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Not sure if Park truing stand will even be helpful.

Old 03-31-22, 05:00 PM
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Nyah
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Not sure if Park truing stand will even be helpful.

This is my first attempt at building wheels. The front wheel went well enough but, the rear one is a bugger. The hub of the rear one is an IGH with an OLD of 135. This is wide enough that the uprights of my cheap Minoura truing stand are forced into a 'V' position, with the faces of the uprights not square with the faces of the hub locknuts. In looking at a higher end stand, the Park TS-2.2p, I see that its uprights would do the very same thing with this hub. The video that Park has produced for this stand even warns that in order to properly dish a wheel with this type of hub, a dishing stick is necessary. So would the higher end stand really make it easier than if I just used a dishing stick with my Minoura stand? I do plan to make more of these wheels in the future, although I'm not sure of how many.
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Old 03-31-22, 05:10 PM
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My take is that for doing an occasional wheel you'll be tossing over $300 for a little easier time of truing your wheels and as mentioned you'll still need a dishing tool if you want to get fancy. I have a Minoura stand as well and it takes more effort to be gentle with the wheel as the stand can go out of adjustment easier and maybe some more time to flip your wheel several times to make sure it's close to being perfectly dished, again, without messing up the stand adjustment. I can still build a perfect wheel with mine, just takes slightly more time and effort than the Park. Not worth the extra cash for the Park for my use which is not often. Good tools are always nice though.

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Old 03-31-22, 05:30 PM
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Before I built a stand for myself (I've got that sort of metal machining hobby shop) I used the "built in truing stand" of simply right in the frame that they will live in. A zip tie around the seat stay or fork tube works as an easily adjustable and non marring indicator finger for runout.

Yes it's cheap and dirty. And it's nicer if you can tip the frame up and use it upside down or have a good work stand to hold the frame firmly during all of this. But it does work just fine.
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Old 03-31-22, 05:49 PM
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A trueing stand is just an easier way to hold a wheel and indicate the rim's condition. Generally a stand is not meant to be a dishing tool too. How the axle sits in the stand's uprights shouldn't be any more than a concern for not coming adrift during the use and should be nothing about the indicating aspect. A somewhat skilled person can "work" the wheel during the truing in a manor that won't challenge the axle's seating in the stand. What I do like about a truing stand for a beginner is that it removes the distractions of the rest of the bike (brake pads, wheel fitting square in the frame) and that the stand's indicators are easier to see, WRT the rim's sides, than using brake pads or a hex wrench rubber banded onto the blade/stay.

Since it is so easy to make a dishing tool from common stuff (a counter big enough to lay a wheel flat, some coins or washers that will be stacked up to support the rim at 3 points as it lays flat and another stack located under the axle, flip the wheel and note that axle stack WRT the axle/lock nuts) I see little reason to trust the stand (or your frame) for dishing. Andy
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Old 03-31-22, 06:08 PM
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I've built wheels with that OLD on my older Park TS2 and had no concern about the angle of the arms - just didn't think about it. I also was not concerned that the faces of the arms were or were not square with the faces of the lock nuts. This will seldom be the case, but it really doesn't matter as long as the hub is held in a stable position. I never rely on the alignment of the Park stand to assure a proper dish and so, in every case, I use a dishing tool. I'd recommend continuing with your current truing stand and buy a cheap dish gauge (or fabricate a DIY solution). Save your money for a spoke tension gauge.

Good luck on your project.
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Old 03-31-22, 06:29 PM
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I have been building wheels for more than 40 years and when I came back into the biking world I was financially secure enough to purchase a new Var stand. It utilizes an upright bar on a floating rod that allows for all size hub dimensions and does a very good job on all wheels. But I still use a dishing tool to verify that my stand is still accurately helping me in the build. As Andy suggests find a good dishing tool even though it does not need to be expensive, but it will be the best investment. Smiles, MH
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Old 03-31-22, 08:06 PM
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One of the exceptions to trusting a truing stand to act as a dishing tool is the VAR PreciRay. Not sure if that's what MH is referring to. The PreciRay has vertical wheel holding supports that slide horizontally. As the axle is held down by little clamps the side pressure of the vertical supports can be minimal. The rigidness and stability of these stands is intoxicating. The stand has a couple of scales that allow for overall lock nut width and rim widths to be measured and the rim side location, for a properly dished result, is able to be set by sliding the indicator holding plate side to side. hard to envision but easy to understand if it's in front of you. I got mine as a pay for a week's vacation way back in the early 1980s. Preciray truing stand - Speedbicycles BTW the right side flat "shelf" above the RH axle support sits a beer really handily Andy
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Old 03-31-22, 08:27 PM
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I should mention that in addition to the Minoura stand, I'm also already using a dishing stick and the Park spoke tension tool.


I was frustrated with the process of the rear wheel. Now though, I think that I need to just loosen it up and start over again with the tensioning. The feelers on the Minoura stand are so inaccurate that I thought I'd try starting with the drive side spokes at full tension and then bringing the hub over to center by tightening the non-drive-side spokes, using just the dishing stick to monitor the dish. That doesn't seem to work, though.


Cost of the Park stand is more than just $300, because of inflation and, you also have to buy an expensive alignment guide for it, plus a base which allows using it in non-stationary scenarios. Altogether like $500.
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Old 03-31-22, 09:12 PM
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As others have said, and I will have to join them and tell you to save your money. Truing wheels can be done on fancy stands or in your bike frame or even the one sided hub holder that Park sells to fit in their stands. I also have a Minura stand and will admit that it is a bit wobbly. But it is perfectly capable. The key thing is to bring the spokes up to tension a turn at a time. Then a half turn as they start getting some tension.

You had said that you had a internally geared hub. They may not require any dish at all. But you still should be using a dish gauge. I will tell you that for years I never used one myself. I flipped the wheel in the bike frame or truing stand. That may not be perfect, but it will get you close. Then as you get the tension up and the wheel close, use an improvised dish gauge. Books on a table, CD cases, leftover tiles, wood scraps (can you tell what I have lying around my house?). Place the wheel over two or three of these piles so that the wheel is stable and then find something that will fill the gap between the table and the jam nut on the axle. Perhaps a bottle cap and some playing cards. Use the cards to adjust the gap. Flip the wheel and if it the other side jam nut touches the bottle cap or whatever you use the same way, your dish is good. If not there will be a gap or overlap, then figure out which side to loosen and which side to tighten.

When you first do it, it is tedious. As you start getting the hang of it, it goes better. It is good that you are doing an IGH, that should be easier and highlight one of the advantages of these hubs. They stress the spoke equally (or darn close to it) on the drive and non-drive side.

I now have a dishing tool. It was made from a couple of pieces of wood and a copper pipe. There are lots of different ways to DIY a dishing tool. You may want to look that up if you want to try that. Or you can buy one. They are far less money than a truing stand. And hang onto that Minora, you might start to like it.
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Old 03-31-22, 09:16 PM
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Many Park stands are simply bolted to a (ply) wood base and work well. No need for the alignment "T" gage, Park stands are known for "falling" out of center alignment easily. One more reason to not trust them to dish with.

I fully agree with the Minura stand's being hard to work with. As I mentioned in various threads over the years one of the more important aspects of a truing stand is its rigidity and, thus, repeatability. The cheap stamped and folded or plastib jointed stands really lack this, I would use the frame before one of these cheap and low grade stands. Andy
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Old 04-01-22, 07:53 AM
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Originally Posted by Nyah


...that I thought I'd try starting with the drive side spokes at full tension and then bringing the hub over to center by tightening the non-drive-side spokes, using just the dishing stick to monitor the dish.
That's a bad plan. The tension on the non-drive side directly impacts the tension on the drive side. Loosen the spokes on both sides. If you have the Park tensiometer bring both sides up to 12-13 on the scale. Check your radial & lateral true..adjust as needed. Check your tension again on both sides. (using the Park WTA tool helps keep track of things). Adjust any outliers by using the same-side spokes (example, if spoke 10 on the drive side is too tight, loosen it a half turn and tighten (on drive side) spokes 9 and 11 a quarter turn. Check lateral true for impact..there probably won't be any. Continue correcting outlier spokes. When they're all in..check the spoke tension on both sides and record in the WTA. Next..tighten all the spokes, both sides, a half or full turn. Check the tension again and record. Correct any outliers. Check the lateral true and correct. Check your dish. If it's out..adjust one side spokes at a time to correct (example, loosening all the non-drive side a half turn and/or tightening all the drive side spokes a half turn moves the rim the same direction. The dish doesn't have to be corrected completely in one step. Just keep an eye on it and consider which way it needs to go as you continue bringing the wheel up to full tension. Check the tension on both sides to see where your at. Do another cycle of increasing tension on all spokes on the drive side by a half turn. Check tension on both sides(the non-drive side will increase as you tighten the drive side).

Sounds a bit complicated..but it isn't once you do it a few times. Rinse and repeat the above cycles until the drive side is up to the desired tension. Don't worry about the non-drive side so much. The tension there will fall where it will..it mainly is used to get the dishing and true correct...counteracting the drive side. The spoke tensions on each side should be nearly uniform within themselves.

I just built three wheels, two rears and a front. My first wheel builds. While lots of folks (with lots of wheel building experience) suggest a tension meter isn't needed, and I don't doubt with enough experience that's true, I found the tension meter** is very helpful for new builders. It yields a reference point to guide next steps, much like a compass on a cloudy day. The Park WTA tool is helpful also as it helps keep track of where you are and where you need to go, as well as how to get there.

If you don't have it, Roger Musson's e-book on wheel building is all you need. It'll take you step by step to a good wheel. It also has instructions to build a truing stand and dishing-tool.

I built the following truing stand for $15 out a scrap, the dishing tool was about a buck for the ruler(walmart sewing dept).




I assembled a Park-like wheel balancing tool in Excel(easier to manage and enter data). The final tension in kfg is calculated from an equation (quadratic fit to Park's data for 1.8mm spoke). You can see the left (purple) side spokes 8, 11, & 14 need a little tweaking yet to bring all the spokes within 10% of the average left-side tension. It's within 15% now. 8, 11, & 14 are adjusted by tweaking each spoke in the direction needed and then adjusting the adjacent same-side spokes slightly the opposite direction. The lateral true doesn't change when you do this.





**Yes..tension meters may need calibration. The one I have seems to have very good precision(repeatability), but the accuracy is unknown. A calibration tool looks to be very easy to build. It's been discussed several time on BF. For the time being I've used the tension meter to measure tension in several well built and long-true wheels and it seems to be in the right ballpark. I'll be assembling the calibration tool soon.
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Old 04-01-22, 08:16 AM
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Nice repurposing of the sewing ruler. The basic design on this wood stand was around about 100+ years ago. Goes to show how smart others before us were. Andy
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Old 04-01-22, 08:35 AM
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Originally Posted by Andrew R Stewart
Nice repurposing of the sewing ruler. The basic design on this wood stand was around about 100+ years ago. Goes to show how smart others before us were. Andy
..100 years ago..ahh yes..back when all bikes were "gravel bikes" and they used them to go "bike packing". So much for current trends..

circa 1897..
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Old 04-01-22, 08:42 AM
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Originally Posted by Nyah
This is my first attempt at building wheels. The front wheel went well enough but, the rear one is a bugger. The hub of the rear one is an IGH with an OLD of 135. This is wide enough that the uprights of my cheap Minoura truing stand are forced into a 'V' position, with the faces of the uprights not square with the faces of the hub locknuts. In looking at a higher end stand, the Park TS-2.2p, I see that its uprights would do the very same thing with this hub. The video that Park has produced for this stand even warns that in order to properly dish a wheel with this type of hub, a dishing stick is necessary. So would the higher end stand really make it easier than if I just used a dishing stick with my Minoura stand? I do plan to make more of these wheels in the future, although I'm not sure of how many.
It doesn’t matter how square the hub’s locknuts are to the truing stand. As Andrew pointed out, the stand is only there to hold the wheel. I don’t agree that the Park stands go out of center all that often, however. Most of the times that they have been “off” in my experience is when someone tried to “fix” the stand. My own personal stand is always centered without adjustment.

An inexpensive stand works well without any bells and whistles but the Park stand is easier to mount the wheel and is less flexy. I built a lot of wheels with a folding Minoura stand but never regretted getting my Park stand.
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Old 04-01-22, 09:50 AM
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Originally Posted by Andrew R Stewart
One of the exceptions to trusting a truing stand to act as a dishing tool is the VAR PreciRay. Not sure if that's what MH is referring to. The PreciRay has vertical wheel holding supports that slide horizontally. As the axle is held down by little clamps the side pressure of the vertical supports can be minimal. The rigidness and stability of these stands is intoxicating. The stand has a couple of scales that allow for overall lock nut width and rim widths to be measured and the rim side location, for a properly dished result, is able to be set by sliding the indicator holding plate side to side. hard to envision but easy to understand if it's in front of you. I got mine as a pay for a week's vacation way back in the early 1980s. Preciray truing stand - Speedbicycles BTW the right side flat "shelf" above the RH axle support sits a beer really handily Andy
Andy,
No, I now have a newer model purchased a few years ago from Mel Pinto Imports Here are a couple of pictures showing the tool and the slide mechanism that holds multiple hub sizes:

Heavy and a robust tool, note the slide bars made of square tubing steel, and the single adjustment wheel that controls the side and latera runout gauge.

The slide bars hold the uprights stable and have heavy bearings in the uprights. The slide is a single control bar for actuation utilizing an offset pair of control rods.
The single wheel unit can be removed and the stand modified for putting gauges on for both true and radial run out. I have a few dial indicators that I can use for the adaptation but have found I am not really building to that exacting of a specification for most of the wheels I am building. HTH, MH
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Old 04-03-22, 11:15 AM
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Fishboat's post gave me the courage to finish up the rear wheel (front was already done). I got the rim into the correct place after tedious work and then finished up by tightening both sides equally until the drive side was at 117 (22 on the Park spoke tension meter, when working with 1.8mm spokes).

Am I ready to add rim-strip, tube and tire?
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Old 04-03-22, 11:32 AM
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BTW, I experience no problematic flex in this Minoura stand. Maybe it improves upon older iterations of the stand, in this context, at least.

The change that I made which was key in taking out the slop that I had been experiencing, was to add a pair of special washers that come with the IGH - they are shaped with stoppers which keep the hub from moving around in the dropouts of the stand. These washers probably wouldn't have worked with the V-shaped slots that Park truing stands have.
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