vegan777
02-13-2008, 10:12 PM
When building the wheels for many of the AZ bike projects, it's sometimes necessary to purchase spokes which will mate the custom made hubs to your rims.
Since you have to take your donor wheels apart anyway, here's a tip which I've used successfully in my projects where you can reuse your old spokes.
Instead of making the hub flanges first according to the plans and then looking for spokes to fit, I try to design the flanges to fit the spokes.
Here's how...Using any of the available free spoke calculator programs, use some reverse logic and let the program give you the diameter of the flange spoke holes which will fit your spokes. Once you've got the new dimension, make your new hub disks and start assembly.
This may take a few entries at the keyboard, but in the long run you'll be saving some time, a few bucks and you'll also be helping the recycling effort by not having to buy new spokes for each wheel you build.
So, if you're like me and have more time than money, this may be the way to go on your next project.
....Richie Rich
Since you have to take your donor wheels apart anyway, here's a tip which I've used successfully in my projects where you can reuse your old spokes.
Instead of making the hub flanges first according to the plans and then looking for spokes to fit, I try to design the flanges to fit the spokes.
Here's how...Using any of the available free spoke calculator programs, use some reverse logic and let the program give you the diameter of the flange spoke holes which will fit your spokes. Once you've got the new dimension, make your new hub disks and start assembly.
This may take a few entries at the keyboard, but in the long run you'll be saving some time, a few bucks and you'll also be helping the recycling effort by not having to buy new spokes for each wheel you build.
So, if you're like me and have more time than money, this may be the way to go on your next project.
....Richie Rich