Will these rims true up? Question for the wheel builders...

[Jonny69]

Hiya folks. I won some ridiculously hard to find '90s Rigida rims on eBay from a French seller. Not expensive, but not cheap. However, one of them has a bit of a warp on it and I'd thought I'd ask on here if it'll pull up true when I build it up.

If I lay the rim on another wheel that I know is true and straight it's got a bow in it almost directly across the middle. There's no noticeable bend anywhere but the whole rim is warped. It sits on two spots a few spoke holes round from the valve hole and the two opposite spots sit proud. I took a couple of pics to show you:

(hmm, spotted an unrelated ding there as well)

The two opposite sides are about 4mm off the surface and I can pull them down with my thumbs quite easily. Do you think this will pull up nice and straight once it's got spokes on it? I'm not keen to send them back because it was a seller from abroad and I've struggled to find them. I'm also thinking in the past I've built some pretty straight wheels out of what were quite mangled chrome steel rims.

 

[keithglos]

Jonny, I think you should get away with it, looks like a 36, not ideal, but tighten down very gently, and bear in mind you are only using the inner surface of the rim to support the spokes. If its a pair of 36's use this on the front. You may be able to over tighten a bit temporarily in the respective places to pull it back further, then retrue and retension.
In the 60's I would have replaced the rim though.

 

[Simon Daw]

Yes, I agree - it should be okay. I'd second the idea of using it on the front, and of not being too vicious with the spoke key - they were not renowned as the most resistant rims when it came to splitting, although they were probably rather better in that respect than the single-eyelet versions of Mavic's rims from the same period.

Good luck!

 

[Jonny69]

Excellent. Thanks for the tips on the spoke tension and tip to use it on the front. I will do that

 

[Goldie]

What are you cooking up, Johnny?

 

[Jonny69]

They are the same as the rims on my 531 Raleigh that I ride most days. Nice bullet shaped profile, but I've never seen another pair until now, so I thought I'd stash some spares!