Tensiometer, (and I hate potholes)

[Andy_H]

HI All.

Over Christmas I had a minor problem in the form of a deep water-filled pothole, which I hadn't seen due to raining hard and water across road, result was a damaged rear rim and bent axle, which was unfortunate as Woosh were closed over Christmas, anyway Woosh service was great as I ordered a new wheel on Mon 4th Jan and it arrived Tuesday 5th, I fitted existing freewheel, tire etc and now back on road again.

Anyway as its been a lot of years since I'm messed about building a wheel I thought I'd take the old one to bits and build it back up from scratch (with new axle) for practice, I know shops use a tensiometer but got to wondering if any home builders recommend them, or do you just use the 'spoke plucking' method,

 

[neptune]

I built a couple of wheels last year, the first one I ever built. They have worked out fine. The method I used is just to squeeze two adjacent spokes together and you get a feel for the tension. For comparison, squeeze other wheels in the same way. It worked for me.

 

[Nealh]

Squeeze pairs to remove stress and plucking works for me to gauge tension.