Restoring spoked wheels

[Slow and wobbly]

Prior to the KSRC crash recently I had a thread going about restoring my little KH 125. Will try to put something together again when I have time.
In respect to this restoration I am now looking seriously at dismantling the rims so as I can clean up the hubs and remove rust from the spokes. Never having done this before it seems a little daunting. I have read a couple of articles on the internets, some say its a piece of piss just jump in and have a go, while others seem to treat it as some sort of black art that a mere mortal should not mess with lest they unleash Cerberus from the gates of hell.
So who has done it? How did you go? Any special tips or tricks that anyone can share would be helpful.
I picked up an old BMX wheel down the tip the other day and it's going to be a practice run, if I stuff that up it doesn't realy matter.

[Slow and wobbly]

So anyway...... No better way to learn than by doing.
Given that I have two sets of identical wheels I didn't bother taking photos or making notes. I just skipped straight to ripping apart the two good wheels I have. All went well there with no stripping nipples - fnar. I have cleaned up all of the grubby rusty spokes on the buff and they have come up bright and shiny. I will have to now either clearcoat them or spray them in a color / silver or else they will rust straight away. Trying to convince the boss to throw the hubs in the polishing tub at work to clean them up. Pics of before and after when finished. Hmm only took me 20 mins to pull them apart, wonder how long its going to take to put em back together?

[mike-s]

one word, CHROME!!

[Slow and wobbly]

Making enquires into getting either chrome or standard nickel plating done through work.

[Gosling1]

have fun doing these mate - I hope you took some photos before you pulled them apart......did you measure the offset from the hub centre to the rim on each side ?? sometimes there is an offset to be considered......if the hub is dead centre, you should be sweet......

Its a pain in the arse lacing wheels, the hardest bit is getting the spoke tension correct and no runout........good luck.

[mick_dundee]

Have little to no first hand knowledge on the subject but pulling apart is indeed a piece of piss, relacing is another story altogether. seems the best place to get it done well is in Euroa, had a mate looking into it for his Nortom Commander so any knowledge you come up with i'll pass down the line to him for the old thumper.

[zzzak]

This may be of some assistance.

[Slow and wobbly]

So if its such an art form how do they do it en-mass at the factory?

Oh thanks for advice so far. Waiting on spokes to come back from plating shop.
Probably have a go some time next week at re-assembly.

[mick_dundee]

So if its such an art form how do they do it en-mass at the factory?

Bloody good question, and the answer that i've managed to come up with after an hour or so of brow beating is..... fucked if I know

[Gosling1]

.....So if its such an art form how do they do it en-mass at the factory?.....

Robots.

[Slow and wobbly]

Well. put the rear wheel back together yesterday. Not so difficult after all. Took about 3 hours all told with the most time consuming part the tensioning of the spokes. I put all the spokes back into position, tightened them all until just one thread was showing above each nipple. This gave a reasonable amount of tension, but still loose and then went round the wheel giving each nipple a 1/2 turn. The important part was to do this in a particular fashion. Start at the valve stem hole tighten the one to its left 1/2 turn then go to the opposite spoke on the opposite side of the hub and 1/2 turn to it. Then 1/2 turn the spoke at the 3o'clock position on the same side of the hub as the first spoke and then the opposing spoke on the opposite side of the hub. Similar in fashion to say tightening down a cylinder head.
I had to do this 3 times all up, 1.5 turns to each spoke all up. By this point all of the spokes sounded similar in tone when tapped with the spoke spanner. As for run out at this point I set up a dial indicator - finger type - to run against the side of the rim and it showed 1.4mm difference overall, and around the circumference of 1.2mm. Not bad. I had expected it to be alot further out than that ! With some tweakingI managed to get it down to .6 side to side and and .4 round. Barely discernable. Happy with that.

[mick_dundee]

Done well!!

[aggerz]

'nuff said.