Would you be interested in having your wheels built for free?

[Spoked Wheels]

Disclaimers, as the saying goes, aren't worth the paper they are written on! I am not trying to be a doom monger and the likelyhood of anything going wrong is slim but I just wanted to make sure you considered this before the situation arose rather than after. Of couse you could just hope for the best and ignore the issue all together, I'm sure there are many commercial ventures that do.

Liability insurance is a huge grey area and a minefield. I had my own business for 13yrs and had public and employers liability insurance for around half that time. The certificates of insurance were very impressive and contained many zeros, they were a requirement to even get your foot in the door as a contractor for some of the large PLCs I did work for but at the end of the day what were they worth?

Every year I would phone around the insurance companies and give them a description of the type of work I did and the mix of customers I had and they would shuffle me into an appropriate slot and give me a quote accordingly. My business was transport, deliveries and office relocation. My work was about as varied as you could possibly imagine. Suppose I was working at a property and there was a loose floorboard, right in the doorway where we all kept tripping over it. To prevent an accident I use my cordless screwdriver that is normally used for assembling office furniture and put a spare screw in the floorboard, job done and everyone is saved a nasty fall. After I leave the premises it burns down, it turns out I put the screw through a wire. Not to worry my liability insurance covers me up to 2 million pounds so it's all ok right? Well, what happens when the insurance company turns around and says "Building repairs? You never mentioned building repairs. Sorry, no cover!".

How many insurance policies will just give liability cover for any eventuality? All my customers wanted was to see a certificate with the company name on, the 'liability' word and the correct number of zeros. I had to trust that my insurer had given me the right cover as I couldn't possibly ask specifically if 101 plausible accidents and situations would be covered, I just hoped they were.

You have a few options.

• One is to just hope for the best as you are unlikely to ever be in a situation that makes you liable in a big way.
• Second is to buy insurance and hope it gives the cover you require.
• Third is to give up on the idea and just stick to doing this by word of mouth for friends that you know, after all it's not a money making project so why would you risk exposing yourself to a situation where you could lose everything you have?

Skol, I think you are right on the money there. You buy insurance thinking you are covered and then it turns out you are not.

Last winter a very good friend of mine had his car written off by a tree falling on top of it. When the insurance company inspected the car they said "what is that writing on the car" and he said "oh, it just a campaign and taking part and that is just to promote the campaign" - they turned down the claim because my friend did not inform the insurance company of the modification to the car!!!!! So, I have no faith in insurance companies to say the least.

I've done some research on the matter this morning and the two people I spoke to they don't have insurance. One raised the question if car mechanics do have insurance for the work they do so I called my mechanic and he said he has insurance for people working in the garage, and for mechanics testing vehicles out on the road. He said that as far as he knows garages don't use that kind of insurances. He asked what I was trying to do so I explained and he said that if everybody that makes wheels had to have insurance the price of building a wheel would not be £40 but more like £140.

I wonder if anybody here has ever claimed against their LBS for any work they have done that resulted in an accident.

SKOL, you are scaring me although I remain confident that the wheels I build would be as safe as the wheels you get from any reputable wheel builder. If I had the slightest of doubts I would not offer the service. Who would not mind having an accident in their conscience? Not me, that's for sure.

You are most likely right, but what a world it is where you can't offer to build a wheel for someone for cost as a favour without the fear of getting your ass sued !

More or less what my mechanic said to me today

 

[400bhp]

You are most likely right, but what a world it is where you can't offer to build a wheel for someone for cost as a favour without the fear of getting your ass sued !

I know

My profession means that I have to be very very careful about giving "advice" on finance to anyone, be that close family or whatever

 

[Spoked Wheels]

The postage is going to be a problem. Packing the wheel securely takes ages and then you have to take it down the PO who will keep you waiting for 10 minutes and charge you £12 at the very least.

You can use an alternative delivery service but if there's no-one home the self-employed delivery guy slings it over the back fence and pushes a note through the door (If you are lucky).

Personally i would look into the murky world of rim strengths and spoke tensions which is the real key to a good wheel and then offer to build wheels for a local racer or two.

I no longer use parcelforce for my own stuff so I get my parcels picked up from home. 99% of the times there's somebody at home but you are right, it could be a pain to pack wheels properly. I will have to see how that works and see if it is something I'm prepared to do time and time again.

Certainly, stressing the spokes, correct spoke tension and perhaps even more important is even spoke tension are crucial key features of any good wheel. I have a spoke tensiometer that I use to check the final tension but my most trusted tool is a pair of good big ears - Roger Musson encourages people to true by tone and perhaps that is the single most important talent that I have and I have learnt to use it to build wheels.

Some people like to make wheel building seem like it is a very difficult task. If I were to compare furniture making or shoe making with wheel building then I can assure you that wheel building is nowhere as difficult and by a long distance. With wheel building you can go back one, two stages or all the way to the beginning if you are not happy with your result.

What is actually wheel building? The first part is simply assembly (lacing the wheel) and anyone can follow a book to achieve that if you like. Of course, after a few times you don't need to look at any book to lace a wheel. Other patterns, 3x, 4x, 2x, are all related. If you have the correct components then radial is easier than the others mentioned. After the assembly, there is a short phase that could not be simpler which is removing the slack on the spokes, I personally take this phase a little further so that I can get a tone out of the spoke. Then it's a repetitive phase where you add tension, stress the spokes, true the wheel, dish the wheel, equalise the tension and so on until the wheel reaches a stable stage where stressing the spokes does not affect the lateral trueness nor the roundness of the wheel, the spokes have the correct tension for the type of spokes and most importantly the tension is constant across the wheel ( the dishing of the wheel dictates which side of the wheel has higher tension) - that's all there is to it. There's no room for adding any artistic talent. Just ask yourself, how many people have built their own wheels? Lots, so it can't be that difficult, can it? Of course there are many people that have tried and failed too, so, not a difficult task but not everybody can do it hence the need for wheelbuilders I guess.

What I have just described is not the only way - there are many ways to achieve the same end. A friend of my said "equalised the spokes thread" as the first step. I made myself a spoke driver like the one Roger Moss suggests to make so the tool equalises the spoke while I remove the slack. so, as they say, there are many ways to skin a cat but the import thing to remember is that the wheel has the correct tension, even tension and the spokes have been stressed during the building process.

For me it's far more difficult to advise somebody what components to get for a 1.5kg wheelset - I don't know all the components out there and to be honest I have very little interest in that, that is not my hobby - with regards to rims, most rims are very strong nowadays one has to remember that light rims, few spokes and heavy riders don't mix very well . There are a few other situations when it's no a good idea to mix components but those are very few cases.

 

[ianrauk]

Just had some handbuilts delivered.
The invoice comes with this disclaimer. Plain, simple and clear. So perhaps something you can adapt and use @RRSODL

****** Wheels is not responsible for any personal injury occurred while using this wheel or wheel set. These wheel(s) are made to a requested specification. measures are taken to reduce the likelihood of their failure and advice will be given as to their appropriateness for their intended function. However their integrity is not guaranteed and they are to be used at the owners risk. Regular maintenance is always recommended with any mechanical object particularly if that object's integrity carries a risk to personal safety. In particular, checks for cracks in components, loss of spoke tension, loss of wheel trueness and bearing integrity should be carried out regularly.

 

[Spoked Wheels]

Thanks Ian, that sounds good to me. I think it should go in the OP as there would not be an invoice to pay.

Cheers Ian for editing my OP

 

[Garz]

You are most likely right, but what a world it is where you can't offer to build a wheel for someone for cost as a favour without the fear of getting your ass sued !

I tend to agree here. I'm sure other wheelbuilders and shops would be bankrupt or in prison if it is that bad. I am sure there are enough CC readers that can press their lawyer comrades or F&F members to smooth this one out.

 

[BigonaBianchi]

Seems to me it's a good idea/gesture...and as is pretty typical of the UK there are many reasons why somebody can't do something and the reasons why they can get squashed under a heap of paperwork and rules.

Surely the disclaimer is enough??

 

[Spoked Wheels]

Well, I have looked at a few websites and none of these wheel builders claim to have insurance cover. So a disclaimer will have to do and I'll make sure I don't agree to build any silly configuration

I have given it some thoughts and I'm convinced there is where the risk of a wheel failing badly is, light rims with few spokes and heavy rider.