Unfortunately you assume that everyone has your technical ability. You are very lucky. Most people work to their own abilities. I personally could do most of which you refer too but where would I put all the equipment.
Back when these bikes were new and particularly when they were sold off post war, money was tight and dad did all of the work on his bike, usually in the street or perhaps in the luxury of the laundry shed where a least it was dry & the copper could be fired up to keep it warm enough to work in winter wearing only a surplus great coat for warmth..
Now there working class men ( and women ) generally had a very basic education and few of them were geniuses.
MY dad fixed all of our shoes, heels soles & even stitching, did all of the plumbing, drainage & sewerage required on the house and built 3 rooms in brick on the back after excavating 30 tons of sand stone with nothing more than a spud bar, star drill & mash hammer.
HE did all of the electric wiring, fixed the gas stove & occasionally the vacuum cleaner & fridge.
He built nearly all of the furnature ( it was all wonky but it worked ) and would occasionally tackle the TV.
And dad was as thick as two short planks, left school at 8 so had no formal education to speak of, enlisted in the first call up but was considered too physically poor ( bad eyes & poor hearing ) to be sent overseas so spent 5 years in the kitchens where he learned no transferrable skills, apart from how to bake 2000 bread rolls and to peel potatoes when 1/2 boiled and the skins fall off.
Now days we have been brainwashed that everything apart from wiping our bums is a specialist job that requires a graduate with 20 years experience
There is nothing difficult about lacing a wheel and there are hundreds of You tube videos of how to do it.
Now it might take 9 attempts before you get it right but that is what learning on the job is all about.
And like dad I do all of the wiring in the house which was funny because down here you have to get the wiring certified before you can sell a house.
The electrician turned around to SWMBO and said "your hubby did this house didn't he "
She claimed not to know and asked what needed to be done
"absolutely nothing" he said, " I have not seen wiring done this well since I finished my apprenticeship in 1962"
My only tip is some thing a friend brother showed me when I was in primary school and had to put a new rim on my pushbike.
He ran some masking tape around both sides of the dimples on the wheel before we pulled it apart and numbered all the holes
1a, 1b , 1c, 1d, 2a 2b 2c 2d and so on as the lacing pattern repeated itself every 4th spoke.
So if the rim is still spoked do that and start from the valve hole then pull the tape off & transfer it to the new rim .
I have found it a whole lot easier to hang the rim from the cloths line then work fore forward & backwards remembering the spokes that cross over inside need to go in first .
Mark the hub with a rotation arrow.
I rather like Jans job with the coloured lines so perhaps photograph your wheel from each side then over mark each type in a different colour
Trevor, I would have LOVED to meet your dad! I hope he also taught you.
email (option): britool51@hotmail.com
Hi Ian, One learns by studying and doing. Yes, I'm an engineer, but, and you are right, some things do come easily to me.
My take is still this, Nothing ventured, nothing gained. The equipment doesn't take that much room either.
I hope others will take a stab at doing it him/herself. It's like asking that gorgeous girl out back in our school days.
If you don't ask, the answer is NO! If you do, it's 50/50 odds. So, nothing ventured, nothing gained.
My Division Officer in the Navy said if you do not learn something everyday, you might be dead!
Have fun mate.
email (option): britool51@hotmail.com
Hi Robb. I agree that you can learn a lot by watching and studying. That's how I learnt about cars and bikes. I learnt a lot from my father, but not about motors which he knew nothing. I did spend 26 years as an AA patrolman and I am like a lot on this site old school, so will turn my hand to most things. Some people do not have the aptitude to do what we do and allowances have to be made for that. I have learnt a lot since coming on this site.
I doubt that many wheelbuilders would be able to stay in business if they were only component retailers, added to which they would have far less practical knowledge of the products that they sell.
I certainly don't feel guilty about supporting tradesmen in the knowledge that they will provide quality work and advice.
Things can and do go wrong and some of the parts that we're working with are quite hard to find....Better in my opinion to find one's own comfort zone and expand accordingly...Not to assume that just because someone on the internet says that it's not difficult, it truly isn't.
Have a walk along a row of disc-braked Norton Commandos and see how few have managed to centre the front rim as it should be. They're a sod of a job quite frankly and one has to know one's limits.
Done methodically and with spokes of the correct type, wheel building isn't a black art....but if spokes are the wrong length or wrong head angle, or perhaps most commonly, incorrectly pierced rims are supplied then the result can be downright dangerous if the necessary skills aren't available.
And yes I did learn a lot from him
By far the most important thing was to remember WHY you are doing anything and IF it really needs to be done.
Dad had bad eyes so nothing was ever square or true.
The bricks were anything but in strait lines , but the doors & window opened & closed, the taps did not leak and neither did the roof ( eventually ) and the drains did just that drained so the rooms served their purpose for 40 years .
And I might add that everything apart from the sand & cement was bought used.
And even than he got "seconds" cement that had gotten damp so we had to break it all up & seive it before we poured the concrete floors and mixed the mortar for the brick work.
We spent forever cleaning mortar from the used bricks and nails from the hardwood timbers .
I see modern houses being built 4 times the size of the house we used to live in and sold on the "WOW" factor as it the most important thing is to impress you friends and make your relations envious.
Then they complain that they have no money to persue hobbies cause the house is eating up 75% of their combined incomes , but that is OK because it will be worth a fortune some day just so long as they do a make over every 5 years and keep filling it with ever enlarging TV sets & louder home theater sets.
But getting back to motorcycles
I own BSA's because I like riding them so I am more than contented to have a frame with a little paint run, a scratch or two in the body paint, stone chips in the paint on the girders and even the little buckle in the rear wheel that I am always going to pull out when I fit the next rear tyre , for at least the past 5 tyres .
And because I have been riding BSA's since I was 12 I am comfortable with them & understand just how much abuse they can take and still work quite effectively.
And for the same reason I have seen all sorts of bodgery , much of it downright dangeous if you were not aware of it .
So I like to do all my own work and quite frankly do not trust others to do the job .
And getting back to the original point
The bikes were built with unskilled or at best semi skilled process workers , except those that came out of the competition shop.
About the only highly skilled workers were the women who did the pin lining on the body work using brushes , but not much of that on a WM20.
Now the women ( cause they have smaller fingers & hands ) who laced the wheels at the old Edie factory in Redditch probably developed quite some skills eventually but originally thy were just some other workers daughter who needed a job
Let's go get a nice cold pint Ian Clare!
One way to understand the spokes is to look at "Over" spokes, and "Under" spokes. Think about it...
email (option): britool51@hotmail.com
Hi Robb the cold beer idea is very good. At the end of the day I have no interest in doing my own wheels All my needs have been met by supporting a small business. We are lucky here in Britain in that we have people who can still do some of the jobs we want. Like Ian Wright making hard to get parts.