Topic: XS650 rim to CB350F rear hub woes

[73CB350f]

I'm building a set of wheel for my 73 CB350F and having a bit of trouble.  I'm using stock spokes and the shouldered aluminum XS650 rims from Mikes XS.  Front wheel laced up fine but I'm having some trouble with the rear.  The inner spokes are too long and the nipples run out of thread before they seat.  The outer spokes are too short and some of them need to bend before they line up with the nipples, and even then they only have a few turns before the nipples are seated.  The spokes should all be the same length, and I know that these rims have worked for others before, so I dont know why they're ending up either way too long or short when laced up.

Any suggestions what I might be doing wrong?  I've checked and re-laced these several times and always end up in the same situation.

[grcamna2]

are they both identical rims ? the same drilling for the spokes ? That happened once to me,so I started over while being sure that I began correctly.I laced one to a 75' RD350 and I remember that it took a LOT of threading in the spoke nipples(make sure you thread all the spoke nipples in equally one at a time) on the 1st side of spokes to where they almost ran out of threads.I think spoke length may have been a problem for me as I had to file down a bunch of them when finished.I should have calculated for the correct spoke length,but I was just trying to get it done at the time.

[73CB350f]

same rims, just different widths.  tried lacing one side backwards (european style i think?), went together with less bending but still ended up with long and short spokes

[bryanj]

If you are getting long and short spokes is possible it's not laced right, check against another wheel

[grcamna2]

I like to break down only one wheel at a time for just that reason.