More Time than Money

As the title of the post states, I've got more time than money. So when it comes to things like rebuilding wheels, I opt to do the work myself, rather than sending them off. Admittedly, it's a lot of work, and the type of work is boring and labor intensive. Front and rear wheels get disassembled, cleaned and then polished. I think we all know the drill by now, and I'm not talking about the aluminum hubs, or the brake plates, so I'll leave that for another post altogether. But the spokes and rims need to be rebuilt and since the weather is terrible, it was time to sit inside and and give them the attention that they need. 40 spokes per wheel and of course all the spoke nipples that go with them. The wheels came apart fairly easy, and seem as if they've never been apart. None of the spokes where bent, none of the threads were messed up and nobody had chewed up the spoke nipples using improper tools.

Once everything was take apart, I grouped all the spokes into sets of ten, based on their position on the hub, then started to clean them. Basically, without getting too long winded, it's 80 spokes and 80 spoke nipples that all need to be cleaned and then polished. The photo below, basically shows the current state of progress. And this photo probably doesn't do justice in showing how heavily oxidized and dirty they all are, nor does it show how nice they look once cleaned and polished. I'm not quite half way there, but I'm pacing myself and doing about 1 set per day. All in all, each set takes about an hour, so once they're complete, it'll be about 8 hours total labor, and then perhaps another hour or so for the spoke nipples.

Lots of guys complain about the $100 price tag per wheel to have someone like Buchanan's drill, lace and true your wheel. But in all honesty, I think that's quite a fair price considering the quality of work they do. And if you're the type of guy that doesn't want to do the work, or simply don't have time, then that's what it's going to cost. I've had plenty of wheels built by Buchanan's in the past, and I've always been happy with the work. In this case, I didn't need to have a rim drilled, so cleaning and re-lacing is just a simple matter of doing the actual work. In the end, I'll save almost $300, between the cost of lacing each wheel and shipping to and from.

Another point is that in the past, I had built wheels from just a hub, so I had to buy spokes and rims. But for these wheels, I have those bits, so it didn't make sense to replace something that could simply be restored. The rims are another story and they'll need to be either re-chromed or replaced.

It's slow work, but in the end, it's satisfying. They'll be on the bike for a long time to come, and anytime I can save and restore these old bits, it surely beats replacing them.