Wheel rebuilding

[florence]

Insprired by Juits' wheel rebuild and looking ahead to the winter, I think it is time to tackle my front wheel which has needed a build for at least 20 years now.

My questions are, what size is the rim?

What spokes should I order?

Who are good suppliers?

Apart from originality, are there practical considerations between, stainless steel, aluminium, or chromium plated steel?  My preference would be for stainless steel but I thought maybe it wouldn't be as stable as aluminium or steel?

I would be grateful for your thoughts.

Many thanks,
Steve

[Bryanj]

19 inch front wheel, spoke kits can be got from mr silver, i believe central wheel do stainless, never used them.
Rim quality varies vastly

[Sesman]

Rightly or wrongly for my 550 I used s/s 19” WM2 front and 18” WM3 rear with s/s spokes bought as a set from Central Wheels. The build was a doddle, I just followed the original spoke patten. The 550 has no offset which makes life simple.

[Sesman]

One thing to note about s/s is to keep them looking good you need to use a s/s cleaner. I use a popular s/s spray on a cloth…works well. Chrome seems to maintain its ‘shine’ better, but of course it doesn’t have the same resistance to corrosion. Having said that, the 40 year old did rims I replaced were in excellent condition with very little pitting. You pays your money….

[Lobo]

I’ve now laced 6 wheels with SS spokes from CWS, and been very pleased. Notably on my (standard) CB750 rear wheel I’ve had 3 failures over 10 years; always the B spoke which is a doddle to change as threaded from the inside to out. (All you have to do is deflate the tyre enough the depress the nipple enough to to allow the new spoke to enter / take the thread)

As I say, it’s always been the B spoke, ie the one with a > 90 elbow. Perhaps SS is a bit more brittle? Regardless, a small price to pay versus maintaining other spoke types.

Note: tbh, I’ve only recently learned the torque required for (OEM) CB 750 spokes is 2.2-2.9 ft lbs (0.3-0.4 Kg m), which is somewhat more than I was lacing up at. Whether this is responsible for my breakages I’ll leave better qualified folk to comment. Just recently laced ‘em up again though, at book torques this time.