Ok, what are your opinions on home trying stands?
The Feedback Sports stand (Pro Truing Stand 2.0 - Feedback Sports) looks ok but not great for radial truing.
Curious what people have done? I am not sure I’m willing to drop $400 USD for a professional grade one.
Open to suggestions!
Personally I would shop the used market for the shop level Park stand. There is always someone out there who bought one for one or a few builds and is then selling it.
Roger Musson has instructions for a wheel truing stand in his book: Wheel Building and Spoke Lengths for cycle wheels, don;t know how well suited it is for radial lacing.
I have a home made Roger Musson truing stand and it’s good enough for my occasional wheel building. I also have the Feedback Sports one which I use for some jobs where I want to spin the wheel (e.g. putting in sealant) or need a basic lateral truing.
The home made radial truing gauge would work fine with the Feedback stand as well. It’s just a flat edge on a wooden base that you can use to figure out where there are high or low spots while spinning the rim.
I haven’t really felt the need for a fancier stand but then again I don’t build wheels that often.
Years ago I started with a cheap model from Performance Bike, nearly useless. I bought the feedback during one of their annual 20-30% sales, and love it. It packs and stores small, is solidly built, very easy to work with. I especially love that it can true rotors too, which is actually where I’ve used it most. I’m mainly a roadie and wheels stay true, but the rotors often get slightly bumped out of true and I can’t stand even the tiny scraping sound of wasted watts.
Depends how much you think you’ll use it - I’d only pay big $ if I knew I was going to be building a few wheels, otherwise for a couple of builds and a few true-ups then almost anything will do. A nice stand will improve speed and efficiency but it won’t necessarily make the result better - that’s largely a matter of skill.
Back when everything I owned was QR axle, I made some stands out of a chopped up hard rubbish bike (rear triangle and forks). Works well enough for me with some cable ties for runout gauges. I just clamp them in my bench vice when needed. That and a spoke tension gauge, and some good nipple tools, are about all you need.