New spokes, my dilemma

So a great friend of mine is an old time Vincent engineer, his 92 (!) going on 30 (as in Vintage Black Shadow and the like) has kindly offered to bespoke my Husky rims.

Wonderful, I get to work with a yesteryear craftsman in his private workshop (big shed!) and learn a little about how to replace rims.. a perfect Sunday afternoon.

As wonderful as that was I'm now in a dilemma :-( unfortunately they are laced up incorrectly, with not the best finish as some of the spoke threads are showing and the some of the laces foul the bolt holes.

I don't want to go back and say they are wrong, it would stress him too much and on the other hand I can't really afford to bin £150 quids worth of stainless steel spokes..

Any thought? I think I'm going to try and find a wheel repairer in the UK ( ideally not to far from Bedfordshire ) and hope they have the correct measurements and can re use some of the original spokes..

ta all

Couple of images from the wheel rebuild. Guess I'm going to have to start again.

Learning curve right?

looks good to me....is the wheel 'out of true'?.... that's what I would focus on....unless the nipple ends are protruding through the wheel?..& elongating the drilled holes?... sorry I'm missing what the problem is

When I did mine , One of my many tries I laced them up as you stated one side was sticking out with to many threads showing and the other side was not enough coming through the wheel and I could have swore I did it right... but I was wrong I had to take it all back apart and start over. You really really need another factory wheel to look at while you lace the new one up. Hope fully that guy did not grind any of the threads off that were sticking out on the spokes. If he did not grind any you can take it apart and restart. He probably needed to move over just one hole , cant tell from here? You can do this just take your time and be patient.

If that is a 1974 wheel the cross pattern is significantly different from the later wheels(1982 in my world) Check with on the 1974 400CR rebuild as he ran into the similar problem. There is a section of lacing the older wheels in the Vintage Tech section. It is well worth looking for in there

Many times there is an offset, that is to say the rim isn't centered on the hub. This is done usually to clear things like chain, swingarm etc. Before I respoke a wheel I measure the offset so I can get it close to where it needs to be. If there isn't a pattern to measure the wheel can be put back on the bike and checked before all the spokes are tightened.
What I'm trying to say is that your spoke length may be correct once the wheel is offset the correct amount.

ahh yes, the offset I think you gott it . makes sense too (forgot about the offset)

Hi all - here is a closer look.

First picture - you can see on the front hub the thread is visible and seem slightly bowed and on the second picture the bolt hole is fouled by the spokes.


Can't really leave them like that so looking for someone ideally locally who can help me sort them out.


I *think* they are centered correctly - so far

that sucks man...picture worth a thousand words, eh? i would think any pro worth his salt could fix you right up

Yup, sucks big time - but a lesson learnt and I did spend a some quality time with a 92 year old engineer... ..the stories alone were worth the pain.

...don't suppos' any one can recommend a UK pro who could help put this right ???

Try Paul at Sids Wheels, he has built 6 sets of 1983/4 Husky wheels for me and other friends as well. He knows the offsets for mine and keeps a log of all the wheel offsets that he has worked on, he may well have details of yours. He is always pulled out with work he's so good but if you are not in a massive rush then I can recommend him. He is based near Stafford but it's easy to post wheels back and forth.
You can contact him on 07855 566713 He's a top bloke to deal with, tell him Nigel from Sheffield gave you his number.
Good luck.

Hey - thanks Nigel, I'll certainly give him a bell once new year is out of the way :-)

Or give Rod Spry a shout (Manchester). Again post the wheels up, and he will get his wheel man to sort it. I have a couple of hubs I am sending this week.
He has batches of wheels going through all the time. The last ones he did for me were spot on in every way.

Tell me , when you gave the old guy the wheel to do was it in one piece or was it in a bucket ?
A lot of these wheels have different spoke patterns and if you have never seen one of these before then they can be difficult.

Looking at the hub, it looks like the spoke heads are seated in the recessed/counter bored side? If so, from my understanding and research, would be incorrect. Most hubs have spoke holes with a counter-bore on one side of the hole. Some have both sides counter-bored, and some have deep on one side and less so on the other. The spoke heads should be seated on the other side (non counter bored/recessed side or least counter-bored) The counter-bore allows the spoke to angle to the rim without catching the hole edge causing the spoke to bend or have a side load. It looks as if you have to move the spokes in the hub over one hole so that when they angle out they clear the bolt holes, rim lock hole and tube stem. If you search the web you'll find quite a few articles on proper lacing, there are a few contradictory articles written about this also. But most have it right about which side of the hub to insert the spokes.
And is the rim the one that was originally laced to the hub? If not, the holes may be drilled at an angle for a different hub and offset? And some spokes have a different head angle, more than a 90 degree bend. in which case would be the outer spokes. Just some things I learned re-lacing a set of flanged alloy rims to my Royal Enfield.

Your spoke pattern is off by (probably) two or three holes. Take them all out and reset your starting point. I did the exact same thing as it looks just like your wheel.

You can contact Andy Elliot, he can sure help you.
http://hva-factory.com/index.php

regards, Bernd