Just want to give a big thumbs up to Chris at the Devon Rim Company !
This time I ordered the Valtru variant, according to their website same quality but not so very polished as the Rolltru type, but cheaper (important for cloggies).
I ordered two specials for my ISDT replica Ariel, a 21" WM1 front and a 19" WM3 rear, both not standard in their list so they had to do one-off's .
Ordered last tuesday the 19th of november and today 22 nov. they arrived !
They are perfect, good stuff, good company.
But I suspect the spokes are not as per Ariel specification in terms of butting and head angle.
Paul Jameson
35 LG (project), 37 RH500, 52 ex ISDT KHA, 54 KH(A), 75 Healey 1000/4.
Former Machine Registrar & Archivist, General Secretary and Single Spares Organiser (over a 25 year period).
Now Archivist (but not Machine Registrar), Gauges and Clocks Spares Organiser.
The Devon Rim Company rims are looking great, I did fit them also on my 1952 KH.
Can't tell about their spokes, as I fitted spokes which where made over here in Holland.
I agree that the valtru rims are good, and excellent value. I haven’t had great luck with their spokes though, I kept getting them snap at the bend. They seem much better now, but the newer ones were from central wheel.
Rob Jameson
AOMCC Member Number 4068
1957 Ariel VH
1954 Ariel KH
1948 Ariel 4G with 1920's Ariel Sidecar/Triumph Chassis
AOMCC Twin Spares Organiser
'55 Huntmaster, '56 VH, ' 51 VH, '62 Arrow, '80 R100RT, '00 Sprint ST (now with a new Arrow project, and just now those 4-stroke Ariel parts can't even make one running bike...)
I've only had one 'Valtru' rim (for a Matchless, actually) which I bought via Ebay when Ebay had a discount voucher offer.
The finish was as expected. Not as shiny as the polished ones, but also quite yellow in appearance, compared with other stainless rims I have had including from Central wheels and other UK parts sellers supplying Indian rims.
My main concern was when lacing the 'Valtru' rim. I have built quite a few spoked wheels, but I have never had such difficulty in truing a wheel. Generally, any wheel rim will tend to have a small deformation where it is welded together. This usually results in the width of the well being 'pinched' inwards by a few thou. Nothing that you would see in use, but it causes the dial gauge to 'kick' as the wheel is rotated.
This is easy enough to accommodate when truing the wheel.
However, the 'Valtru' caused the dial gauge to go all over the place. I used a digital caliper across the external width of the rim in several locations around the circumference. The welded area was found to be 'pinched' but as stated earlier, this is not a problem. The real issue was that the width varied by 10 thou or so in various locations around the rim. There were only short sections where the edge of the rim ran 'tru.'
I managed to finish the wheel by taking average measurements and a lot of eyeballing. It probably took me twice as long as any other wheel I have built. (Doubtless a professional wheel builder would have had less difficulty.)
Perhaps I was unlucky with the 'Valtru' rim, or maybe I have been very lucky with all the other rims (new, used, stainless, chrome) that I have had. I did not try to send the 'Valtru' rim back because some months had elapsed between my buying it and actually building the wheel. I am sure that DRC would have responded positively if I had notified them shortly after receiving the rim, so maybe I made a rod for my own back, so to speak.
I have fitted a lot of Devon Rim full price rims and they are absolutely excellent without exception. However, when I have asked for spokes which match the specifications in the Ariel parts lists I have been told that they only supply spokes to their own specification - which can and frequently do differ from the Ariel specification. Whilst I am aware of one Ariel parts list specification error, (fixed rigid rear wheel, 1948 Square Four), on the whole, I retain the view that Ariel knew more about the best specifications for their spokes than a modern supplier ever can do.
I have had a telephone discussion with Devon Rim's manager (who had bought the business a relatively short time beforehand) on the discrepancies between Ariel spoke specification and Devon Rim spoke specification. It was made entirely clear to me that, in his view, Devon knew far more about spokes than Ariel had ever done.
So, I buy my rims from Devon, but my spokes from Central Wheel who willingly supply spokes to whatever specification I want - which is Ariel specification.
Paul Jameson
35 LG (project), 37 RH500, 52 ex ISDT KHA, 54 KH(A), 75 Healey 1000/4.
Former Machine Registrar & Archivist, General Secretary and Single Spares Organiser (over a 25 year period).
Now Archivist (but not Machine Registrar), Gauges and Clocks Spares Organiser.
Ive pulled down various brands of bike wheels ,and noticed the spoke lengths fitted in the wheels never correspond to the lengths listed in parts books......I put this down to respoking being done over the years...........I would never use dial gauge to check a wheel,bit of boilermakers chalk in a holder is good enough for me....even the factories used pointers ,never dial gauges.
