WizardOfBoz

One prevailing paradigm is that you tighten till the rim just starts to taco, then you back off. I suspect that this gets you into a problem zone in that the rim may not be able to take that level of spoke tension. I just redid some 40 year old wheels (Schwinn Superior) . Weinmann solid (e.g. not boxed) welded rims. I think that they were probably around 70-80 kgf when I got em and IMHO were pretty (too) loose. They're now at about 105 front and 120/85kgf rear. Will that work? Is that optimal? Am I gonna pull spokes through the rim? I don't know. I suspect that, given that we see pictures of spokes pulling out of rims a lot here on BF, that the "tighten to taco, then back off" paradigm leads to overtight spokes.

I should point out that some rim mfrs recommend pretty low high limits on spoke tension (these ZTR rims state a 95kgf maximum). If your Deckas chart is like my Park chart, that 25 reading is more like 120kgf for 2mm spokes, right?

Here's a proposed paradigm for re-doing wheels where you don't have rim max spoke tension data. See if you can find similar designs in current offerings, look for the distribution of spoke tension limits on those designs (easier said than found for some rims) and perhaps back off a bit from the mean of those values (or use the minimum value). Then build the rim and tighten and true to that value (letting the NDS float to whatever value you need to get dish). Of course if the rim tacos at that level, back off. Other's may have experience enough to state tension targets. In any case, I'm going to rebuild my Paramount wheels (I sold the frame - I guess I need to find a frame for those wheels!) using new rims so I'll hopefully have the max tension spec to start out with.

I realize that this is squishy and non-specific, but you have to make a choice based upon something and if you don't have any data (say, for old rims) using other designs as a guideline gives you some info. Criticism from the experts welcome.