Dishing tools differ even though they all do the same job in the same way–a bar that spans a diameter of the wheel, arching over the hub axle, with a means to touch the axle end cap. All adjust for different hub widths and can be used on a range of rim diameters.
Their superficial resemblance hides that fact that these tools are really quite different to use. Serious wheel builders have no shortage of personal preferences.
Slotted Center Posts
One difference amongst tools is the center post. Park and Unior offer slotted plates that adjust to reach the hub.
Park’s WAG-5 disassembles for travel.
Unior’s solution.
Sliding Cylinder Center Posts
Others have a sliding cylinder, secured, in the case of Var, by a knob.
The Var 143.
The EVT and Wheel Fanatyk tools secure their center posts with spring loaded triggers.
Brass bushing, steel bike tubing, jewelry-like welding, rich paint, a work of art!
Last lamination makes a finger actuated post anchor.
Threaded Center Posts
The other option is a threaded center post, such as Campagnolo’s discontinued dishing tool.
Threaded post on Campagnolo’s N tool.
Our favorite threaded post tool is by Cyclus. A meaty, rigid, deep green classic with nickel plated center post.
You might worry that it’s slower to adjust to a particular wheel but you’d miss the way they are best used. As in the image above, hold one foot of the tool against the rim, then thread the post down until it touches the axle. Tighten just a bit more to lift the second foot off the rim. Tap the foot and listen.
If there is no “tap” sound, the foot is either solidly on the rim or in the air. Adjust the center post until you can hear a faint tap. This becomes quick with practice. That faint tap sound only occurs when the second foot is within about ~0.1mm of the rim. It’s a sure signal you’re there, much easier and more accurate than trying to see if the center post is close to the hub. No bending down, squinting, or lifting the assembly up to eye level.
This way to judge dishing with a threaded center post was my only method for decades. It is comforting to hear the faint tap even if it’s coming from across the workshop. It’s the sound of accuracy!
What does it take to build like a master? How does a master juggle so many variables to make truing into a smooth process?
Unfortunately, most masters can’t illuminate their methods because truing is a wordless series of hunches based on huge experience. Many thousands of adjustments and outcomes must be witnessed before a builder has a crack at mastery.
Wheel building has been learned this way for more than a century much as foreign languages are often learned through immersion. Repetition works but it’s not the fastest way and your expertise is limited by what comes your way. Repetition, as a teacher, can also lead to bad habits and boredom.
Is there a better way to learn besides sheer repetition? Yes, by first looking closely at the two dominant building methods.
ALL BEGAN WITH LIGHT GAP
Light gap (aka, 2D) truing is the overwhelming, dominant method. Movement at the rim is monitored by watching it relative to an adjustable caliper. As the wheel turns, a light gap between the rim and caliper grows and shrinks. The gap tells a builder how the rim is positioned. One can also use sound, with rim scraping against the caliper revealing its location.
This light gap method is called “2D” because it’s done in two separate stages: lateral (left and right) and radial (up and down). Each addresses two dimensions at a time. Anyone can learn it, a thumb or brake can serve as a caliper, no instrumentation is required, and humans are particularly good at it.
AND THEN CAME NUMERICAL
The second method is numerical, where adjustments are based on quantified rim movement. Call this “3D” because all three dimensions of rim position can be managed at once. This takes some help from the stand because builders can’t use their eyes independently like chameleons.
Seeing 3D is easy!
Here are three truing stands that enable numerical truing. First—the Villum from Denmark, historically used in huge numbers at Raleigh factories in the UK.
The Valkyrie of truing stands.
Then there is the Preciray from Belgium.
The favorite stand of many mid-century builders.
The third, and only modern stand, is the P&K Lie from Germany.
3D truing, elegance, and simplicity.
Each of these lets a builder see lateral and radial trueness at the same time, enabling fewer, smarter adjustments. Improvements can be made to BOTH at the same time. 2D truing involves chasing lateral run out, ignoring radial, and then switching to radial but disregarding lateral. With much practice, this back and forth becomes smooth but it requires more corrections, usually more time, and certainly more experience.
NOT QUITE 3D
Many bike shops have Park TS-2.2 type stands with dial indicator attachments. However, these do not allow 3D truing. The problem with dial indicators comes from their accuracy—two revolutions of the needle on a metric indicator is only +/-1mm of travel. If a wheel is not very true, say +/- 1mm, the dial will spin more than one full revolution per wheel rotation. While this is the actual run out of the rim, it is impossible to follow and to use for truing—too much needle movement.
Not 3D but that can be fixed.
This setup is useful only for fine truing when you’re nearly done or for QC on a finished wheel. To use indicators early in the build, Villum and Preciray have very large readouts. P&K Lie have designed and patented non-linear clocks whose scales display large travel at the edges and fine movement in the center. Clocks must be legible with untrueness of +/-1mm, so they can be used from the earliest stage of building which, by the way, is where the most time is to be saved. Example:
THE BIG ADVANTAGE OF 3D
3D truing reduces the number of adjustments. Radial runout is great for indicating relative spoke tension—bumps come from lower and dips come from higher tensions. Noticing this when lateral truing enables more effective corrections.
For example, when a left rim wobble is at two spokes, your best correction (without tension insight) is to tighten the right spoke and loosen the left. More often the rim is high or low at this left wobble, so a single adjustment to the tight or loose spoke is a better choice—evening tension while correcting both lateral and radial runout.
This is an example of the greater efficiency that comes from 3D truing. You can also pluck or measure neighboring spokes for insight. When the process starts at the earliest stage, when the wheel is maximally untrue, huge time reduction is possible.
We began using a Villum stand in 1981 without any training. After one year, no one wanted to build any other way. Wheels were not better but builds were faster and easier. I’ve heard similar testimonials with the Preciray stand and now, as a seller of P&K Lie, I hear it all the time. They sell because they are faster and easier for most, especially the less experienced. Claims of 20-40% time savings are common.
COMING—AN ELECTRONIC SYSTEM
Ryan Kereliuk of SpokeService.ca (site of the very popular, free spoke tension utility tool) is creating a system that takes TS-2 stands with indicators all the way to 3D truing. Later in 2020, he hopes to offer it commercially. Today it is undergoing beta testing and a set is traveling with me to the 2020 CABDA Show Technical Clinics.
3D + TS-2 = Sci Fi!
Replace the dial indicators on a Park stand with digital indicators, connect them to Ryan’s box, and log onto the box’s WiFi network with your smart device (phone, etc). You can watch 3D trueness on screen with either side-by-side dials (above) or a graphic plot display. The system auto-recalibrates for current runout and is easily zeroed. Stay tuned as this truly disruptive and enabling tech reaches market!
THE TAKE AWAY
Whether or not you use a dedicated 3D system, use these important insights in your building. Whenever making a lateral (side-to-side) correction, look for the related tension anomaly. Even the TS-2 side calipers have a notch you can line up with the rim corner to see lateral and radial at once. Awareness of side-by-side tension anomalies is THE key insight to building like a master. Using a 3D stand helps but awareness is the true enabler. That’s how expert builders have made great wheels through the ages. This is how builders of the present can describe and share the process. For the future, few will remember the manual, light gap origins of our craft.
Nothing beats riding in newly arrived Fall weather. In the north hemisphere, those start now! Zipping through scenery colored with seasonal change, feeling the lingering warmth of Summer, such a magical experience—an invigorating and restorative tonic that reaches the core of our human experience. Frankly, despite my attempt, it’s well beyond words.
Much of cycling is this way and doesn’t get better with analysis. Still, I find it irresistible to consider all the variables from physics to aesthetics, after the ride. Maybe I’m just trying to keep the endorphins coming!
On my list of leisure pursuits are podcasts and essays by well informed bicycle experts who do their best to demystify as well as entertain. We benefit from a fine selection of such voices these days. Near the top of anyone’s list… Read more →
In part 1 of this series, we discussed a number of wheel building techniques that may be dispensable for some:
– Time spent matching components.
– Lacing fixtures.
– Punching spoke heads into hubs.
– Spoke windup control.
Let’s cover four more.
5. Rim washers
Lacing a wheel with washers is tedious. Slowing down lacing is a cost someone must pay. Every time you drop a washer in the rim (inevitable!) and lose minutes retrieving it, one can’t help but wonder, why washers? Granted, in circumstances of inadequate design, where washers make a better wheel, use them. Please, however, always advocate for features to be incorporated into the 68 standard components of a wheel rather than adding 32 more!
Black washers are faster.
Advice: try to avoid washers.
Grrr, it’s burly man vs wheel!
6. Pre-stressing
More time is spent unnecessarily pre-stressing wheels than perhaps any other building activity. Wheels need two forms of pre-stressing: a) setting the spoke line early in truing and, b) stress relieving spokes when they are at full tension. Doing these and nothing else should be fast. Set spoke line by levering spokes at low tension with a steel rod. One time sets the line. No need for massive hydraulic presses, bending rims on the floor. rolling wheels while leaning on the axle, or flexing the rim against your stomach with elbows and grip. These can cause wheel (and body) damage that takes time to repair.Properly pre-stressing steel in spokes is accomplished by raising and then lowering their tension once the wheel is fully tight. Metallurgically, such relieved spokes are more fatigue resistant. It takes under 30 seconds to grab parallel sets and give them a firm squeeze. You can ignore most everything else suggested for pre-stressing. You’ll be faster and your wheels optimal without.
Advice: most “pre-stressing” consumes time without benefit. Minimize yours.
7. Tying
Historically, rims were weaker and more flexible (or very heavy). Tying spoke crossings with wire and solder added stability—wood rim wheels especially benefitted. Today, its contribution is no longer needed except for restoration or aesthetics. Make sure you tie and solder like a jeweler, the finished tie should glow like liquid silver, not like hasty electronics soldering. Follow this method, do it rarely and for the right reasons.
Advice: Tying is for restoration and decoration, not 21st century strength.
8. Aging
All materials are elastic and change over time under the influence of gravity, temperature, and chemistry. It makes intuitive sense to let a new wheel, freshly invested with high tension, rest before seeing use. That intuition, however, is misguided. A wheel must be optimal and stable without aging—and it can be done. The needs of racing have been high incentive to make aging unnecessary. Your final pre-stressing steps will be the last time a wheel experiences elastic (permanent) deformation. Only trauma and fatigue can bother it. Except for rim cement, do not expect aging to improve your wheels. Such superstition is too expensive, even for psychological reasons!
Advice: Aging is unnecessary, you and riders should not be paying for it.
Four more wheel building techniques remain to conclude this discussion of questionable practices. Stay tuned!
From the wooded mountains of northern Slovenia come some of cycling’s most impressive tools. Unior (from Slovenian for “universal tools”) has been crafting hand tools in Zreče since 1919. They sponsor many professional teams, including (for 2019) Ineos (the legendary Sky of TdF fame), Aevolo, Segafredo, Movistar, DeVinci, Commencal, and Deceunink/Quick-Step; plus illustrious US mechanics Vince Gee and Win Allen.
Their dishing tool is completely unique—a bent steel tube with two large polymer disks and central indicator.There is no single Best Dishing Tool, regardless of budget. Everyone has a favorite and most of us own several. Unior is certainly World’s Strongest, a deeply chromed and thick wall tube is burley enough to be a DH handlebar. The black disks touch a wheel rim’s side and easily reach past mounted tires.Once handled, it’s hard to beat the all-around durability, versatility, and simplicity. It weighs almost 2lbs (850g), the rim disks cannot fall off the tube, and you can use it with confidence to keep paparazzi at bay.
There are no templates for success with a craft like wheel building, each of us creates a personal system unique to our situation. Since we never finish honing the craft, it pays to study other builders who are willing to share.
Wire spokes for bicycles come in three main types—straight gauge, single-butted, and double-butted.
Straight gauge (DT Champion)
Single-butted (Sapim Strong)
Double-butted (DT Competition)
Of these three, single-butted have been sleepers, hanging around in the fringes, not much used or discussed. However, their role is growing and they will inevitably become the workhorses of the wheel world. Why? Read more →
Much talk of rim washers these days. When to use them? Which are best? While seasoned builders have questions beyond this post, for the rest of us, here are some considerations about washers to keep in mind.
Washers are often invoked to prevent galvanic corrosion between nipples and carbon fiber. The materials of nipples (brass and aluminum) wants to exchange electrons with carbon fiber. Direct contact makes it easy for corrosion to occur.
Simply for the purpose of discouraging corrosion, are washers sometimes overkill? Some points on this topic: Read more →
To build a wheel you must measure your hub and rim to determine spoke length. The better your measurements, the more accurate the spoke length prediction. Here’s a tool to make that easier.
