sloar

I hate lacing rims, I just needed to swap rims so I could have a matching pair, so I cheated a little.

Velo Mule

That works. Nothing wrong with that. I think this is similar to how Seth from "Seth's Bike Hacks" did it. I have loosened all the spokes, taped the two rims together and then moved the spokes to the new rim one at a time.

It looks good. Did you true the wheel yet?

gaucho777 

Another method is to de-tension the spokes on the original wheel, fix the new rim to the old rim (masking tape, zip tie) side to side, and then transfer one spoke over at a time to the new rim. Edit: Velo Mule beat me to it while I was typing.

SurferRosa

Neat idea.

Drillium Dude

I just bookmarked my first Bike Forums page; what a fantastic idea!

DD

RiddleOfSteel

I tape the spokes near the hub on both sides--same idea as zip ties but to me it holds things in the correct place more easily. Whichever way, I don't consider it cheating and guess what? I'm going to be doing it again in about a week! Did it at least once several years ago and it worked well. As much as building wheels up from zero is neat, swapping rims is much preferred.

Salamandrine 

Yep this works well. I'm somewhat surprised some people hadn't heard of this. It was pretty much SOP for replacing a rim if the wheel still had relatively new spokes. Like if you just hit a curb and cracked the rim on a wheel that was built fairly recently. I've always done it with tape, cuz that's how I learned it. Zip ties weren't something that used to be around, at least not in large quantities.

SurferRosa

Show your work (here please) or zero credit.

jdawginsc 

This may have just moved me closer to building my first rim...still panicked about dishing and calculating needed dish.

Might be less stressful to me than gluing my first set of tubulars...

ThermionicScott 

Taping 'em together is what I prefer to do. A lot harder to mess something up when only one spoke is free at a time.

gugie 

Yep, standard LBS protocol from BITD.

scarlson 

Yeah fond memories. I learned the tape thing when I was 14, my dad did it on tour after I cracked my first Mavic MA3 in France. Little did I know at that juncture, I'd be cracking another two MA3s and replacing them myself before the 6-month tour was over!

When I laced my first wheel I messed up where I put the valve hole, so you couldn't get a pump in there, so I taped the spokes themselves together and undid everything and moved the rim a few spokes over. I still have that wheel.

Bianchigirll 

If you're replacing the same size rim this is the best and quickest way.

Chuckk

Another benefit of the tape-them-together style is that it's almost impossible to misalign the tire stem hole or have the graphics facing the wrong direction.

Spaghetti Legs 

Taping is sensible and efficient but you miss out on the "Zen of Lacing"

gugie 

Zen'ed there, zen'ed that.

At my age I don't need any more character building experiences, I'm looking for shortcuts.

;-)

sloar

I’ll second that!

seedsbelize 

If your spoke lengths are correct, dishing mostly takes care of itself

madpogue 

Rather than zip ties, I usu tape the spokes at the third cross.

jdawginsc , centering the rim isn't a big deal. I use a centering gauge I bought decades ago, but RJ has a simple trick using two stacks of books (or whatever). You set the wheel on one side of the rim on the two stacks, then slide some spacer (another book, for example) under the axle in between. Get a sense of the distance from the axle to the spacer, then flip the wheel over. If there's a difference, loosen one side and tighten the other to compensate. Lather rinse repeat. At that point, it becomes a three-way dance between lateral true, radial true and centering. RJ's video will explain it better than anything written.

Trakhak

I might have used tape once, back in the '60s, but since then I never bothered with tape, having figured out that it's unnecessary. Loosen (but do not disconnect) all the spokes in the old rim, and then, starting at the valve hole, move over the spokes on the side facing the new rim and then the spokes on the other side.

Trakhak

I do a variation of that: I place two chairs such that the rim can rest on the tops of the chairs, adjust a camera tripod until the top just touches the face of the axle nut, and then flip the wheel over.

jdawginsc 

If I decide to expand my skill set, I need to expand my tool set a bit. Feedback sports truing stand is awesome, but not for building rims.

I might try my hand at in the nearish future.

jackbombay

This is the way I was taught to do it working in a bike shop at 12 or 13 years of age.

kunsunoke 

Dunno - I've done it both ways, and I think I prefer taking the spokes out and starting fresh. You can replace stripped nipples, swap out bad spokes, adjust crossing patterns for better tension, etc. The disadvantage is that the rear wheel has to settle in again after dishing and truing.

Helps if you have a truing stand and a dishing tool, though.

Salamandrine 

FWIW the traditional view on this was that generally speaking, by the time the rim is trashed enough that the wheel has to be rebuilt, the spokes should always be replaced at the same time. IME this was generally good advice. Most mechanics would have told you the same thing BITD. By the time my rims were too beat up to keep true, the spokes were generally starting to break, and usually they were notched at the crossings. Nipples could be starting to seize, or actually stripped, as you mention.

The tape and swap over thing was, like I said, for relatively new wheels that got damaged, or for when you just wanted a different rim for some reason (assuming it used the same spoke lengths).

I realize this goes against the advice in "The Bicycle Wheel", but while I understand the logic of that argument, I don't really agree, at least I didn't BITD. Nowadays it holds more true. Spokes are better and less likely to break, especially if you spring for DB. I"m on my second rim with the same spokes on my main road wheels.