Lacing Alphie's Shoes

Page Seven: It has been a while - let me catch you up.

Step One:  Take a damn picture of the spokes BEFORE you take the wheel apart!

Fortunately, I have five of Alphie’s wheels to help me remember how the spokes are arranged.  Still, take a damn picture.  I took apart a motorcycle wheel once without taking a picture – I had to scour the internet to find a picture of a wheel just like it to remember how to lace the spokes.

Digital photography is a dream tool.  I don’t remember how I remembered how things went back together before I could snap a quick pic.  (Actually, I do remember.  It goes something like this: screwed-up the first assembly, tear it down, break some part(s), strip a thread or otherwise do something stupid, reassemble – rinse, repeat, sprinkle with colorful and forthright language.)

Motorcycle Wheel Balancer AND Alpine Wheel Truer.

What’s changed since I started this wheel saga

Salvaging Spokes:  I got my first order of replacement spokes from Buchanan’s Spoke & Rim, and they are AWESOME!  Mixing original with replacement spokes poses some problems.  The pristine replacements positioned next to rust pitted (even if bead-blasted to surgical cleanliness) shows all their imperfections.  So I’m going to use 100% replacement spokes.  I may collect the best of the old spokes to make the wheel for the spare, but I’ll probably just replace those too.  Buchanan’s is awesome – my humble advert for them.

Powder Coating:  There was some big talk about how, of course, I was going to powder coat the wheels…  After reading up a bit, a powder coat may crack as the wheels flex, allowing water – and thus rust – to get between spoke, nipple and rim.  Also, once powder coated, the wheel is much more difficult to re-true.  The cured powder tends to crack when you turn the nipple to tighten the spoke, and you can’t easily touch up the powder coating.

Paint won’t absolutely prevent water from seeping into threads, but paint is more flexible.  When the wheel needs to be re-trued, I will be able to touch up the paint if the spoke wrench chews on the surface a bit.

So, the steps go:  Step one – etch prime the parts.  Step two – lace and true the wheel.  Step three – color coat with Argent Silver and Step 4 – clear coat.

The bits are sorted!

The spokes and nipples are etch primed.  The rim is bead-blasted, sanded and etch primed.  The hub has been paint stripped, bead-blasted and etch primed…  We’re ready to lace up Alphie’s shoes!

A Jiggedy Jig:  I built a jig.  Sounds impressive doesn’t it?  It’s not.  I put a straight edge against the back of one of the wheels I haven’t messed with yet and measured the distance between the straight edge and the center hub and found a piece of wood that is about the same thickness.  I placed the piece of wood down on the workbench, set the center hub on it and placed the rim down on the workbench surface.  Now the hub sits at about the same height, as it will when the wheel is laced.  The only thing the “jig” does is make it easier to align the threaded spoke ends with their holes in the rim.

(Update:  I wrote the previous paragraph before I actually tried my Jiggedy Jig.  It worked, sorta…  I had to pick up the whole assembly so many times that the space the jig was only helpful to get the center hub in the approximate position.  I won’t worry with when I lace up the second wheel.)

Next, I screwed a nipple on each spoke and tightened them until about the same number of threads are showing above the nipple. 

The Truing Contraption

God Bless Harbor Freight!  I buy tools from them all the time and use them for tasks they never intended.  In this case, a motorcycle wheel-balancing stand and a bearing and race and seal driving set.

The truing thing with bearing race and seal drivers

I used two race drivers from the set to center up the center hub of Alphie’s wheel on the balancing stand and, POOF created a wheel-truing stand.  Check out the pic.

Next, I stuck a old speaker magnet to the side of the stand and used a piece of coat hanger as a pointer.  After hours of spinning, loosening and tightening, and a little hammer and dolly work, the tire bead surfaces of the rim only a couple of millimeters off from true.  The outer edges – where someone used a crow bar!! – are out of round, but they do not affect how the wheel relates to the center of the hub.  In other words, it will only slight affect wheel balancing and will be nearly impossible to see unless you’re splayed out on the fender, watching the rims as we merrily drive along.

Priming and Painting

Outside spokes - half laced.  The coppery stuff is anti-seize.

I don’t know if I measured the spokes incorrectly, but most of the spokes had threads protruding through the nipples into the inside of the rim.  I wore out/disintegrated many Dremel coarse grinding bands smoothing each spoke end.

Next, cleaning with acetone, then priming, painting with Eastwood’s Rally Wheel/Argent Silver paint and finally, clear coat with Eastwood’s Diamond Clear DTM.  (As fates demand, I haven’t painted or clear coated the rim yet – a water leak in the house requiring contractors, the holidays and cold damp weather have thwarted my efforts.  But I’ll add some pics when I “git ‘er done”.)

One down, four to go!

Long spokes go in now.  The spokes are only finger tight now.

Trued, cleaned and primed.  Next comes paint and clear coat.

Next up:  FIRST FABRICATION!