels. I do touch up final trueing and take up loose spokes (on the rare occasions I find one). I adjust trueing so that I don't need to open up my brake adjustment and I don't have any rubbing on the stand or on the road - I like to have a short brake lever travel, but zero rubbing. This may all be too fussy for most of us but it's what I do, since perhaps 50 years ago. To accomplish this I make adjustments with wrench motions as small as ¼ turn. I later go through squeezing the spokes as hard as my hands can stand to de-stress and try to let false rotations related to spoke stiction to relax and assume their real positions. Usually I don't find that additional truing tweaks are needed. I try to hold the shaft of the spoke to prevent it from twisting, but it's not always successful.
I'm also a musician with extensive singing and guitar experience, so I can nearly always hear pitch differences that are present, at least I think that! Occasionally after touching up a wheel I get curious about pitch and begin playing my new circular harp with a small screwdriver. I rarely notice revised pitch differences as large as a half-tone, so it seems that a half-tone is kind of a large difference. I'm not sure if a tension tolerance representing ½ tone would result in a wheel that is acceptable from a structural and durability point of view.