TIL a shop owner in Tucson said my wheel builds were 'too pretty' and it changed how I true
So about 6 months back I brought a set of wheels I laced to a guy in Tucson who runs a small shop, and he looked at them for maybe 30 seconds before saying 'these are too pretty, you're stressing the spokes to make them look even.' I was kind of annoyed at first since I've built maybe 200 wheels and nobody ever complained. But he grabbed a tension meter and showed me the drive side was all over the place, some spokes at 110 kgf and some at 145, just because I was chasing a perfect visual line at the rim. The tension being uneven like that means the wheel goes soft after a few hundred miles and you're back truing it. So now I set tension first with the meter, hit my numbers, and only then look at the visual. Takes me about 20 extra minutes per wheel but the last 15 sets I did have not come back once. My question for you all is where do you draw the line, do you go by feel and sound, or do you trust the meter over your own eyes?