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Good wheel tension by Feel

Old 08-10-20, 06:31 PM
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Good wheel tension by Feel

Hello Everyone, in this thread i would like to know about your experience with tensioning wheels without relying on tensiometers.
I've read several books about wheel building and it seems to me that none of them describes how a wheel should feel when it's properly tensioned.
In Jobst Brandt's The Bicycle Wheel, it's recommended to either compare the tone of the spokes with another properly tensioned wheel or "if the wheel becomes untrue in two large waves during stress relieving, the maximum, safe tension has been exceeded. [...] When the wheel loses alignment from stress relieving, loosen all spokes a half turn before retruing the wheel"
The problem is that there is no way i'm willing to go that far as my experience with previously built wheels shows that i did indeed over-tension them without experiencing two large waves...
Robert Wright in Building Bicycle Wheels says "it's impossible to give a quantitative answer to that, other than to say that they should be as uniformly tight as you can get them. The rim is the component of your wheel hich limits the amount of tension you can apply. If the ferrules start to pull out of the rim or if the *unferruled) rim starts to bulge or crack at the nipples, the spokes are too tight."
I suppose he must have had a peculiar sense of humour.
Roger Musson's answerin Professional Guide to Wheel Building is similar to Jobst Brandt's : "As you tighten and stress the wheel there should be little change in lateral trueness. If it goes significantly out of true after stressing in the latter stages of final tensioning then it's likely the spokes are too tight and the rim has reached its compressive limit [...] and to back off all spokes half a turn."
That's still not clear because every time i tension (after lateral and radial truing) the wheel goes out of true. He gives another indication for "very rigid" rims however :
On a mountain bike rim the spoke twist is a good way of judging when to stop and if a well lubricated spoke twists a third of a turn then it's pointless going further and the same is true for deep section rims and robust touring rims."
However, i couldn't go that far without the nipples becoming too tight to turn.

So my question is : How would you describe the feel of a wheel when it's properly tensioned ? What's the general idea describing a well tensioned wheel ? What signs tell you the wheel is just fine ?
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Old 08-10-20, 06:51 PM
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I never used a tension gauge for years. If you are on a desert island you are probably out of luck. But if you can get your “hands” on other wheels you can get a feel for the amount of tension by squeezing the spokes.

That said tension becomes more important as spoke count goes down. With a 32/36 hole rim, you can probably get close enough. I wouldn’t attempt a 20 spoke wheel just by feel.

Remember Jobst Brandt’s book is probably 35 years old. I used it 30 years ago for my first wheel build.

John
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Old 08-10-20, 06:52 PM
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So I've never had one. I build a fair amount of wheels for myself and always have had good luck. No failures and everything stays true. I only weigh 140 but I do ride pretty hard.

I guage my squeezing spokes together and how it feels with the spoke wrench.

On a lark, I bought a tension meter for $25 on eBay. It showed up today. No time to actually redo anything but a quick check on few wheels revealed tensions all over the place.

I'm actually pretty good at this stuff, I was pretty surprised how wildly off they were.

That's the bad news. The good news is it gives me a project to work on. I have 6 wheels in regular use I've built.

Like I said, everything has always been great. Maybe it's because it doesn't matter or maybe it's because I'm so light.
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Old 08-10-20, 07:10 PM
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Equalized tension among similar spokes is probably more important than the actual tension (within limits). I check for equal tension by plucking the spokes and listening to the note. For dished rear wheels, driving side spokes should sound close to one another. Ditto for the non-driving side. The driving side spokes will have a higher pitch. All spokes should have the same pitch for non-dished wheels.
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Old 08-10-20, 07:24 PM
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Originally Posted by 70sSanO
I never used a tension gauge for years. If you are on a desert island you are probably out of luck. But if you can get your “hands” on other wheels you can get a feel for the amount of tension by squeezing the spokes.

That said tension becomes more important as spoke count goes down. With a 32/36 hole rim, you can probably get close enough. I wouldn’t attempt a 20 spoke wheel just by feel.

Remember Jobst Brandt’s book is probably 35 years old. I used it 30 years ago for my first wheel build.

John
Thanks John, it's not exactly a desert island, but the only "out of factory wheels" i've seen were on modern bikes with much fewer spokes.. unlike the 36-hole rims i have.
Originally Posted by rosefarts
So I've never had one. I build a fair amount of wheels for myself and always have had good luck. No failures and everything stays true. I only weigh 140 but I do ride pretty hard.
I guage my squeezing spokes together and how it feels with the spoke wrench.
On a lark, I bought a tension meter for $25 on eBay. It showed up today. No time to actually redo anything but a quick check on few wheels revealed tensions all over the place.
I'm actually pretty good at this stuff, I was pretty surprised how wildly off they were.
That's the bad news. The good news is it gives me a project to work on. I have 6 wheels in regular use I've built.
Like I said, everything has always been great. Maybe it's because it doesn't matter or maybe it's because I'm so light.
I weigh 80kg (175lb) and i would like to get lighter but i doubt it's my weight that keeps causing the cracks in my rims.. Have fun with re-tensioning your old builds and don't forget to drop by to share your impressions on "tight" is tight enough

I guess my question should be reformulated : how do over-and-under tensioned wheels feel like ? When does one feel "ok, now it's too tight/too loose" ?
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Old 08-10-20, 07:36 PM
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Originally Posted by SBinNYC
Equalized tension among similar spokes is probably more important than the actual tension (within limits). I check for equal tension by plucking the spokes and listening to the note. For dished rear wheels, driving side spokes should sound close to one another. Ditto for the non-driving side. The driving side spokes will have a higher pitch. All spokes should have the same pitch for non-dished wheels.
Thanks for the tips SB ! That is important indeed, but how to tell the spokes are tight just right?
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Old 08-10-20, 07:37 PM
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An undertensioned wheel when the spokes are plucked will sound dull. A tensioned wheel will have a "ping" to it" and all the pings should be about the same. For my last wheel build though I bought a tensionometer. It wasn't that expensive, although getting one in Tunisia may be.
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Old 08-10-20, 07:42 PM
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Borrow a tension meter and compare to YOUR feel.
Or have the LBS tension the wheel with the understanding that you want to know actual value to your feel.

As far as the rim being the limiting factor? Usually, but if you're using 1.5-1.6mm spokes, you can probably stretch those to oblivion or run out of thread first.
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Old 08-10-20, 07:48 PM
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Originally Posted by zacster
An undertensioned wheel when the spokes are plucked will sound dull. A tensioned wheel will have a "ping" to it" and all the pings should be about the same. For my last wheel build though I bought a tensionometer. It wasn't that expensive, although getting one in Tunisia may be.
Yeah, no way to find such tools in here... The DS spokes have a clear uniform ping unlike the NDS ones.. i wonder how wheel builders knew when the build was tight enough before tensionometers came..
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Old 08-10-20, 09:48 PM
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...a not great but adequate to your needs tensiometer is not that expensive (30 bucks), when you are buying spokes at 60 bucks a box and rims at 50 bucks each. This is how I look at it, and I have built a lot of wheels. Maybe I'm tone deaf. (Which would explain why the nun who ran the choir in grade school was always giving me dirty looks, )

One of the things that gets missed a lot in wheel works is the final equalization of tensions around the wheel. You can have a perfectly true and centered wheel, and still find that when you run the tensions on the spokes around the wheel, every other one on a side will be high and low. The sum of the pulls positions the rim in the same spot, but a more durable wheel will have those tensions equalized. Machine built wheels are rightfully notorious for this flaw, and for being sold under tensioned.

I cannot do that final balancing without a tensiometer...I've tried...and I apologize to Sister Jesumaria for any grief I caused her in choir performances.
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Old 08-10-20, 09:51 PM
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Originally Posted by holytrousers
.... i wonder how wheel builders knew when the build was tight enough before tensionometers came..
...the way Jobst Brandt described it in his book. You run them up until the rim starts to deform, then back of a half turn on every spoke, then re-true what you have. At that point you have a good idea of how much tension a certain rim will endure, and if you build a lot of wheels, you tend to use certain rims over and over again.
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Old 08-10-20, 11:11 PM
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Originally Posted by 3alarmer
.
...a not great but adequate to your needs tensiometer is not that expensive (30 bucks), when you are buying spokes at 60 bucks a box and rims at 50 bucks each. This is how I look at it, and I have built a lot of wheels. Maybe I'm tone deaf. (Which would explain why the nun who ran the choir in grade school was always giving me dirty looks, )

One of the things that gets missed a lot in wheel works is the final equalization of tensions around the wheel. You can have a perfectly true and centered wheel, and still find that when you run the tensions on the spokes around the wheel, every other one on a side will be high and low. The sum of the pulls positions the rim in the same spot, but a more durable wheel will have those tensions equalized. Machine built wheels are rightfully notorious for this flaw, and for being sold under tensioned.

I cannot do that final balancing without a tensiometer...I've tried...and I apologize to Sister Jesumaria for any grief I caused her in choir performances.


Originally Posted by 3alarmer
...the way Jobst Brandt described it in his book. You run them up until the rim starts to deform, then back of a half turn on every spoke, then re-true what you have. At that point you have a good idea of how much tension a certain rim will endure, and if you build a lot of wheels, you tend to use certain rims over and over again.
i've tried that method, but each time i finish a tensioning round the wheel gets out of true, so i keep repeating that process until the spokes become really tight. I haven't noticed that special moment where the wheel becomes particularly deformed. am i doing something wrong
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Old 08-11-20, 06:43 AM
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I've never understood the antagonism against tensiometers. It's a tool (Tim from Tooltalk: More Power!), like a torque wrench. After someone has built a certain number of bike wheels, or tightened a larger number of bolts, they may develop a feel for what's right and adequate. Using the appropriate tool lets a beginner, or an amateur mechanic, get the spokes even and balanced, or the bolt tightened correctly. Use the tool until you've been doing this kind of thing for 10,000 hours, 5 years of 40 hours per week.
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Old 08-11-20, 08:48 AM
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Originally Posted by holytrousers


i've tried that method, but each time i finish a tensioning round the wheel gets out of true, so i keep repeating that process until the spokes become really tight. I haven't noticed that special moment where the wheel becomes particularly deformed. am i doing something wrong
...without being there in the room with you, I cannot speculate. A lot of this depends on the rim in question, and your overall technique (approach) in the initial stages. Also, if you are using used or in service rims to practice, many of them have some built in imbalances from years of abuse already. If a rim has significant deformation from some previous incident, it will never be a candidate for an evenly tensioned wheel build.
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Old 08-11-20, 08:51 AM
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My wheel building skills are entirely self taught. I never read the book. I have built wheels professionally but only a few hundred. I have a cheap Wheelsmith tensiometer which has never been calibrated in over 20 years. I'm aware of overall tension, but I'm more concerned about spoke-to-spoke tension differences. That's mainly what I use my tensiometer for.

Here's my story: While rebuilding a pair of tandem wheels I started, as I always do by sticking my thumbnail into the last spoke thread and spinning up all of the nipples to that point. From that point on, I count turns as I slooowly built up tension in the wheel. When I reached the point where my tensiometer said every spoke was equal tension, I've had one wheel that required no additional truing, either radial or lateral, at all. I was pretty stoked about that.
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Old 08-11-20, 08:55 AM
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In his book Gerd Schraener, a professional wheel builder, said he was surprised that he could do a better job of tensioning a wheel accurately with a tensiometer.
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Old 08-11-20, 08:56 AM
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Originally Posted by holytrousers
Thanks for the tips SB ! That is important indeed, but how to tell the spokes are tight just right?
Here's a link to the "optimal" pitch.

The pitch varies with spoke diameter. Some wheels are being built with 1.8mm diameter spokes, where 2.0mm used to the standard. This means the pitch to tension chart needs a column for spoke diameter as well as length.

I don't agree that there's an optimal tension that's based solely on spoke length. Lateral movement is the most sensitive to tension differences. You want the same restorative force. That depends on the number of spokes and steepness of the angle due to dish. To build a 32 spoke wheel that's got the lateral strength 36 spoke wheel, means the spoke tension in the 32 spoke wheel has to be 12.5% higher than in the 36 spoke wheel. Similarly a rear wheel with 10 speed cassette will have a steeper dish than an old 5 speed freewheel. This means more tension for the 10 speed wheel. It also means a greater tension imbalance between driving and non-driving sides.

The final analysis is to pluck a properly built wheel with the same geometry and components and remember the note. You'll be able to write the book, with enough experience.
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Old 08-11-20, 09:08 AM
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I once tensioned an ACS Z Wheel by feel, the same as I did the aluminum rims before we got a tensionometer. It was perfect... then I went put the tire on. It wouldn't hold the tire bead because the tension was so great for that rim that it shrank the rim.
After you get a tensionometer (and they are only 30usd give or take) you won't build without them. And they will teach you more about good vs bad rims than you ever knew existed.
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Old 08-11-20, 09:14 AM
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I true my own wheels by the pitch when the spoke is plucked just as indicated in the link by SBinNYC, (post17). To get the pitch right I have an inexpensive pitch pipe such as a music teacher may use. This is a fairly objective method far better than squeezing spokes. A highly regarded source of all sorts of information is the web site of Sheldon Brown, a bike mechanic, now deceased and missed. The recommended pitch of plucked spokes is from his former web site. That site with a wealth in bike information can be found here. https://www.bikeforums.net/bicycle-m...shortcuts.html
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Old 08-11-20, 01:25 PM
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Originally Posted by Bill Kapaun
Borrow a tension meter and compare to YOUR feel.
Or have the LBS tension the wheel with the understanding that you want to know actual value to your feel.

As far as the rim being the limiting factor? Usually, but if you're using 1.5-1.6mm spokes, you can probably stretch those to oblivion or run out of thread first.
Sorry Bill, i wish i had the possibility to use it, but as i've already said, wheel builders are rare where i live , and i never came across a tensiometer. But thanks for the advice !
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Old 08-11-20, 01:30 PM
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Originally Posted by pdlamb
I've never understood the antagonism against tensiometers. It's a tool (Tim from Tooltalk: More Power!), like a torque wrench. After someone has built a certain number of bike wheels, or tightened a larger number of bolts, they may develop a feel for what's right and adequate. Using the appropriate tool lets a beginner, or an amateur mechanic, get the spokes even and balanced, or the bolt tightened correctly. Use the tool until you've been doing this kind of thing for 10,000 hours, 5 years of 40 hours per week.
Hi pdlamb, i don't remember having expressed antagonism against tensiometers, it's just that they are unavailable where i live, there is no international purchasing either so i'm limited to what i can find in local stores.
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Old 08-11-20, 01:44 PM
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Originally Posted by holytrousers
Hi pdlamb, i don't remember having expressed antagonism against tensiometers, it's just that they are unavailable where i live, there is no international purchasing either so i'm limited to what i can find in local stores.
Tools are cool
Sorry about the misunderstanding. I didn't look at your location, and you didn't explain why you were avoiding a tensiometer.

With those circumstances fully explained, the tension by plucking method mentioned above is the most viable. Once you've got your first wheel done, you'll be able to use that as a reference for other wheels with similar spoke lengths and spoke gauge.
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Old 08-11-20, 01:46 PM
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Originally Posted by 3alarmer
...without being there in the room with you, I cannot speculate. A lot of this depends on the rim in question, and your overall technique (approach) in the initial stages. Also, if you are using used or in service rims to practice, many of them have some built in imbalances from years of abuse already. If a rim has significant deformation from some previous incident, it will never be a candidate for an evenly tensioned wheel build.
No i'm building with a new aluminum rim that has recessed spoke holes and eyelets. I have been following the methods described in the books i've mentioned with some tips found here on the forum and videos on youtube. I can achiev a fairly radially and laterally true wheel with evenly tensioned spokes by pitch.. the only worry i still have is that the wheel will be over-tensioned.
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Old 08-11-20, 01:50 PM
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Originally Posted by Retro Grouch
My wheel building skills are entirely self taught. I never read the book. I have built wheels professionally but only a few hundred. I have a cheap Wheelsmith tensiometer which has never been calibrated in over 20 years. I'm aware of overall tension, but I'm more concerned about spoke-to-spoke tension differences. That's mainly what I use my tensiometer for.

Here's my story: While rebuilding a pair of tandem wheels I started, as I always do by sticking my thumbnail into the last spoke thread and spinning up all of the nipples to that point. From that point on, I count turns as I slooowly built up tension in the wheel. When I reached the point where my tensiometer said every spoke was equal tension, I've had one wheel that required no additional truing, either radial or lateral, at all. I was pretty stoked about that.
That's nice... when everything is equally tensioned and true, how do you know that your wheel is not over -- or under -- tensioned ?
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Old 08-11-20, 01:54 PM
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Originally Posted by davidad
In his book Gerd Schraener, a professional wheel builder, said he was surprised that he could do a better job of tensioning a wheel accurately with a tensiometer.
I've watched the video on youtube featuring him, and i remember him using an electronic tensiometer...
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