After the apparent success of my DIY wheel dishing tool I decided to take on the next obvious project: a wheel truing stand. I currently have seven bikes. That makes 14 wheels to maintain not counting the bikes of my other family members. I could do this at the local bike co-op but it is often not convenient for me to get down to that end of the city. I’ve trued wheels while they are on the bike but it isn’t as easy as using a stand. The commercially available stands I’ve seen start at about $80 for the cheaper ones and are more than $200.00 for a good one. Naturally, a DIY version appeals to my frugal soul.
As an exercise in re-purposing I decided to build it as much as possible from scrap metal parts I could salvage from the scrap bin at work. This proved to be something of a constraint during the design process but it was a fun and satisfying bit of problem solving. You can really do a lot with materials that would otherwise end up at the scrapyard.

Salvaged goodies (These are actually the leftovers because I forgot to take a picture before I started)
The salvaged materials I used were a length of anodized aluminum channel, some slightly twisted steel shelving uprights, a short length of threaded rod and a few carriage bolts. The nuts and 4 small bolts were purchased or sourced from my own supply. To paint the stand I used surplus stock of a colour we no longer use at work.
I had a few false starts and had to rethink things more than once. I would have done things differently if I were buying the materials instead of working with what was at hand, but I’m quite happy with the results.
While building this stand dusty childhood memories returned of playing with odds and ends of meccano left over from one of my older siblings. The finished product does have a meccano-like quality, I believe.