I took my Schlumpf out of the 29er today and I’m getting ready to put it into a 24" wheel set.
First thing I noticed was that the bike shop that laced the wheel before used spoke washers at the hub. Are these necessary? If so, can I re-use them?
When the bike shop laced the wheel, the alternating side ended up ‘backwards’ thus ‘deforming’ the spoke holes as mentioned in the Schlumpf manual. Is this bad for the flange? I haven’t broken any spokes or anything. When I rebuild it, should I stick with the same ‘backwards’ lacing? Or go the right way?
Also, once I had the hub de-laced, I notice two brown marks on the silver side of the hub. They look like cracks, but I can’t feel them at all. What say ye?
Looking some more at the hub, if I take a spoke without a washer and lace it through one of the holes, there doesn’t seem to be any excess movement. This leads me to believe that the washers are probably unnecessary.
In the picture above, the brown mark is right in the middle of the picture, just below the 3rd spoke hole from the right on the near-side flange.
Seems to be under some kind of clear coating on the hub. I tried picking the line with a tooth pick and my nail and can’t feel anything (seems smooth).
Generally it is best to re-lace a hub the same way it was built in the past. The old marks from the spokes can become stress points making it easier to break the flange if the new spokes aren’t pulling the same direction.
I have never used spoke washers so i have no advice there.
I don’t think I would worry about the brown line. That is not a very likely spot for a crack to form, but definitely keep an eye on it.
That’s exactly why I was wondering about lacing it the way it was. I figured that being laced a certain way previously might have had some affect.
So now I wonder if not using the washers but still lacing it the way it was would put too much stress on the flanges. Looking through some old threads, it appears that before Florian included the bit about the countersunk holes in the manual, plenty of people were lacing them ‘backwards’.
What did you end up going with, the same backward lacing as before? I have a similar situation where I got a used hub that has wear marks indicating it was laced backwards. The bike shop that I’m having build it said they thought it’d probably be fine to lace it correctly if you have the spokes going out the opposite direction from the wear marks. Both options seem a little iffy though.
After talking with a friend at the bike shop, I laced it correctly with all of the spokes pulling in the same direction that they were before, even though they ended up on the other side of the flange.
My understanding is that you want to keep the force at the flange pulling in the same direction.
So that would be going the same direction as the wear marks, but on the correct side.
