The end of the wheel log
Is it really the end of the wheel log?
It has been almost two years since I began logging all of the wheels that I build and updating my blog on a regular basis to show the most recent set of wheels. The format has been to show a picture with a short technical description. But during the summer of 2009 I began to get more than a little bit behind and then I began to wonder if it was worth doing at all. There were two factors involved: the time it took to place them into my blog and noticing that there were duplicate sets of wheels cropping up.
When I first began to build wheels I didn’t keep any records at all. Then I thought that it would be interesting to see how many I had built that year and also have a reference to the technical specifications of particular wheel sets. I also wanted to share this with other wheel builders, especially the spoke lengths. They could see a set that had been built using a particular length then they could be pretty sure that it would work for them too.
But I feel that there is now a wealth of pictures and descriptions to help many a build and I don’t feel that I need to keep count any longer. Along with the blog entries I was also maintaining a spreadsheet which held the same information but some extra details such as the name of the client. I won’t be maintaining this either. Even though I could simply look up he spoke length required for a current build from a previous build, I still tend fire up spocalc and work them out again.
So what happens now?
It is not the end. What I will do is to continue to add entries into the wheel log section of the blog but only when I think that the entry would be a noteworthy one. Something special such as very small wheels, odd patterns or something a bit tricky. There are also quite a few queued up to be entered for 2009. I will enter some of those but not all.
I would like to thank all those that have written to me and told me how useful they have found the wheel log to be and all the previous entries will be maintained. If you have any particular requests or suggestions then do let me know.