FREDERIC: I started working in this workshop 11 years ago.
I love my job because every day a different day.
My name is Federic Barreau.
I'm a bespoke wheel builder and I'm living in Stanford.
This wheel is for a Jaguar Allard.
It’s a racing car so we're going to use very strong spokes.
Material we are using is aluminium wheel and carbon centre and carbon spokes.
The spacing of the spokes need to be perfect and I can’t do that by eye so I need to use a divider.
I divide the diameter of the ring by the number of the spokes I want to put in each place of the rim.
Once that's done, I'm happy with the spacing, and then I can start to then build the ring.
So I'm going to place the damper on the rim according of my marking.
The damper allow the spokes to easily fit in place.
The centre need to be drilled according of the pattern
and the number of spokes we're going to put in a wheel.
This one will be then 72 spokes
so I'm going to drill 48 spots on bottom and 24 on the top of the centre.
Once I drill the bottom of the centre I then need to
be sure about the phase, the relation between the bottom spokes and the top spokes.
The next step is going to be to drill the wheel.
That's where I'm going to use my centre to position
the first cross on the wheel, getting the angle right and the degrees of the spokes.
Once I got my angles set I then go back to the drill and I started with the rim.
We made this device who help the drilling to be perfectly in the radius of the damper.
I've got two different de-burrers,
I got a mechanic de-burrer which I use with a drill.
I got a hand de-burrer to refine and
take more burr to have a perfect finish, a very smooth finish.
According of the pattern we're going to make, I need to bend the spokes with a right angle.
With the spoke meter, I can adjust
the length of the spokes I need by moving this device on the ruler.
This is the spoke spreader.
This tool can be changed to thread different size of spokes.
I like this moment of you can see the wheel being a wheel by lacing the spokes one by one.
It’s a good feeling.
I'm going to put my wheel on a jig and start
the process of throwing the wheel.
I’m then going to spin the wheel and check the unbalance.
Currently the wheel is out 1.8 millimetres.
For me the magic number when I throw the wheel
is try to be less than 0.5 of a millimetre.
All the spokes on exact same tension.
The wheel is straight.
I'm happy with that.
I'm happy to stamp my name on it and this wheel can go.
I’m happy with that.
No problem.