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Machine built wheels???
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What are some of the cons/issues associated with Machine built wheels? Are they more prone to come out of true than those that are handbuilt? Can careful inspection/truing after the first few uses alleviate trueness probs??


"The more you sweat today, the less you bleed tomorrow"
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Re: Machine built wheels??? [Mark C] [ In reply to ]
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It's not like machine built wheels are bad...they just aren't as good as REALLY good hand built wheels. Someone who just builds wheels ho-hum and doesn't do a spectacular job will do about the same job as a machine. But a true master wheelbuilder will get the spoke tension so even that they almost never go out of true, and when they do, they are much easier to true. A machine built wheel isn't pre-stressed at various points during the build, so there is a considerable amount of spoke wind up. This is one of the things that causes the wheels to go out of true and/or to have the spokes lose tension. Also, most hand wheelsbuilders tend to take special measures like using spoke prep on the ends of the spoke to pevent wind up. Machine built wheels almost never get that done to them. A master wheelbuilder can inspect each rim and see the variations of it individually during the build, the machine just builds them all the same way.

In short, if you have someoen who really knows what they are doing, and I mean REALLY knows, then a handbuilt wheel is one of the best investments you can make for your bike. Otherwise, your usually no worse off getting a machine built wheel and checking the spoke tension yourself.

tommy
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Re: Machine built wheels??? [Mark C] [ In reply to ]
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There is machine built and there is machine built and hand finished. Strickly machine built are going to be moderately true and have low spoke tension. They are not going to self-destruct, but won't keep their trueness too long. If you or your mechanic knows wheels and takes some time they will be hand finished after you true them the first time. Machine built and hand finished are going to be good to very good wheels. They will be truer and have higher spoke tension. How good they are depends on the finisher. Assuming you start with a round rim, higher and more even spoke tension will give you a longer lasting wheel.

Andy Tetmeyer (I work at HED)

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Machine built wheels? Most are [ In reply to ]
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There are way too many wheels being built to expect that all are hand-spoked. On any stock bike with spoked wheels, the wheels will have been spoked by a machine. Most will leave it at that. A good shop will tweak them into good shape. Even custom wheel places like Wheelsmith use a machine to do the grunt work, and then hand-true/tension them.



"My strategy is to start out slow and then peter-out altogether" Walt Stack
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