Un messing-up a wheel

[Mathurin]

Right so I've been meaning to repair the back wheel on my Miyata for quite some time. It's gotten messed up by hitting something so it had a flat spot on it. I guess if it were really bad I'd probably have known by now... But really just an uncomfortable lump in the wheel's rotation that can't be fixed by truing. thump - thump - thump - thump - thump... So today I felt especially adventurous and decided to repair it.


Here's the big idea: To put the black notch on the rim above the hole between the two boards, then put the log over it and use the swing wrench to achieve precision geometry corrections on the rim. In reality, it takes a hell of a lot of force to adjust a rim in such a way, so I ended up not using the log. This left marks, but it made the rim go back into shape. I noticed both sides aren't perfectly equal, so I had to play a bit to get a compromise.

The black notch was bent into the rim quite a bit though. I used an adjustable wrench to make it un-bent. This worked OK but the result felt kinda clumsy.

I figured the irregularities would hurt braking so I took some sandpaper and smoothed the most of them out. the end result seemed acceptable to my eye-meters and digital prods.

Now the wheel is back on the bike with all the spokes equally slackened. The moment of truth shall come once I get them all tightened back up and adjusted as best I can. I don't think I'll be able to make the rim perfectly straight & round again, but certainly it should be a lot better then it used to be.

 

[Reid Welch]

The early mechanics of the steam age were adroit with hand tools.
There were very few power tools. The original milling machine, the version that even young Henry Ford carried in his back pocket, was the mill file.

The steam engines were finished all by hand tools.
If a huge bedplate were cast, or moved, it needed truing.

This was done with incredibly high precision by eye, line of sight, and by the manual milling machine, the file.

Rough work? Was done by chisel and hammer. Then the file.

The shafts with inset keys--key ways were made by hand with a chisel and mallet, with such precision, and the keys were filed to fit each keyway,
that the key would be sprung into its slot, and have zero slop, and would not come out on its own, because the wright would chamfer the hole and the key for a one-way insertion--spring the key slightly and tap it in, and it was done.

They would all shake heads at our feeble, miserable, infantile attempts to use simple tools over which they typically had complete mastery.

----

I think your wheel repair is good enough.
I know for sure I am no master of hand tools.

Historical perspective offers insight into where we were, and how far we've
regressed (in this case).

Only practice makes perfect.
Salute--from me to you for making things do.

 

[Lowell]

I damaged my front wheel slightly on a road hazard. It ran true and balanced, but would develop an annoying resonance from the rim brake pads at certain speeds. Now fixed by installing a disc brake and heavy duty front rim.