You're on the right track. You should get your wheel as good as possible with regard to trueness, concentricity, tension and dish with the spoke tension very low. Then progressively increase tension while monitoring the aforementioned criteria. Fine tuning and stress relieving should be done at regular intervals as tension is increased.
Jamie Swan (who can't resist bragging that he has tensioned and trued well over 400,000 wheels) Centerport Cycles Inc. Northport, New York, USA http://www.centerportcycles.com (mapped) http://www.limws.org http://www.liatca.org
On Sep 27, 2008, at 2:07 PM, John Barry wrote:
> Garth,
>
> I'm a relative novice at building wheels, and my first few ended up
> having slight hops. I was perplexed by this until a more
> experienced wheel builder suggested that as I tension the spokes,
> that I should first take care of the roundness (using no more than
> 1/4 turn adjustments at a time), and then increase the tension to
> near what it should be, and then finally to work on the side-side
> element.
>
> Perhaps it was beginner's luck, but when I attempted this for the
> first time, the result was quite satisfactory, despite a small
> imperfection in the rim.
>
> I have a couple wheels that I plan on revisiting. I have one on
> the stand now. Step one was detensioning the rim until I achieved
> roundness. The rest... work in progress. I expect a notable
> improvement in the end product.
>
> No doubt Earle, and some of the other wheel-building experts will
> have other tips. Hopefully they'll offer them, as I know I still
> have much to learn.
>
> Cheers,
>
> John Barry
> Mechanicsburg, PA USA
>
>
> --- On Sat, 9/27/08, Bianca Pratorius <biankita@comcast.net> wrote:
>
>> From: Bianca Pratorius <biankita@comcast.net>
>> Subject: [CR]building wheels
>> To: classicrendezvous@bikelist.org
>> Date: Saturday, September 27, 2008, 6:24 AM
>> I just finished the first wheel of my track bike and am
>> starting the
>> second. Here's a question would appreciate feedback on.
>> Why is out of
>> round harder to correct than side to side wobble? And is
>> slight out of
>> round even as important to correct as slight side to side
>> movement?
>>
>> Garth Libre in Miami Florida USA