I probably don’t need to tell you about this truing stand, the TS-2 is the benchmark by which all other stands are compared. It can be seen in any self respecting bike shop, and with good reason.
When I first started cross’ racing again in 2005 I was given a crazy lightweight Velomax Ascent rear wheel from a friend. Well needless to say I knocked that shit way out of true… every single weekend. So I would stop in the local shop and borrow theirs, but, well, I hated doing that. I always felt like I was bothering them.
I went in to Vecchios in the winter and the usually busy, slightly angry Pete Chissolm was extra chatty, maybe because it was snowing and February. Now in case you don’t know this yet, I am a nerd. This is relavent, I am not just bragging… Years before I had seen a posting on a news group for a used truing stand from Pete, he never emailed back. I brought this up, he walked in the back, grabbed the stand and base and sold it to me for $20.
He has been building wheels for a while, he had been using linseed oil, which gets dried and caked on. I took it to the car wash, pressure washed it, then used a razor blade clamped in some channel locks and scraped that crap off. I purchased some rebuild parts from Park and man I have a nice stand now. It was missing the attachment parts for the base. but I made one with a dremel out of some aluminium stock and some bolts.
If you need to true a lot of wheels, or find one of these stands for a deal, this amazing truing stand will last you forever, Fits any wheel, self centering and can be rebuilt every 10 years with readily available parts from Park Tools.
That Velomax wheel is still going strong, even with the roofing nail hole in it!