This first part of many providing tips that will eventually teach you how to build your own wheel is about the basic skills necessary to straighten a slightly bent wheel.
To perform this basic skill, you will need a wheel truing stand, a spoke wrench and a little patience. You can use your brake pads instead of a truing stand, but it is much easier to use the stand. All adjustments made to spoke nipples should be made in quarter turn increments. You don't want to turn a spoke too much as each little turn on one spoke affects the tension on all other spokes.
The first step to truing (or straightening) your bent wheel is to release most of the air from the tube. The next step is to put the wheel in the stand and adjust the fingers on the stand so that they are aligned with your braking surface. After they are aligned, tighten them so that they barely rub the rim when you spin the wheel in the stand. At the rims most extreme bend, the fingers will make a scraping sound. This is where you are going to start correcting the bend. Shown in the first picture, you want to loosen the spoke nipple on the side that the rim is rubbing. This will lessen the tension on these spokes and the rim will move away from the finger on that side.
After you have loosened the spokes that pull the rim to rub and that side no longer rubs against the stand, close the fingers on the rim until the fingers again rub against the most bent part of the rim. This time , as shown in the second picture, tighten the spoke opposite that side that is rubbing to pull the rim away from that finger.
Repeat this process of loosening then tightening until your rim spins straight through the truing stands fingers (or brake pads).
Part 2: Making the Wheel Round.
words and photos by Ray Heinsman
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