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:

http://www.sheldonbrown.com/wheelbuild.html

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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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 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'
(http://www.tux.org/~bagleyd/unicycle_factory/) 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 - -

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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.

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'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?

--
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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' (http://u-turn.unicyclist.com/29erTireStudy/)

'Strongest Coker Wheel in the World'
(http://www.unicyclist.com/gallery/albup39)

'New York Unicycle Club' (http://www.newyorkunicycle.com)

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

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|Attachment filename: coker wheel shipping boxes 003 (small).jpg |
|Download attachment: http://www.unicyclist.com/attachment/205753|
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--
U-Turn - Member of Generation XO

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

'29er Tire Study' (http://u-turn.unicyclist.com/29erTireStudy/)

'Strongest Coker Wheel in the World'
(http://www.unicyclist.com/gallery/albup39)

'New York Unicycle Club' (http://www.newyorkunicycle.com)

-- 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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