The rentless pursuit of even spoke tension

Last night I finished off the dynamo wheel I have been building for my dad since his last birthday in August 2012. This wheel, like most I build, has a unique story. The rims (Velocity A23, 36 hole) were originally procured for a friend who was attempting her own build. Once she realized 26 inchers were needed, the 700c Velocity rims reverted to me. Building a super sweet dynamo wheel for my dad seemed like a great birthday present.

Several month, and several other wheel builds later, I am in the home stretch for this project. As I was in no particular hurry to finish this one, I decided to get it as technically perfect as I could. So I:

• Constructed my own spoke tension map. The Park Tool one doesn't work with my new tensiometer.
• Soaked the brass nipples overnight in Triflow. The point of doing this is to minimize the potential for spoke wind-up due to friction on the spoke threads, and friction between the nipple's shoulder and the rim.
• Used my new Wheel Fanatyk tensiometer. It was much easier to use than my old Park Tool tensiometer and much more accurate.

The result.

Red graph line indicates the right side spokes; blue is left; and gray is the average of both sides. This wheel is straight and true.

No too shabby. The average spoke tension varies +/- 1.5%. This 36 spoke wheel should last a lifetime even under my 200+ lb dad.

Now I can move onto other more exotic, low spoke count projects!