Building a wheelset - DT Swiss Hybrid Hubs and ARC 35 

Component Selection

Rims

Other bits

Spoke Nipples - I prefer tooled heads with positive tool engagement, so went with DT Swiss Squorx in black brass, without any locking compound inside.  The Sapim Polyax and DT Squorx or other ‘Pro Head’ DT nipples have the same rounded bottom to help with proper spoke alignment - I just prefer the torx head to the typical slotted one.  I may go aluminum on the next build, mainly to do red nipples, but it can get rather humid here in summer, we do go to the beach, and brass is always a safe bet.  The weight difference, honestly, simply isn’t worth worrying about.  Meanwhile, the Squorx nipples measure out like a standard 12mm spoke nipple, but do have a bit more thread available at the top, while still being able to use the Squorx/Torx tool (while a standard nipple driver would start to be pushed out of the slot as the spokes start to push into the slot area), so - all around win IMO on DT Squorx.

I had a few.  First off, RaceFace’s published ERD for the rims was 562mm.  Measuring with the Squorx nipples and with the added MG washers I was coming in at 567mm ERD.  Now, the MG washers are around 2mm each, but they’re beveled to let the spoke nipple rotate, so I wasn’t expected an ERD impact of more than 1mm per side.  Of course, using the Squorx nipples does let you more easily over-thread versus using a standard nipple driver and stopping as the spoke contacts the bottom of the slot, so I threaded them fully (above where a normal spoke nipple would be threaded to) and subtracted 2.5mm per side there for final calculations.  Not that big a deal honestly - you can be +/- ~1-2mm or so and usually come out good, although not much more IMO.  I suspect were I not using the MG washers, the published 562mm ERD is probably pretty close,  maybe 1mm on the short side, but usable for normal spoke calculations when not using washers.  Like the carpenter saying goes - measure twice, cut once, or in this case, I measured a half dozen times before finalizing on ERD to use. (You always do want to measure at least in a few places and take the average).

A nicer surprise was the combination of same-size diameter flanges on the DT hubs and the asym offset let me use the same size spokes for the DS and NDS/both sides.  Further, it looked like I probably could use the same size front and rear as well.  Remember, rounding to ~1mm is pretty much needed in most cases, and in my case it worked out well as it’s easier to find even-length spokes than odd-length, so I went ahead and ordered ~70 Alpine III 274mm spokes.  These were a bit challenging to source, just like the hubs during the COVID/supply chain chaos, and I thought I’d need to order from overseas but was able to find them at Bikeman.  

Time to build

Or almost, anyways. I don’t use spoke prep or spoke nipples with locking compound in them, but do believe in ‘the power of lube.’ Additionally, I like to put a dab of grease (e.g. Park Tool, Slickoleum, Mobil - whatever I have on hand for the most part, ensuring it won’t eat aluminum ;) ) on the rim interface where the nipple (or washer) sits against the rim - starting at the valve hole, I use a small brush or a Q-tip (brush is better) and put a dab of grease on the outer side of the rim’s spoke holes, just a tiny bit, and rotate around the wheel.

I also lube the nipples - there are neat ‘nipple boxes’ you can buy, but I just use a zip-lock bag the nipples or washers come in, add a few squirts of whatever lube I’m using and roll them around to coat - in this case I’m using Boeshield T9, which is sort of a mixture of ingredients like an oil/wax type of mixture going on wet but drying to a sort of wax-like finish. You can use Tri-Oil or numerous others - YMMV as usual.  

When I’m putting the spoke nipples in wish washers, I’ll also add a tiny dab of grease to the top-side of the washer, or bottom-side of the spoke nipple to washer interface - this both holds the washer to the nipple, stopping the washer from dropping down into the rim, and gives a bit more lubrication to the ‘ball socket-like’ mating of the surfaces.  

Finally, I’ll grab 16 spokes, 8 for each side for now, and libe the threads.  You can dip half of the threads in grease (make sure no globs), or spoke prep, linseed oil or whatever your preference here is.  For me, oil/lube is fine, making sure it’s a light vs globbed/dripping coat.  

One note:  I always start wheel builds ‘on the right hand side’ - which is the drive side/DS for the rear and the non-rotor-side/NDS for the front.  When the wheels are laced and I start building up tension, it’s always the DS which is the tighter/higher-tensioned side.  Some may always start on the drive-side, so cassette side rear and rotor-side front.  YMMV.  I will show a few pics of the front rim and hub below, while most will be of the rear - I just didn’t get enough clear pics of the rear, but the steps don’t change.

Type 1 vs Type 2 and angle-drilled rims: This is important, but MOST of us can ignore it.  Some rimhave stagged holes, or the holes may be angle drilled.  A majority of modern rims are ‘Type 1’ meaning the hole directly counter-clockwise from the valve stem hole is either higher or the same level as the hole next to it, or if the rim is angle-drilled, a spoke will be ‘aimed’ or tending to lean to the outside of the wheel/hub, or facing upwards towards you in the images below.  You can confirm this using a spoke and a spoke nipple, seating the nipple to the rim, and feeling as you move the spoke around, which way the spoke wants to tend to orient itself in.  If a spoke is drilled centrally it will feel natural moving to either side.  In the unlikley event your chosen rims are ‘Type 2’ then you will start your guide/key spoke 2 holes from the left of the valve hole instead of the first one to the left as shown within this guide.  Lacing a Type 2 rim with Type 1 lacing is possible, but it will add additional stress onto the nipple/spoke interface as it may have a less-than-ideal angle. 

For the first spoke’s placement, this is an optional step, but it looks nice on the finished wheel when the valve stem, hub logo and tire logo all line up with each other.  To line up the hub logo with the valve stem hole, put the valve hole at the north/12-o’clock position, line up the center of the logo, and if a wide logo spanning multiple spoke holes, mark the one just slightly to the left of logo center, then count over N holes, where N is the number of crosses in the wheel plan…in this case, I count over 3 and drop a spoke in from the outside.  Add a tape ‘flag’ to this spoke, as this will be your ‘guide’ spoke used for reference throughout the build.  Some like to tape/mark the valve hole, but this spoke will wind up going into the  spoke hole immediately to the left of the valve hole, so I flag the spoke only.  

For asym or offset rims, you can visually notice which side of the rim is ‘narrower’ from the spoke holes outward, and which is larger.  For the front wheel, place the spoke holes further from the brake rotor, and for the rear, place them further from the cassette.  In the pictures above with a front wheel, the spoke holes should be closer to the ‘top’ of the rim as shown.  

Once you’re sure the rim and hub is properly positioned, place the first spoke immediately to the left of the valve hole - you can push the spoke beyond the spoke hole, making it easy to put on the spoke nipple (and washer if using) - just spin it on a couple to a few turns, and leave at least half or more of the spoke threads showing.  Don’t worry about hub/spoke orientation at this point.  Drop another 7 spokes through every other hole from the outside of the hub flange, push the spoke through every 4th spoke hole, and add the spoke nipple on each, screwed in a few turns.  At this point it’s much easier to go a spoke at a time - spoke in hub, count to 4th hole, put spoke in 4th rim hole, thread on the spoke nipple a couple of turns, then move on to the next until you have all 8 spokes in place on the one side as shown below.  Don’t worry about this nipples not showing through - the hub isn’t rotated properly at this poinit, so this is normal.

Starting the other side

Make sure you have 8 spokes of the proper length, oiled or prepped.  Without turning the rim and hub over, locate your first spoke placed, the one just to the left of the valve hole with the tape flag on it.  Looking from the top down, sight across to the other side of the hub - the holes on the other side will be slightly offset, not lining up perfectly, closer to ‘in-between’ two holes on the side facing you.  Sight down the hub, and select the first spoke hole to the left/counter-clockwise from your guide spoke on the opposite side.  Put your finger on the hub’s spoke hole, lift the rim and hub and feed a spoke through from the outside of the other side into the noted hole.  With the laced side facing you, put this new spoke in the rim’s hole directly to the left/counter-clockwise of your guide spoke, as shown in the pic above.  Put the spoke nipple on and thread it a couple of turns.  

Trailing Spokes - 3rd set of 8

Lacing the last set of spokes

Sanity check 

Take up some slack

This step may require a little bit of thought, and consideration as we start to take up some of the slackness from the spokes.
Some people use spoke keys for this part, but again, I have a strong preference for solid tool engagement and prefer to reduce the risk of wearing the finish off the spoke nipples or the rim, so I really prefer using a nipple driver from the outside of the rim.

Note that tightening from the outside (using the head of the spoke nipples and a driver) follows the adage of ‘lefty loosen, righty tighten’ or simply put, clockwise to tighten, but - once you shift to a spoke key/wrench, this is reversed. Repeat this in your head a few times, and always before starting to adjust any spokes, as it’s easy to get crossed and be going the wrong way.

At this point, we’re looking to do one thing - reduce slack in the spokes while trying to keep the spokes more or less equally threaded. Why? If this is a new rim, short of UPS, FedEx or Bubba doing some damage, the rim is already pretty circular and reasonably true laterally (side to side). Once we start putting real tension onto the spokes, the tension will pull the rim in whichever direction the force is pulling, so if we ad-hoc tension spokes and to different thread lengths and forces, the wheel can become a bumpy mess. So again - we’re not looking to put real tension on the wheel, just remove a bit of slack and get all of the spokes/nipples more or less to the same starting point.

There are a few ways to do this, but it depends on spoke lengths vs actual rim ERD, and which tools you have. The simplest is to start at the valve stem hole, then either thread/tighten each spoke in turn (go clockwise or counter-clockwise but be consistent) each spoke nipple until there is a single thread left uncovered on the spoke, or the last thread is just covered on the spoke, by the spoke nipple. Pick one of those two and stick with it, not one spoke leaving one thread turn uncovered and the next completely covering the threads. Some tools, like the DT Swiss Squorx driver bit, or special nipple drivers like this Unior one, either let you adjust a pin in the center so you can set the exact threaded depth of the spoke nipple on the spoke (like the DT Swiss one), or with a specific length center pin (like the Unior tool), which should (always check first!) thread the nipples on to a common starting position such as just covering the spoke threads, without adding tension to the wheel.  Or - you can drive the nipples by hand to just covering the threads.  IMPORTANT: Do NOT use power tools with the nipple driver bits - once the center pin is pushed upward by the spoke while tightening, the pin will push the tool head off of the tol of the spoke nipple head; this is fine when going slowly and by hand (then stop, it’s to the expected/desired depth for now), but can damage the spoke nipple heads if using a power tool.

If you find that going for spoke threads covered is starting to tension the wheel, making the spoke nipples harder to turn, check that no nipples around the wheel are threaded past this point, and that your nipple/spoke threads are lubed.  You can add a small drop of oil/lube from the top of the spoke nipple head and capillary action will help to lube the threads.  If it’s down to your spokes being too short - even after loosening up tightened spokes, try setting all spokes to a consistent # of threads showing - if this still doesn’t allow taking up the slack without spokes getting tensioned/tight - you may need to go to longer spokes.

This is just a fancy way of saying - straightening the spokes out a bit.  Looking at the wheel, it’s likely the ’outside’ spokes (those with the heads facing inwards inside the hub) will have a bit of bowing coming off of the hub flanges.  The inner spokes won’t typically have this condition.  If you are re-using spokes or the spokes fit very loosely inside the hub spoke holes, this may not occur (but you may need spoke head washers if too loose!).  Assuming there is some bowing, take your thumb and starting at the valve stem hole again, go clockwise or counter-clockwise around the wheel, pressing down near the hub (within an inch or two), on each outside spoke.  Be careful as you don’t want to press so hard that the spoke is dented against the hub flange, as this can cause some additional stress points - you just want to smooth out the natural bowing effect a bit - this will add additional fatigue strength to the spokes and also help reduce effort on subsequent rounds of tensioning.

Depending on the length of your spokes and the hub dimensions and rim ERD, you may already be at a consistent ‘no slack’ state with the spoke threads just covered, or anywhere between 1/2 turn all around the wheel to around 3 full turns on each spoke.  ANy less and your spokes may simply be too short - you want to have the spoke ends once fully tensioned (not yet..) reach up into the spoke nipple at least 1-2mm past the outside rim bed into the spoke nipple head.  If more turns are required to simply take up slack, your spokes may be too long, which may still be workable depending on nipple type, but be aware overly long spokes can effectively ‘bottom out’ the spoke threads and effectively reduce the number of threads engaged between the spoke nipple and the spoke, leading to a less strong connection - sometimes usable, but less than ideal.

Again - do not overtighten.  You’re looking to bring the spokes to the point of feeling a bit of resistance, and the spokes should ‘ping’ or make a sound when plucked (like a guitar string) or tapped near the spoke nipple, but they should not be tight.  The final round in taking up the slack may be as small as 1/4 turn, although sticking to 1/2 turns is less likely to add unwanted tension at this point.  

If you find the nipples becoming too tight as yougo around the wheel, take a piece of painters tape and mark the last spoke tightened, then go backwards (opposite of the way you were rotating the wheel when tightening) and undo the last round of tension added (which should be 1/2 turn) by working backwards back to the valve stem hole and call it good.

Let’s take it for a spin - and check lateral trueness

Now look back at the trueness diagram.  In this case, some portion of the rim on the left side is out of true laterally.  With a tight, tensioned wheel, you could either loosen spoke #1 (sometimes with other spokes on the same side as spoke 1, depending on how long the ‘bump’ is), or tighten spoke #2.  Either of those actions would shift that portion of the rim over to the right.  If you’re ever confused about which ’side’ to tighten, grab a pair of spokes on one side near an out-of-true bump, and squeeze them towards each other - this will have the same effect as tightening those spokes, so if for example you grabbed spoke #2 and one of it’s neighbor spokes on the same side (going to the same hub flange), you’d see the rim shift over to the right. 

Considering at this point, we have only barely removed most of the slack, loosening may not have any impact, so we’ll want to tighten to shift the rim.  Depending on the length of the ‘bump,’ a single spoke may do it, or multiple may be involved.  If a bump is spanning multiple spokes, sometimes you’ll want to ‘distribute’ the correction, or ‘feather’ it, by tightening (or loosening) the spoke(s) at the center of the worst part most, then tightening (or loosening) the spokes on either side fanning outwards in decreasing amounts.  This also helps to keep spoke to spoke tension closer, which is a good thing for whele longevity.  You can also tighten one side and loosen the other at the same time, but again, for now, let’s focus on tightening.  

This solely depends on two things - how tight/tensioned the spokes and the overall wheel already are, and to a lesser degree, the DS of the wheel which gets higher final tension will tend to have more effect on a nearly-tensioned wheel than the NDS.  The actual angles formed by each side of the spokes and hub, and their relationship to each other, determine how much difference there is, but it’s not uncommon to see 1/2 turn on the NDS be equivalent to 1/3rd of a turn on the DS for trueing effect.  

For now, we’ll keep it simple and assume your ‘units of measure’ are either 1/2 turn or 1/4 turn.  When the wheel is under final tensioning, we’re unlikely to even use 1/2 turns at all, but for now, let’s use 1/2 turn or 1/4 turn only.  

This may take a bit of effort the first few times, but you’ll get a feel for it over time.  Find the largest issue area, correct it slowly, then locate the next one, generally moving the caliper or guide inwards as you progress.  Don’t worry if the first few attempts you make it worse, just go slow and undo the changes just made ‘between the tape flags’ (remember I said to mark the area for any issue spanning multiple spokes?), and try again, maybe moving down to 1/4 turn increments.  Remember if using a nipple driver or nipple wrench instead of a spoke key/wrench, it’s clockwise to tighten, but vice versa if using a spoke key/wrench.  

Go around the wheel until within 1mm or so on both sides focusing on the worst side to start will help to get this done, then switch the caliper to the other side, flip the wheel in the stand or engage the caliper for the other side until done, then - let’s move on!

Radial Trueness

Now we want to get the radial trueness within 1mm or so, which is done similarly to the lateral truing in the previous step, but tightening and/or loosening isn’t focused mostly on spokes on the same hub flange, but independent of the flange in order to move a section of the rim ‘up’ (from the caliper)/towards the hub by tightening spoke(s), or letting it move ‘down’/away from the hub by loosening.  Unlike for lateral trueness where you are generally working on spokes on a single side (or in some cases of larger variances, tightening muliple on one side and loosening on the other), radial trueness involves adjustments to spokes on both sides of the dip or high spot.  Due to the tension differences in DS vs NDS sides, you may need to tighten the NDS spokes slightly less than the DS spokes by a fractional amount.

Remember to go slowly, again using 1/2 or 1/4 turns, and attack the largest issues first, move the caliper(s) or guide to just touch/tap the rim, correct the issue by tightening one or more spokes (feathering still applies here as well for larger issues).  if you have a flat spot pulling away from the caliper or guide, loosen the spokes, if you have a dip tapping the caliper or guide, tighten them until within 1mm or less.

Tension Equalization

If you have a tensionmeter, use it, starting on one side (let’s start on the right - making sure the higher tension side/DS in mounted on the right hand side of the truing stand), and measuring 2 inches or so down from the spoke nipple, record your value from the tensionmeter (lookup and conversion not needed; the WTA will do it for you), and then go clockwise or counter-clockwise and measure the next, record, and cotninue until you’ve measured all spokes on that side.  Repeat for the left side spokes, then hit ‘update’ and the graphs will be drawn, along with a callout for anywhere out of the selected tolerance.  To match up more easily with the drawn graphs, I use my guide/key spoke as spoke 1 on the right, and then go clockwise so the graph can be directly referenced to my wheel.

If you don’t have a tensionmeter, you can go by sound as mentioned - pluck around the wheel spokes on one side to get an idea of the ‘average tone,’ then pluck a spoke and compare to it’s neighbors on either side.  A lower tension spoke will have a deeper, duller sound while higher tension will have a higher pitched sound.  

Regardless of method, go around the wheel a couple of times, and look to match tone reasonably closely, or get within 10-20% of measured converted values, again looking primarily to correct for the big spikes or dips, and recall that after tighening one, you may need to adjust it’s neighbors as well.  

Don’t obsess  on this, but do go slowly and consider what changes you are making - you don’t want to end up just ‘moving the spikes’ around the wheel; very often it’s a combination of small changes across 3 spokes, a larger change in the center, then smaller changes on it’s outer neighbors (on the same side).  Use 1/8th and 1/4 turn changes here.  If you find a low tension spoke, try raising it 1/4 and lowering it’s pair of neighbors by 1/8th, and re-measure.  If you find a high tension spoke, try lowering it by 1/4 and raising it’s pair of neighbors by 1/8th, and re-measure.

If using a tensionmeter, I usually set my allowed variance to 10% here and at future measurements.  

Once done or calling it ‘good enough,’ do another quick check for lateral and radial trueness - if you did the spoke equalization well by distributing the change across more than single spokes, you shouldn’t need much correction and can use 1/4 turns for these minor corrections.

Wheel dish

This one can confuse some people, but our ‘trick’ on squeezing a pair of spokes on one side to see which way the rim moves - can help here as well.  If you have a gap on one side of the wheel, you need to tighten the spokes on the opposite side to close the gap.

The amount the rim needs to move over is 1/2 the size of the gap.  You can keep the dishing tool on the wheel on the side with the gap, and grab a pair of spokes on the opposite side to squeeze them if you need a sanity check as to which side needs to be tightened.  

Of course, you can also loosen the ‘gap side’ to correct dishes in some cases, but as we’re not yet dealing with a fully tensioned wheel, we’ll go ahead and tighten the other side instead.  It’s common to have anywhere from 1mm to a few/even 5mm dish at this point, and it’s ok - we have mostly evenly threaded spokes at this point, with fairly close tension levels across spokes on each of the two sides, but this is where differences in spoke lengths across sides, e.g. 273.8mm for the right, and 273.1mm on the left, can lead to having a dish at this point in the build.  So, we’ll start at the valve stem and going in one direction, tighten the side opposite the gap - tighten in small increments of 1/2 and 1/4 turns, equally, across every spoke on the non-gap side until you make it back to the valve stem hole.  In a way, this is really ‘taking up the extra slack’ due to differences in spoke lengths and hub geometry side to side.  Measure again after one time around, and continue if needed.  In some cases, you may have gone too far, and the ‘gap side’ of the wheel now has a ‘negative gap’ and can’t touch all 3 points of contact on the tool.  If this is the case, reset the tool on the other side of the wheel, check the gap, then tighten in smaller than previous increments ‘on the other side of the gap’ until dished equally/centered across both sides.  Ideally we’ll keep this to within 1mm variance, as even that 1mm is really split across both sides when mounted to 1/2mm off ‘per side’ which is fine.  

Wheel Stressing

No joke - we’re almost there.  You should now have a wheel or multiple wheels that are laterally and radially true, dished/centered properly at this point, with some base amounts of tension in the spokes and no slack spokes.  

Before we continue, we want to ‘stress’ the wheel a bit, or in reality - stress-relieving of the components, which will help to do some ‘final alignment’ of the spoke heads, nipple to rim positioning, and also helps a bit with spoke and spoke elbow fatigue.  We’ll do this a few times as we progress through final tensioning, and the intial couple of times may have some minor impact on lateral or even radial trueness, but we’ll look for and correct those as we go.  

There are a few ways to do this - from putting the wheel down flat (if you do this, support the hub caps with soft material or even a 2x4 with a hole to not put pressure on the hub endcaps!) and leaning on all of the spokes, then flipping and repeating, with some even standing on the wheel - again, see comment about not putting pressure on the hub end caps, as you can technically damage the bearings, or the same idea but leaning on different areas of the rim and them flipping and repeating, or, well, you can use your hands, preferably with some canvas or leather gloves.  You’ll wind up with your preference over time, but do note the warning about potentially damaging the hub by putting too much uneven pressure or putting all of the pressure on the end caps.  These methods can be done safely, but do require proper support of the hub so the hub flange and not the end caps are what the pressure is being (evenly/equally) distributed against.  YMMV.  

Unless you had a bunch of spokes sitting at really odd angles, this shouldn’t require major adjustments, probably using a very small number of  1/8th and 1/4 turn adjustments.  Note you make hear some tinkling or pinging sounds when stress relieving - this is ok, as it’s forcing any twisted spokes to unwind, although it’s more likely to occur as we put more tension on the wheels, and if using ‘spoke flags’ at final tightening(covered shortly), the sounds should be minimal.

You want to get the lateral and radial trueness as good as you can as we’re about to move on to final tensioning, which at least initially, will be moving all spokes the same number of threads.  Our final goals are to keep the wheel’s lateral true within 0.2mm, radial true at or below 0.5mm, and dish within 1mm, ideally but not always possible to have each side’s spokes at within 10% tension.  We’ll have some more opportunity for fine-tuning, but the higher the wheel tension gets, the more involved it can become to make larger corrections, so try to get these 3 as close as possible, and in general - check and correct in the same order; laterally, then radially, then dish adjustment if required (although it’s very unlikely for dish to have moved at this point).

Final Tensioning

For now, simply be aware. As we tighten the wheel, you can keep a finger on the spoke being tightened, and once you feel a spoke rotating or making sounds when tightening, tear off a small bit of painters tape, put it on the spoke (I usually set mine to 90*/perpendicular to the wheel face), and do your tightening amount on that spoke - watch the ‘flag’ rotation, go ahead and do your planned amount of turn (e.g. 1/2 or 1/4) but watch the flag, and if it ends in a more clockwise (looking from the top of the rim, assuming you are tightening spokes up top), you’ll want to then back off (and note how far you back off) until the flag is back in it’s original position. Alternately, you can also go a bit beyond your prescribed 1/2 or 1/4 turn to compensate for the twist, then back off, again ensuring the flag is then pointing in the same direction. If you’re building with bladed spokes, it’s pretty much a requirement to use a special tool that holds the spoke blades to prevent spoke damage and excessive twisting. There are also some ‘spoke pliers’ available intended to hold a spoke tight without damanging the finish - it may become more ‘required’ doing straight-pull spokes. I have a pair but haven’t needed to use them so far.. IMO, they’re not required with good quality components and good practices, at least for J-bend spoke wheel builds.

When you do start to see spoke windup/twist, it’s important you continue to be consistent in applying the same effective amount of turn/threading per spoke - once the spoke is rotating or twisting, however far the spoke twists is not tightening the spoke at all for that amount of rotation, it’s just locked to the nipple anmd rotating along with it.  Thus the importance of noting how much you’re backing off to get the flag pointing back to the same spot/un-winding the spoke.  If spoke twist is not addressed during the wheel build, the first rides will likely lead to various sounds from the wheels - pinging and twanging, tinkling sounds, as the spokes will find their own way to adjust and unwind themselves, which may lead to bring the wheel a bit out of true.  So, we’ll just deal with it and adjust for it properly as we go.

It’s worth using a flag on a spoke or two as we get started, just to confirm IF you already have any spoke twist.  Once you start to see, feel or hear it, you can move the flag around from spoke to spoke - generally spokes close to each other will tend to have similar twists at the same tension, but not ‘wrapping’ the flag around the spoke and just attaching it on the flat makes it easy enough to brg the ’spoke flag’ with you from spoke to spoke.

One last minor detail and we’re off - I like to go ahead and add a small drop of lube to each spoke nipple at the head inside the rim before final tensioning. It’s not mandatory and may be un-nescessary, but the longer we can go prior to hitting windup, the smoother things go. Of course, if you’re using a spoke prep or locking compound, don’t do it, or use the same thing as your prep. YMMV, but I just use lube.

We’re going to go around the wheel starting and ending at the valve stem hole or guide spoke, turning each spoke in turn a fixed amount, de-stress the wheel, then check and correct for lateral trueness (it’s unlikely to see radial trueness waver at this point uless you have spokes tightened unequally, but you can/should sanity check it regardless).

Also, for dished wheels (nearly all modern wheels and certainly for disc brake multi-speed wheels), the DS (cassette side in rear and the disc side up front), the higher tension (DS) side and lower tension (NDS) will wind up at different tensions (and need to), depending on their relative spoke angles - this means in reality there will be a point where you may, for example, turn the DS side spokes 1/2 turn and the NDS side spokes slightly less, perhaps 3/8 of a turn.

There’s a bit of leeway here, as well as experience and spoke lengths coming into play. If you have a tensionmeter or a ‘comparison wheel’ to judge tension on, you may have a better idea of how much more tightening is required.

Back to the wheel.  I’ll do a round of half turns on all of the ‘high side’/DS spokes only, starting ad the valve stem hole and working clockwise, pulling the wheel ‘down’ towards me, and keeping a finger on each spoke, both as a mental check that I’m in fact tightening the right side spokes only first, and to also start to get a feel for how much tension is being added by the half turn, and finally to be able to start to feel when spoke twist may be starting or getting ready to.  After that, I’ll do around 3/8 or 7/16th (a half turn minus a small amount) on the left/NDS spokes, starting at the valve stem.  Then let’s spin the wheel slowly, and check for lateral and radial trueness.  We also want to confirm the dish remains centered - if not, we may have turned the low/NDS spokes too little (if dished to the right/DS) or too much(dished to the left/NDS) and will want to adjust how much we turn that side on the next round.  

Go ahead and stress relieve the wheel again, then we’ll check and adjust any trueness and dish adjustments now, then go ahead and get a few spoke tension readings on the DS (or compare to a known properly tensioned wheel).  We’ll repeat this process until we’re closing in on target tension and then make smaller incremental adjustments (e.g. 1/4 turn then even 1/8th turns per spoke), or until we start to feel or hear spoke twist, and then we’ll use the ‘flag’ method to add into the mix, turning our amount + the amount the flag rotates, then unwind so the effective threading with the spoke unwound again was our target (1/2 turn, 1/4, …).  Check trueness and dish after each round of githening DS, then NDS spokes, in one full trip around the wheel.  If you had to adjust the NDS side turns to be more or less due to the wheel dishing, assuming you adjusted in the right amount dish shouldn’t be changing after the first 1 or 2 times around the wheel.

If you literally have no proper wheel to use for comparison, and no tensionmeter or a way to borrow one, you can use the aforementioned ‘trick,’ keep going until you are seeing spoke twist to 1/4-1/3rd of a turn or so, making sure you unwind it to no twist, and call that tension level good o nthe high side.  This is still done regardless in increments of one trip around the wheel from valve stem tightening DS spokes, then NDS spokes, then checking trueness and dish, and repeating.

In the case of this particular wheelset, I think I wound up in total adding another 2-3 turns in total in getting to final tension, and brought the spoke tension variance below 10%.  I keep using the ‘from the top’ spoke driver for as long as possible, only transitioning to spoke wrench (remember it may feel ‘reversed’ when switching for tighten/loosen directions!) on the last round of tensioning (1/8th turns) and final trueing check.  

As you’re tensioning, if your spokes are on the longer side, and depending on your choice of spoke nipples, the spokes may start to come up to and through the slot of normal nipples - this is ok, although it generally means your spokes were a bit longer than they should be, and there are limits as as some point you will run out of spoke threads, and continuing to screw in beyond that point will start to ‘dull’/damage the lower threads of the spoke nipple (brass and aluminum as much softer than the steel).  Squorx nipples have an additional 3mm of thread above the head where the squorx/Torx head is, and can generally be screwed in to just below the top of the head before the spoke threads bottom out.  One or two turns past may not be too detrimental, but you are reducing spoke thread engagement and strength at that point - if it’s more, it may be time to consider ordering shorter spokes, or alternately, you can consider adding washers under the spoke head (making sure they match the rim bed, e.g. don’t use curved washers on a flat rim/spoke nipple bed).  

If your spokes are too short, you may be able to use a driver for more of the process, but you do want to make sure the spoke threads at the very least make it through the rim into the spoke nipple head, or wheel stresses may cause nipple and/or spoke breakage over time.  You can also concisder going to different spoke nipple lengths if your spokes are a bit short, but note there are differences between e.g. 16mm DT Swiss and Spim spoke nipples - Sapims will let you run slightly shorter spokes, or compansate for them while DT’s don’t.  Regardless, it’s not really ideal if the spoke thread end isn’t at least making it into the rim bed.

Finishing the wheel