Customer Reviews

Park Tool Home Mechanic Wheel Truing Stand - TS-8

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Park's TS-8 truing stand is well worth the cost. Comparable stands from other manufacturers have a tendency to be a bit on the flimsy side, while this affordable stand makes achieving a 'trued' wheel relatively frustration free. It is designed more as a horizontal truing tool, yet with some patience and attention, one can work the kinks out of a vertically untrue wheel as well. And for those that are wondering, it is mountable without modification (two mounting holes on the base allow for a sturdy mount). Another great product from Park Tool.

So far I've attempted to true 4 different wheels with this stand and I've made each of them worse. First of all, I'm used to working with one of those standard cheap freestanding truing stands... but despite being flimsy feeling, they've got two critical advantages over this Park truing stand. First of all, this Park truing stand requires a screwdriver to adjust the span for different wheels. That's just ridiculous. On top of that, the sliding dropout (silver part) isn't snug in its track, so I'm having a difficult time ensuring that the wheel stays straight when I turn it around to true from both sides of the wheel. Lastly, and perhaps the most obnoxious is the mechanism for adjusting the truing guide is absolutely terrible. It's a piece of metal that slides in a little slot and is secured by a hand-tightened screw. This means that to adjust this thing (which deserves very fine motions) I loosen a screw and move it around with my fingers. Really? My $40 cheapo plastic stand at least has guides (on both sides of the rim) that move by screwing them in or out (which allows me to control precisely how far that thing moves).

Needless to say, I'm sorely disappointed. I will be returning the stand and either upgrading to the TS-2 (because I still do have a lot of respect for Park Tools), or stepping back down to a cheaper model. This stand is useless to me.

This is a great truing stand. My last truing stand was freestanding, but the ability to bolt this to your workbench allows you to install a sewup and straighten the tire on the wheel easily and quickly. It adjusts easily to various wheel sizes. My experience with Park Tools has been universally positive and this is another great addition to my bike repair bench.

I finally got tired of the junk wheels that came on my KLH Flight 100, so I got all the goodies needed, including one of these Park Tool Home Mechanic Wheel Truing Stand - TS-8. I knew it would have some assembly required, so I was OK with that.

Assembly is no big deal. The powder coat is a little thick, but nothing a little torque on nuts won't overcome.

In use, this thing is something less than swell. Here are the product faults I found in building 2 wheels:

1) There is no center reference on this stand. You have to get a wheel nearly true, then flip it around to see where you're at. If you've built in some dish by accident, this isn't very much fun to discover. (Not easy to fix on an adjustable stand, but it would be nice to see Park Tool give it a whirl.)

2) The right-side dropout is a bar that slides from side to side to accommodate front and rear hubs. You MUST tighten down the setscrew - with an Allen wrench - in order to keep this side of the stand from wiggling around when you touch the wheel. If this were, say, a knob instead of an Allen-head screw, it would be a bunch easier to use, and might raise the price of the stand by as much as an entire US Dollar. (Bonehead design decision.)

3) The dropout surfaces are not flat, meaning that you have to loosen the setscrew described in complaint 2) every time you need to flip the wheel around. This is just low-rent. (Un-quality at its un-finest.)

4) The reference-point dingus is black. WHY? It just makes the thing hard to see if you're working indoors. If you are truing a black rim, it is essentially impossible to see the gap. (Bad design.)

I mounted my stand on a 2-foot-square piece of plywood. This gave me a nice place to mount a piece of 2" wide steel so I could then add a pair of Grizzly G9849 Magnetic Base/Dial Indicator Combo - President's Special and use the stupid reference-point gizmo only for flipping the wheel. If these things are still on sale (I got 'em for $22 each) you can have a tremendous truing station for a non-horrendous amount of money.

If I come up with a center-reference idea, I'll update this review with a path to the design.

Salamat.

As being the 2nd in line from Park Tool's professional stand, it's a close 2nd. When truing the diameter accuracy, it's only a bit less accurate than their top line stand, as it measures the distance from the rim to the position-of-accuracy on only one side. But, that is "mostly" what a rim needs. In the typically rare case that you have a bump on one side but not the other, this may go unnoticed by you, but what's the chance in that? It works great and even my wheel man recommends it.

TS-8 requires assembly. When I first tried to assemble, the square shanks on the heads of the carriage carriage bolts would not pull into the blue uprights. As a result I broke the head of one of the bolts. A short e-mail to Park Tools and I had the replacement bolts in a few days. Park Tools gives great support of a great product.

The frame of this stand is very well built. Thick, solid steel construction with a nice finish. Beyond that, I am quite disappointed with this stand.

The main problem is the measuring arm/adjustment. Firstly, it is attached to the stand in a vertical slot and held in place by a screw and spring. This design makes precise adjustment of the height difficult for vertical truing. It also allows the arm to move and/or twist while working with the wheel. It's a small amount of movement, but when dealing with a tool which is supposed to be used for precision, it makes for sloppy results. The next problem is the sliding arm itself. It is held in place by a hand tightened knob. I figured it would be easy to make small adjustments with this design, but I didn't count on the arm not sliding freely. With the knob loosened or even removed, the arm would not slide without a good amount of force. This problem combined with the flimsy/springy attachment to the base make it very difficult to do precise adjustments.

One additional minor annoyance is that the span arm is held in place by a screwdriver adjusted set screw. They could have just used a hand knob like the one included for the truing arm. In fact, that knob/screw is even the correct size threads so they could have just thrown two in the box instead of one and had a much more convenient span adjustment.

If the slider wasn't stiffly held in place when the adjustment knob is loosened, and the arm was connected to the base in a less flimsy way, I might have considered keeping it. However, it's just a poor design. I will be returning this promptly as this is the first Park Tool product I can say isn't worth it.

First let me say shipping at Amazon is the greatest. Almost everything I have ordered from Amazon has arrived on time or a couple days early. Park tool TS-8 is such a ease to use and it is solid. I dont know what else to say about it but, Great tool for truing up wheels. Worth the money.

product is what I did think,but I was long time waiting for delivery .