Truing a Wheel

TrustNoOne

I have a wobbly back wheel due to a few spokes having come loose, and me not being able to get it back the way it was. The rim is fine

Would a tension meter be all I need to get it close to perfect?

Thanks

Al Wright

A spoke tension meter is not essential. I upturn the bike, take the tyre, tube and rim tape off the wheel and place it back in the frame. Then proceed by tightening the spokes, not more than 1/4 turn at a time. Estimate spoke tension by comparing the note when tapped with that of the other wheel. Then getting the wheel true is just fiddly as you tighten/loosen spokes, checking the rim against a fixed point, say a brake pad.
First check out the following links;
Sheldon Browns described the process below;
http://www.sheldonbrown.com/tooltips/truing.html

This, from CTC website is also fairly clear.
http://forum.ctc.org.uk/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=19189

after that, the best off luck.

TrustNoOne

I know the procedure....but I can't seem to get the knack of it...It's very frustrating. I have it as good as I'm going to get it, but there's still an annoying wobble.

I might just go with the meter

Lusk Doyle

TrustNoOne wrote: »

I know the procedure....but I can't seem to get the knack of it...It's very frustrating. I have it as good as I'm going to get it, but there's still an annoying wobble.

I might just go with the meter

Local bike shop? If in doubt ask a pro to help you out! It's a simple fix when you know how.

Moreofthatjazz

a tension meter wont help in getting the wonk out, if the rim has had a serious buckle then in order to get it straight you will have to sacrifice even spoke tension, tensiometers are really for ensuring a true rim has even tension in order to stay true... as above though, a decent bike shop will have a good hand at it...

TrustNoOne

The rim itself is perfect, I took it off and laid it on a flat table.

Does that change anything?

kona

Its something you have to practice to get perfect to be fair. Dont get ****ed off, just keep plugging away and soon it will be 2nd nature.

Holyboy

Ah,thats a problem right there,building a wheel with an old rim can be very difficult,any decent wheel builder will just refuse to do it,something seems to happen to a rim when its been tensioned,untensioned and then retensioned alot of the time it makes getting it true very hard!but a bit of patience and you might get there,i spend between one and two hours on every wheel I build and ive been doing it for years.

doozerie

As already said, a tensiometer is not the magic wand for wheel building/re-truing that it might seem. It'll give you a specific figure as the measure of the tension in a single spoke but that is it - it can't tell you what tension that spoke should be at, which depends on the specific combination of hub, spoke, and rim you are using. If you have a reference wheel (same hub, spokes, and rim, or near enough, and properly built), or have managed to find accurate and reliable tension figures online for your combination, then the tensiometer will give you a more accurate measure of how close to, or far from, the target figures you are. But you can measure that reasonably well by ear and feel too, certainly well enough to allow you to build or re-true a wheel.

For a rear wheel you are aiming to get all of the spokes on the same side of the hub to a similar level of tension - the spokes on the drive side will usually have greater tension than those on the non-drive side (they'll usually be shorter on the drive side too, something to remember if you are swapping or replacing spokes).