Project Wide Gravel Wheels v2: Update On Build

The rear wheel is built and awaits final tensioning.

 Just a quick update on the Project Wide Gravel Wheels v2 build. I thought you all might want to know how this is all shaping up so far.

The Spank 359 rims are made in such a way that they require spoke washers. These little discs of doom are a total pain in the butt to deal with, but if I don't use them I risk having the wheels explode due to nipples pulling through the rim extrusion. Not good! So, the pain in the butt process is necessary and patience while building these up is the key. Trying not to drop a spoke washer in the inner rim cavity is not easy, and when you do, you have to shake the rim like you are peppering your favorite recipe until, hopefully sooner than later, the thing pops out and falls to the floor. Fortunately that only happened once so far! 

Ironically, I am getting even more practice with spoke washers at work, since I have a job building up a set of DT Swiss rims on a customer's hubs that also requires spoke washers. The only difference is that DT Swiss' spoke washers are curved- concave/convex, and must be inserted in the correct orientation, making the job even more tedious! When it rains it pours, right? But at least I have work, so I am grateful. 

Anyway, the rims, again which were gifted to me by a former co-worker of mine, came with the spoke washers, but not enough to do both rims. So, I did not realize this until I started building the wheel. I hadn't cracked open the package they had come to me in, so I did not know how many I had to begin with. I immediately hopped online and found what I needed at Jenson USA and the parts (I ordered extra silver brass spoke nipples as well), should be here by the weekend. Okay, with that out of the way.....

I should mention again that Spank highly recommends that you use butted spokes and I suppose that is because these types of spokes will flex easier than straight gauge ones do, and that plays into the 'vertical compliance' claim Spank makes for these rims. Well, as it turned out, I had all butted spokes for this set on hand, so in the end, it will be what Spank recommends. I had at first thought I was going to used a mixed straight/butted gauge set. 

Besides all of that, and the extra time incurred by using spoke washers, this wheel built up really nicely. I hope that the front one goes as well as this one has. Once I get this wheel set done I will dive into wheel set number two for this project using some Stan's Neo hubs laced to Velocity Blunt SS rims. Stay tuned......