CX Wheel build and hub advice

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LinusR
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Re: CX Wheel build and hub advice

Post by LinusR »

Brucey wrote: If you mix a quantity of your finish line Teflon grease about 50:50 with an EP90 gear oil, you usually (experiment with a small quantity first, why not) end up with a reasonable SFG.


I've ordered some EP90 so I can make up the homebrew SFG. I've got at least three other pairs of wheels to service this month, too.

Brucey wrote:BTW if there is an excess of SFG in the hub, it will ooze out past the seals for the first few hundred miles, even if the seals are in good condition. With a disc hub this could lead to disc contamination unless it is wiped away. If this oozing is excessive or persistent it is a good idea to use a slightly thicker consistency of grease in the LH bearing.


I'm minded to be fairly conservative with the disc side of the hub for this reason. Instead I'll use straight teflon grease packed into the LHS. Thanks again for you help.
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LinusR
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Re: CX Wheel build and hub advice

Post by LinusR »

My spokes have arrived. Nothing can stop me now! :D

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Samuel D
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Re: CX Wheel build and hub advice

Post by Samuel D »

On Alpina ACI spokes, tell me this if you can: what is the difference between this and this? I see you’ve opted for the more expensive of the two.
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Re: CX Wheel build and hub advice

Post by Brucey »

with and without nipples, I think.

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LinusR
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Re: CX Wheel build and hub advice

Post by LinusR »

Samuel D wrote:On Alpina ACI spokes, tell me this if you can: what is the difference between this and this? I see you’ve opted for the more expensive of the two.


I think the only difference is the colour, the black are cheaper. They both come with brass nipples. I prefer silver. I bought a box of 144 for about £44 inc delivery. I've used ACI Alpina before and bought them from the same supplier - an affiliate of Tesco's https://www.tesco.com/direct/aci-double ... d=390-1589

The Italian makers don't appear to have a website. A bit like JD Whisker's. [edit] Alpina website: https://www.alpinaraggi.it/raggi-nipples with catalogue download (which leaves me none the wiser...).
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Re: CX Wheel build and hub advice

Post by Samuel D »

I hadn’t seen that one was black. I’d pay a premium to avoid black spokes. Silver spokes glistening in sunshine are half the pleasure of a bicycle.

My silver, stainless steel Alpina spokes from Spa Cycles (who recently put up their price by 10p a spoke), measured a lot closer to 1.8 mm than 1.7 mm when I put a vernier calliper over their thin sections. I’m curious if you find the same.
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Re: CX Wheel build and hub advice

Post by Brucey »

FWIW I have seen black finished alpina spokes that have corroded badly. I wonder if they are in fact as corrosion resistant beneath the black finish, and if not, that is why they are cheaper.

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NATURAL ANKLING
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Re: CX Wheel build and hub advice

Post by NATURAL ANKLING »

Hi,
Spoke washers?
NA Thinks Just End 2 End Return + Bivvy - Some day Soon I hope
You'll Still Find Me At The Top Of A Hill
Please forgive the poor Grammar I blame it on my mobile and phat thinkers.
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LinusR
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Re: CX Wheel build and hub advice

Post by LinusR »

Samuel D wrote:I hadn’t seen that one was black. I’d pay a premium to avoid black spokes. Silver spokes glistening in sunshine are half the pleasure of a bicycle.

My silver, stainless steel Alpina spokes from Spa Cycles (who recently put up their price by 10p a spoke), measured a lot closer to 1.8 mm than 1.7 mm when I put a vernier calliper over their thin sections. I’m curious if you find the same.


I prefer silver for the same reason. I just measured the spokes and can concur: a random three from the pack measure 1.775 and within +/ - .01

Image

I checked a wheel I built 5 years' ago (also ACI Alpina) and a random three spokes measures 1.73 and within +/- .01 -- and no signs of corrosion.
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Re: CX Wheel build and hub advice

Post by Samuel D »

Thanks for the precise measurements. It seems that Alpina’s dies or rollers or whatever they use to form their butted spokes are showing signs of wear.

Not that I’m complaining, because I had enough spoke wind-up anyway. On that matter, a 1.8 mm threaded end would reduce the wind-up torque generated at the threads, but those spokes are usually 1.8 mm at the elbow too, which I’d rather avoid for fear of a sloppy fit in the flange hole; and of course double-butted 1.8 mm spokes are maybe 1.6 mm in the middle and therefore more easily wound up to begin with. Component choice for wheels is not obvious to me despite having read a fair bit about it.
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LinusR
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Re: CX Wheel build and hub advice

Post by LinusR »

And one other thing... I usually build my wheels (following Jobst Brandt) and put the first spoke inbound -- so when viewing the rear wheel from the non-drive side the spoke to the left of the valve hole has the spoke head on the outside. I do this for both front and rear wheels... for rim brakes.

But now I am building a disc brake set and a quick look at my cyclocross bike and mountain bike reveals that the OEM rear wheels have the first spoke going outbound -- so the head on the inside when viewed from the non-drive side. The front wheels on both bikes are laced as I described above following Brandt.

So I'm confused... [edit] 32 spokes laced 3 cross.

[edit] If I understand Jobst Brandt correctly (http://www.cyclingforums.com/threads/spoke-orientation-for-disc-brakes.26014/) it appears it doesn't matter. Presumably I can carry on lacing in the usual way. And anyway, why the front wheel, which of course carries the most braking stress, should still be built the same as a rim brake front wheel is not a logic I follow.

If the front wheel can take stress, so can the rear. So I see no reason to lace any differently. I'm sure someone will tell me I'm wrong or that I've misunderstood Brandt... :wink:

Rear wheel after building but before truing:

Image

And close up of the lacing:

Image

Through the valve hole of front wheel

Image

Front wheel lacing

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Brucey
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Re: CX Wheel build and hub advice

Post by Brucey »

both your wheels are built 'symmetric, inside trailing'. IIRC the current recommendation from shimano is that disc brake wheels are built thusly;

front: symmetric, inside trailing
rear; asymmetric such that the LHS is laced inside trailing, and the RHS is laced outside trailing

If you look at good quality bikes from the big manufacturers, their wheels are almost invariably laced thusly too.

Having said that, I'm not sure it makes a lot of difference, provided the wheel is properly built and the wheel is properly stress-relieved.

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Brucey
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Re: CX Wheel build and hub advice

Post by Brucey »

Samuel D wrote:Thanks for the precise measurements. It seems that Alpina’s dies or rollers or whatever they use to form their butted spokes are showing signs of wear.

Not that I’m complaining, because I had enough spoke wind-up anyway. On that matter, a 1.8 mm threaded end would reduce the wind-up torque generated at the threads, but those spokes are usually 1.8 mm at the elbow too, which I’d rather avoid for fear of a sloppy fit in the flange hole; and of course double-butted 1.8 mm spokes are maybe 1.6 mm in the middle and therefore more easily wound up to begin with. Component choice for wheels is not obvious to me despite having read a fair bit about it.


IIRC most DB spokes are made by swaging. There may be a QA issue there, but it might not be wear per se.

15G spokes are often a slack fit in hubs, but then so are plenty of 14G spokes too. The holes in most hubs are drilled about 2.3 or 2.4mm diameter. If you are prepared to use spoke washers you can make any spoke that is a slack fit a much better fit, and a spoke that is an average fit a really superb fit in the hub, such that the elbow bend is really well supported.

There is no 'perfect choice' of components for any given wheel; you can make satisfactory wheels with a wide variety of components. The fit of the parts and the techniques used in building are often far more important than the parts selected per se.

FWIW I have a good deal of respect for some of the factory wheels that come out of Taiwan and are fitted onto mid-price bikes these days. Sure, they have usually not spent a fortune of the parts, but they have spent their money wisely, they are laced correctly, the spoke lengths used are often *perfect* , with the spoke ends finishing mid-slot. They use spokes in 1mm increments, and often use 1mm different lengths each side of a dished rear wheel. Such wheels are often just a hub set-up/service, a stress-relief, a tension balance, and some threadlock on the NDS spokes away from being perfectly acceptable (within the limitations of the components used). I'd have built many of them with spoke washers, to improve the fit, but this arguably isn't necessary as such, just a 'nice to have' feature.

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TooManyBikes
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Re: CX Wheel build and hub advice

Post by TooManyBikes »

Some great info about the XT hubs, Thanks, I have bought the same hubs for a set of wheels I will be building soon for a Planet X 'cross bike I'm slowly building up. I wouldn't have known about need to strip and re-grease, adjust the bearings.
My name is Michael, And I have too many bikes.
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Gattonero
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Re: CX Wheel build and hub advice

Post by Gattonero »

LinusR wrote:...
Rear wheel after building but before truing:...


One word of advice: on DB spokes is always a good idea to tap the spoke in the portion that leaves the flange.
This will make the spoke to follow the direction right towards the nipple from its very start at the flange: this is the butted portion and will keep at 90º while the flex will be in the thinned section. You don't want this, as with time the butted section will give up and make the spoke to loose tension.
This is easy to spot when the hub flange has a certain distance from the middle, like on the rear Lh side, and has to get a more shallow angle to the spoke; the rear Rh side for example is often on a more steep angle, due to the flange been closer to the middle of the hub, and this effect is less noticeable
It is by riding a bicycle that you learn the contours of a country best,
since you have to sweat up the hills and coast down them.
Thus you remember them as they actually are...
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