Wheel Building

[timetraveller]

About a year ago I dismantled a Knight front wheel, 35.0 x 19, to prepare a wheel for Sammy Miller's museum Black Knght. He had adverised in MPH for an exchange. Being brought up with the convention of never throwing anything away I still have the old, and rusty spokes from the dismantled wheel. I have checked them all and they all have an angle of more than 90 degrees between the spoke and the head. Like the photograph in MM's posting #15 above. I have not measured the angle but they all look like his photograph with 12.5 deg annotated. So far as I know this wheel was original from 1954.

 

[Cyborg]

Litnman…. If you are here….
You mentioned at some point, you had 3 different styles of flanges….
Any chance you could post measurements? Just lay them flat with the mating surface up and measure total height?

 

[Magnetoman]

Any chance you could post measurements? Just lay them flat with the mating surface up and measure total height?

I second that request. It would be a simple matter to machine a jig to keep the center part of the spoke flange flat while bending the outer, already-bent part an additional 0.020" (or whatever) to provide clearance for the heads.

 

[Cyborg]

A variation in flanges would certainly help explain why some folk are able to install spokes after the drums are installed and some can’t. Perhaps a properly made flange is a better answer than the shims that were designed to cure spoke/drum interference.
Proper spokes with proper bends and the correct size heads combined with the correct flanges… what a wonderful world it would be.
Why the variation in flanges? Just manufacturing variances or was it intentional?
As in does the increased angle of the flange cause added stress on the spoke?

 

[Magnetoman]

To add a data point to the discussion, the spokes in the front wheel of my 1963 Gold Star, which I'm 99% sure are original, also have an angle greater than 90° with respect to the flange. It's not possible to make an accurate measurement so the "33°" in the following photograph actually could be the same as the 22.5° of the Vincent spokes.

In any case, it's clear that the angle isn't 90°, so I'm sensing a pattern developing. Also, the inside edge of the heads aren't flat, but rather are cones, so the heads do not need to make contact with the flanges at 90° in order for there to be full metal contact between the two.

 

[Simon Dinsdale]

A variation in flanges would certainly help explain why some folk are able to install spokes after the drums are installed and some can’t.

I don't think the problem is so much in the spoke flanges, its more to do with the drums and the thickness of the back wall of the drum. After 70 odd years there have been quite a few non factory drums made over the years and so who know which are genuine factory. Also the original drums were machined from a casting so there will be slight variances in the original castings.

 

[Magnetoman]

who know which are genuine factory.

Ahem, I, for one, know. I know that mine are genuine factory items, as are the spokes and spoke flange. That's the advantage of having an original machine and being able to make accurate measurements from it.

 

[greg brillus]

Not just the drums but the flanges are different as well.......the heights are different, just to make matters worse.........Sometimes when assembling a flange over a new hub, they do not sit flat, with the hub fully home in the flange recess........If you fail to find this the hub assembly will not end well.........strip down and start again.

 

[Magnetoman]

Speaking only for myself, seeing things to scale often results in better understanding than visualizing them in the abstract.

 

[timetraveller]

I have measure up both spokes and spoke flanges to compare with MM's results above. His drawing of the right angled edge to the hole through the flange did not look rignt but I find that, at least originally they did have sharp edges to their holes. These holes have slight wear at the ends where the spokes would have been pulling, more or less along the longer axis of the cut out. The spoke heads do not show any signs of wear but in all cases fitting the spoke into a cut out allows the spoke to settle into the hole much more than in MM's drawing above. The diameter of the spoke, just before it enlarges to form the end is 0.142". Inspection of edges of the holes where the spokes would have fitted shows very slight beveling in some, but not all cases.
The measurement of the total height of the spoke flange as requested by Cyborg in #22 above shows 0.537" to 0.538" in differernt places. This spoke flange is an original from 1954.