Wheel Building questions.

oxfordrider said:

*Nobody responded to my last post about building a coker
wheel (36" Airfoil rim with unicycle.com. cromo hub) so
I'll ask again. How hard is it to lace a wheel? How long
does it take? How do you determine the lacing pattern?
Were would I find examples? Am I insane? Should I just
purchase a completed wheel? *

Not very

From 5 to 15 minutes

Read up on it. (Jobst Brand wrote an excellent book, and
Sheldon Brown's web site is wonderful.)

Look at any bicycle or unicycle wheel.

Literally or figuratively?

Only if you don't want to do the work.

Hope it helps,

Tim

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oxfordrider said:

*Nobody responded to my last post about building a coker
wheel (36" Airfoil rim with unicycle.com. cromo hub) so
I'll ask again. *

I can't answer your questions, but probably this web site
can:

sheldonbrown.comwheelbuild.htmlOpen ↗

Running a forum search with keywords coker wheel building
might help too. If nothing else, it will bring up a thread
called Strongest Coker Wheel in the World, which might help
if you decide you want to buy instead of build.

--
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Tailgate at your own risk.....

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I looked at the sheldon brown site and it describes a 3
cross pattern. Isn't the coker a 4 cross?

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oxfordrider
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oxfordrider said:

I looked at the sheldon brown site and it describes a 3
cross pattern. Isn't the coker a 4 cross?

I prefer 3-cross for 36 spoke wheels. 4-cross is OK, too.
For 48 spokes, use 4- or even 5-cross. The size of the rim
doesn't affect the lacing shoice significantly.

Anyway, I usually spend more than 15 minutes lacing a wheel
- sometimes a lot more - and I've built a few. Something
usually goes wrong. Either I get careless and make a
mistake, encounter a new gotcha (like my first rim with
offset nipples), or get fouled up with the wrong size spokes
(note to self: Measure the ^%$#@! spokes yourself before
lacing next time). Plan on a full evening and maybe a little
time the next day for your first wheelbuild and you won't
get too frustrated.

I highly recommend building your own wheels. Not only do you
get the satisfaction of a job well done, but you end up with
a better result than cheap wheelsets. Plus you gain the
skills to properly maintain wheels that you buy preassembled
(i.e. properly tension and true you new wheel so it only
needs maintenance after really bad crashes). Note that I
think it is harder to true a screwed up wheel than build a
new one from scratch, largely because you can assure your
wheel is close to round as you build it.

I refer to "the Bicycle Wheel", an out of print book by
Jobst Brandt for wheel info. But the directions at
sheldonbrown.com look excellent. I suggest ignoring the
stuff about "leading" and "trailing" spokes.

By the way, I can't fit unicycle wheels into my truing
stand. You can do a perfectly acceptable job using the
thumbnail of your hand holding the frame. I went off the
deep end and clamped a dial indicator ($14 from Harbor
Freight Tools) to get my last wheel within .004" of
perfectly round and true.

Ken

oxfordrider said:

*I looked at the sheldon brown site and it describes a 3
cross pattern. Isn't the coker a 4 cross? *

The stock Coker with the steel rim uses a 3 cross pattern.
It just happens that using a 4 cross pattern with the
Airfoil rim allows you to use the Coker spokes. It's almost
freaky that it works out that way. Quite convenient. So the
Airfoil wheels use a 4 cross just because that allows you to
use the Coker spokes.

If you really want to get fancy you can get stainless steel
spokes for the Coker wheel. Tom Miller at 'The Unicycle
Factory' (tux.orgunicycle factoryOpen ↗) has
long spokes that he uses for making big wheels and he has a
modified spoke cutting machine to cut and thread the spokes
to Coker length. Cost is more than $2 per spoke (maybe as
much as $3 per spoke). Then you need different nipples that
you can get from Semcycle USA. They're the nipples Semcycle
uses for their big wheels. U-Turn here on the forum may also
be able to get you the spokes and nipples. Otherwise
Unicycle.com sells the original galvanized Coker spokes for
$1 each (that may or may not include the nipples).

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oxfordrider said:

*Nobody responded to my last post about building a coker
wheel (36" Airfoil rim with unicycle.com. cromo hub) so
I'll ask again. How hard is it to lace a wheel? How long
does it take? How do you determine the lacing pattern?
Were would I find examples? Am I insane? Should I just
purchase a completed wheel? *

Building the wheel is not too hard; just take your time. I
think it took me about 3 hours (I had built two wheels
before, but that was almost 30 years ago). The lacing itself
actually went pretty quik. More time was spent tensioning
and truing the wheel (I tend to go slow at that, slowly but
surely getting the wheel truer and truer until I just can't
get it any better).

One note: if you are using the stock Coker spokes, you will
have to enlarge the spoke holes in the uni.com cromo hub. I
simple enlarged a hole 1/64" inch at a time until a spoke
would fit, then drilled out all the other holes to that size
(took 5-10 minutes). You may or may not need to do this with
other spokes.

I used the link already given for building instructions, and
the wheel turned out great.

--
duaner - -

duaner.
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oxfordrider said:

*Nobody responded to my last post about building a coker
wheel (36" Airfoil rim with unicycle.com. cromo hub) so
I'll ask again. How hard is it to lace a wheel? How long
does it take? How do you determine the lacing pattern?
Were would I find examples? Am I insane? Should I just
purchase a completed wheel? *

If you really want to learn to build your own wheels, then
I do not recommend starting with a Coker wheel. In my
estimation, building to my standards, they are about 4x
harder than a normal wheel just in effort and skill
required. Gathering the components is difficult and
expensive, and during the build you will not understand
some of the phenomena that one experiences with the Coker
wheel because of its size and the nature of the rim,
spokes, and geometry.

Far better to start with is a 36-spoke 20", 26", or even a
700c (29er). The components are much less expensive and
readily available, the effort and skill required are much
less, and if you get into trouble you are more likely to
find an LBS that can assist you.

I have built many of these Super Coker wheels now and it
still takes me over a full day to build one, not to mention
all the time spent procuring the components. This includes
many, many steps such as painting the hub, washing the
spokes in degreaser, applying Spoke Prep, creating a wheel
map, and the like. It also involves substantial investment
in tools that are specific to the larger size. I'm guessing
that so far I've put over $800 into this type of equipment,
and those are not even retail prices. Tom Miller, who built
the 7-foot wheels for Cirque du Soliel, has even more exotic
equipment.

If you are a rider, and not particularly interested in
building your own wheel, then the key thing is to find a
wheel builder you trust and cultivate a relationship that
will last.

The excellent Jobst Brandt book is up to the 3rd edition, is
in print, and available at amazon.com.

At present I do not sell the wide hub or spokes or nipples
individually. Tom Miller and Sem would be glad to sell
them to you.

My two cents.

--
U-Turn - Member of Generation XO

Weep in the dojo... laugh on the battlefield.

'29er Tire Study' (u-turn.unicyclist.com29erTireStudyOpen ↗)

'Strongest Coker Wheel in the World'
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Are your super coker wheels for personal use or are they for
sale and if they are avaialble for sale how much?

--
oxfordrider
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oxfordrider said:

*Are your super coker wheels for personal use or are they
for sale and if they are avaialble for sale how much? *

Hi oxford. I have two here for personal/local use and also
make them for people. I have had to increase the price to
cover costs but waited for a while until we had gotten rid
of most of the uncertainty. Nathan's first wheel was a big
gamble on his and my part (thanks again Nathan) and things
have improved a lot since. The rims and hubs have improved
as well as the time to obtain the wheel and the method of
shipping. The price is now $615 plus shipping. This includes
tire, tube, SKF bearings, Airfoil rim, custom wide hub, custom-
cut s-steel 14 g spokes, nickel/brass wide-flange nipples,
steel valve extension for easier mounting, metal valve cap
with core tool, poly rim tape, 4 spare spoke setups, highest-
quality wheel build, and lifetime warrantee on the truing.
In addition, I dress the rim surface as required for
unparalleled braking smoothness, etch the wheel's serial
number on the hub, and give the hub two coats of clear
Krylon for better weather protection. I also provide a small
"owner's manual."

There is an additional $20 charge for the shipping box,
which is 500 lb test mil-spec stapled cardboard and is
suitable for long-term shipping worldwide for all your
adventures. The boxes were expressly sized and cut for these
Coker wheels. Shipping to overseas customers might involve
additional fees; I know little about that at this time.

Presently there are three suitable/compatible frames. You
can easily widen the stock Coker frame, which works great
for quite a while. When you want to use brakes, I recommend
either a GB4 or Hunter. Both framemakers do beautiful work.
If you purchase the frame through me, then I will do a lot
of sizing work to ensure that the frame fits your body
dimensions properly, including requesting special frame
dimensions from the framemakers. I do not know if they offer
that service or not for Coker frames. I'm sure that Rick
Hunter does that for bicycle frames, though.

There are many compatible cranks, from the $20 Miyatas up to
Nathan's $450 adjustable cranks (not fully tested yet).

I can also do really nice air seats (CF too), full Magura
setups, the GBDS handle, headlights, cyclometers, dual rear
waterbottles, and I almost have a working rear cargo carrier
solution. The latter two do not yet fit all
customers/frames.

I also service everything I sell, so you have a place to
send your whatever for refurb.

--
U-Turn - Member of Generation XO

Weep in the dojo... laugh on the battlefield.

'29er Tire Study' (u-turn.unicyclist.com29erTireStudyOpen ↗)

'Strongest Coker Wheel in the World'
(unicyclist.comalbup39Open ↗)

'New York Unicycle Club' (newyorkunicycle.comnewyorkunicycle.comOpen ↗)

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Just for fun, here is a photo of over a half-ton of Coker
wheel shipping boxes (the minimum order).
🙁

+--------------------------------------------------------
--------+ |Attachment filename: coker wheel shipping
boxes 003 (small).jpg | |Download attachment:
unicyclist.com205753Open ↗| +-------------------------------------------------------
---------+

--
U-Turn - Member of Generation XO

Weep in the dojo... laugh on the battlefield.

'29er Tire Study' (u-turn.unicyclist.com29erTireStudyOpen ↗)

'Strongest Coker Wheel in the World'
(unicyclist.comalbup39Open ↗)

'New York Unicycle Club' (newyorkunicycle.comnewyorkunicycle.comOpen ↗)

-- Dave Stockton
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The wheel sounds great but would definately break my budget.
I was squawking about paying $209 for an airfoil wheel from
unicycle.com. Maybe if my financial position improves.
Thanks for the write up.

--
oxfordrider
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