just built my first wheel...........

big lad said:

.................a rear one at that! YEEEEEHA

it is super true, which is nice.

when you twang the spokes, they are not all the same pitch. i know that it is unreasonable to expect that they should be exact.

but, if the wheel is really true, and it is. is it still possible to have some of the spokes incorrectly tensioned?

i've been truing my wheels for some time now and have allowed a bit between spokes provided that the rim was true, in all of the correct directions.

anyway, thanks in anticipation

kevin

It is very possible to build a wheel up that spins "true" that doesn't have equal tension on each spoke. I've done that myself more than once. What tends to happen with those wheels when I ride them is they don't "live" very long and I have to re-do them very quickly (one or two rides) even when I have not jumped or banged on any rocks/etc. I guess it means they just don't end up "sturdy" (?). I've taken to making sure the tension is the same from now on. It takes several extra minutes for me since I'm certainly no genius/pro when building wheels, but it is worth it for me. Good job building your own wheels! Keep the rubber side down.

K...

big lad said:

................. when you twang the spokes, they are not all the same pitch. i know that it is unreasonable to expect that they should be exact.

but, if the wheel is really true, and it is. is it still possible to have some of the spokes incorrectly tensioned?

If the rim is perfectly round, true and uniform in characteristics to begin with, then it's at least theoretically possible to build a wheel that's also round and true with perfectly matched spoke tension all around. But personally I'm convinced that there comes a time when a continued strive for perfection no longer brings any measurable practical gains. For someone with a good ear even very small differences in tension will be very noticeable in pitch. Maybe you could borrow a spoke tensiometer and see how far off the mark you ended up?