DIY Wheel Truing Stand

macnab

I finally got around to building wheel truing stands today. Although I am from a mechanical engineering background and have qualifications in welding and fitting, I decided to use timber. I had a rear wheel that was obviously buckled and a front that looked fine, the rear was over .5mm out while the front was about .2mm out. Both are now within .05mm laterally.
I actually built separate stands for front and rear wheels (100mm & 130mm) instead of an adjustable stand as I felt they would be more reliable.
I have not ventured into radial correction yet.

Keep_Her_Lit

Nice work. Good to see a little bit of innovation. Did you assemble the stands in a jig of some sort? Just wondering how you controlled the relative heights of the axle supports with enough precision to properly centre the wheel rim.

cdaly_

Oooh! Fancy dial gauge and all!

Is the dial gauge dismountable at all? You could make up a mount plate for the radial bit and just move it to and fro. Properly speaking, you should check both radial and lateral true at the same time but lateral is generally enough when trueing a buckled wheel while radial is vital when building a new one.

My stand is made from old kitchen cupboards according to the plans in Roger Musson's Wheelbuilding book.

lennymc

nice stand. Is that a VFR in the background?

ford2600

lennymc wrote: »

nice stand. Is that a VFR in the background?

Moved to motorcycle forum

macnab

Keep_Her_Lit wrote: »

Nice work. Good to see a little bit of innovation. Did you assemble the stands in a jig of some sort? Just wondering how you controlled the relative heights of the axle supports with enough precision to properly centre the wheel rim.

Thanks. The sides were clamped together for drilling etc. Then I used a round file to get the heights exactly right.

kingoffifa

lennymc wrote: »

nice stand. Is that a VFR in the background?

well spotted lenny. nc24 i think...

also - wow! awesome stand. kudos to OP!

macnab

lennymc wrote: »

nice stand. Is that a VFR in the background?

Well spotted, its an RVF400, there are actually 3 other motorbikes in that photo too, I would be surprised if you could identify them though....

c50

looks great, how many hours of work went into it?

I reckon theres a market for things like this out there if you could tap into it but might be too many hours of work to produce

macnab

c50 wrote: »

looks great, how many hours of work went into it?

I reckon theres a market for things like this out there if you could tap into it but might be too many hours of work to produce

I'd say with the proper set up and tools I could build 1 stand per hour easily. The first stand took me about 3 hours and the second one took less than 2 hours.

mirv

I reckon you might need to give the rim a bit more clearance.

I usually build rear wheels up drive-side first watching only for radial trueness, and then bring the dish in with the non-driveside spokes. Since the NDS spokes are at low tension they don't really affect the radial trueness, only the lateral. Makes for much quicker wheel builds than doing both at the same time, as well as less confusion for my poor brain! I think I'd struggle to build rears with this method on your stand as the rim doesn't have much room to go out of dish.

mirv

A full description of this technique is described here, and it means that rear wheels are quicker and easier to build than fronts:

http://www.wheelfanatyk.com/blog/wheel-building-tip-no-6-build-rears-from-right-to-left/

paddie9

Impressed, any issues with the wood changing shape over time.

cdaly_

Kept dry, neither my chipboard nor macnab's plywood will warp so no problems there.

In any case, it's relative position that you use when trueing so it won't matter if the stand warps.

doozerie

As with most things, whether chipboard or plywood will warp depends upon (amongst other things) the quality of the material. Cheap/lightweight versions of either might warp, good/dense versions are far less prone to it.

If I was using plywood I'd use birch plywood, which tends to be quite stable, but costs more as a result. Decent chipboard is almost certainly cheaper. And if you want to get even further from "real" wood, then decent/cabinet-grade MDF would work well too - horrible dust from it, really requires that you wear a mask, but it's easier to work with than chipboard typically (well, for some definitions of "easier" anyway).

paddie9

Thanks, I'll have ago during the summer. Was going to buy one but both look as good as any I've seen.