[CR]Re: Wheel Building

(Example: Component Manufacturers:Chater-Lea)

Date: Wed, 16 Feb 2005 21:21:01 -0500
From: "HM & SS Sachs" <sachs@erols.com>
To: designzero@earthlink.net, classicrendezvous@bikelist.org
Subject: [CR]Re: Wheel Building


John Jorgensen wrote very thoughtfully, but I will <snip> all but the point on which I have a comment:

Drive side spoke pull direction is often a cause for much debate, I have a preference, drive side pull spoke with head out, but have built many either way with no noticeable change in performance. With and without opp. flange being a lacing mirror image.

<snip>

I also try to build with the drive side pulling spokes head-out. The reason is that if the chain slips and scrapes the spokes, it scrapes the reaction spokes instead of the pulling spokes. Of course, breaking one of them is just as bad as breaking a pulling spoke, as far as I can tell, but it "feels" better to build this way. I think all of the other arguments, like whether the opposite flange should be mirror of the drive-side flange or the same, are just personal esthetic preferences that will make no measurable difference in straightness, strength, or durability. Nothing wrong with esthetics, of course.

If you disagree on this, and feel that there is a real difference, I'm closing out my stock of CD-rewinders that remove the residual torque from repeated playing, so they're for sale cheap. Just moving to the new DVD model... :-)

harvey sachs
mcLean va