Who Needs a Dish Tool?

More home improvement projects have kept me out of the shop for most of the summer. However, I did finally have a chance to address the out-of-dish rear wheel on my Peugeot that I mentioned in a previous post. One thing I wanted to note about this task is that I dished the wheel without a specialized dish tool. In fact, when I hand-built the wheels for my Panasonic touring bike, I similarly did so without the use of a dish tool. That doesn't mean that I didn't properly dish the wheels - I did! I just didn't see the need to shell out money on a tool that I wasn't sure I'd ever use again.

After scoping out some of the online forums, I found a few commenters describing a method of measure wheel dish wherein the rim surface is set upon three raised surfaces of identical height, such as beer cans or pasta sauce jars. Then you stack quarters underneath the axle until they touch - or nearly touch - the end of the axle. Next, you simply flip the wheel over to check the dish. If the quarters are touching or nearly touching the other side of the axle, then the wheel is properly dished. If the quarters hit the axle or if there is a gap between the stack of quarters and the axle, then the wheel is out of alignment.

I went about conjuring my own homemade dish tool using two spare strips of 2x4 lumber. I set the 2x4s parallel to each other on my work bench and set the stack of quarters in between them. When I laid the wheel onto the 2x4s, it resulted in 4 points of contact with the rim surface that were all equal in height. The rear wheel on my Peugeot was badly out of dish due to some changes I had made to axle spacers, so it took a few trips back and forth between my homemade dish tool and the truing stand before I got it right. But overall it was pretty straightforward and I don't think it would've been much faster, easier, or better with a store-bought dish tool.

If you're looking to dish a wheel and would like to avoid purchasing a dish tool - especially if you don't plan on needing one often, AKA are not a professional wheelbuilder - feel free to use the method I've described here. It's pretty handy and can be executed with things you probably already have around the house or garage.