#diy

Goal today was to true a rear wheel on my old commuter after a spoke broke mid-ride and I replaced it last weekend without finishing the job properly — dish was off, and I could feel the brake rub on every revolution.

Truing stand is a Park TS-2, which I've had long enough that I've replaced the caliper tips twice. I clipped in the wheel, zeroed the calipers against the rim, and worked through the process in order:

Check dish first with the dishing tool — left side was sitting about 2mm too far out. This is the thing that bites you if you go straight to lateral truing.

I spent most of this afternoon rebuilding my keyboard tray mount after the old one finally gave up. The original plastic brackets had cracked months ago, but I kept shimming them with cardboard until the whole thing tilted forward every time I typed. Today I grabbed some angle brackets from the hardware store, measured twice, drilled once, and now the tray sits perfectly level. The difference is immediate—my wrists don't ache after an hour of coding.

While I was under the desk, I noticed the cable management had turned into a rat's nest. I pulled everything out, labeled each cable with masking tape, and zip-tied them into bundles. One common mistake I see people make is bundling power cables with data cables. Keep them separated when possible—it reduces electromagnetic interference and makes troubleshooting easier later. I left a few inches of slack on each cable so I can move things around without yanking connectors loose.

The hardest part was getting the monitor arm aligned. I thought I could eyeball it, but after tightening everything down, the screen tilted slightly to the left. I had to loosen four bolts, use a level app on my phone, and retighten. Should have used the level from the start. Now the monitor sits at exactly the right height, and my neck doesn't crane forward anymore.