There are two note worthy rim makers in Japan, Araya and Ukai. They are note worthy because each of them has had their rims sold as original equipment on new bicycles and at one point both had their rims sold in the US as after market replacement parts. Both are well known for excellent quality and workmanship, however, at the moment, only Araya seems to have rims available in the US for after market replacements.
Ukai's participation in the United States parts distribution system dropped off beginning in the fall of 1987, after the G7 meeting drove the value of the dollar down and Japanese goods edged their way toward double the Yen price. Ukai is reported to have been the maker of the Specialized and also made the Ritchey rims that are sold on new bikes as original equipment. The Ukai manufactured Ritchey rims can be identified bt their welded rather than sleeved joint.
Right: Sectional View of Araya joint.
Both of these rim makers sell their goods through importer/distributors who have to make a value judgement in terms of what they think will sell to retailers in a reasonable period of time. The importer/distributor then places an order through a Japanese export trading company for delivery 90 to 120 days in the future. If they predict wrong they will have an overstock, tying up their capital. By nature, these organizations, when it comes to bulky items like rims, buy very conservatively which leads to occasional stateside shortages of either models, colors, or drillings.
The 395 Team is a 26" mountain rim, introduced in the 1993 model year. It has double wall construction and is made of 7000 series aluminum alloy. The Box shape extrusion has concave sides which slope and narrow from the spoke bed toward the top at the bead hook. The lower wall of the extrusion, the spoke bed, is made slightly thicker at the center where the spoke passes through and uses steel eyelet to even the spoke head stress and prevent a spoke nipple from pulling through the rim. Once the extrusion has been rolled into the hoop shape, its ends are TIG welded together. The excess weld material is machined away with a grinder on the interior of the rim, and the outer surfaces are carefully machined and polished leaving no visible evidence of the weld and an absolutely smooth brake pad contact surface.
The rim is Clear anodized leaving the aluminum in it's native Silver color, then drilled for the spokes and valve stem. Steel eyelet fastening is the last manufacturing step. The steel eyelet is the one-piece, double wall variety, meaning that one piece of steel plate is machine "cupped" to form the eyelet. The eyelet is pushed into the spoke hole from the rim interior. The eyelet flange is oval in shape with protruding ends facing in the direction of rim travel. To hold the eyelet, it is machine peened on the exterior, hub side of the rim.
Each of the eyelets on the 395 used for writing purposes showed some distortion of the aluminum around the eyelet peen, possibly the machine pressure was set a little too high on this batch of rims. We sell the 395 Team rim with 28, 32 or 36 spoke holes and a Presta valve drilling. Specifics about the rim are available in the Rim table. We noticed the irregularities in the weight to hole drilling relationship and double checked our weights, which were accurate. This relationship variation may be a product of extrusion wall thickness deviation.
RM-395 26" (Hole-28-32-36)
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