niggle wrote:Well currently I can buy Sapim Leader spokes x 100 for £26.99 from Singletrack bikes, which is 27p per spoke and leaves me with 64 redundant spokes, having spent ~£20 more than just buying the correct number from Rose Bikes at 20p per spoke...
Ah yes.... For some weird and inexplicable reason I thought you were building 2 wheels. It must be my brain out of action due to it being Sunday. Ignore my advice
No worries- if I ever do rebuild the rear wheel, it is a Nexus 8spd hub with enormous spoke hole PCDs so not likely to use the same spoke length and I don't have any other bikes with 26" wheels.
Forgive my ignorance but how much leeway do you have at the upper end re spoke length, i.e. how much spoke can you have protrude through the top of the nipple before you run out of thread?
The current front wheel has no spoke protrusion, they appear to be all stopping just short of the slot in the top of nipple. If, with spoke removed from wheel, you screw one of the nipples down by hand on the spoke it comes to a stop with the end of the spoke flush with the top of the nipple, but possibly it would carry on through if in place on a wheel and turned with a spoke key?
I have met spokes that do screw up through the nipple, including having to file the ends off, if they poke through when you have trued the wheel, to avoid puncturing the tube (on a single wall rim).
niggle wrote:Forgive my ignorance but how much leeway do you have at the upper end re spoke length, i.e. how much spoke can you have protrude through the top of the nipple before you run out of thread?...
it varies. With DT spokes and 14mm nipples it is usually about 1mm out of the top before there is any binding. Past that you are starting to 'crunch' the tapered part of the thread in the nipple. This doesn't feel very nice when you are doing it but I don't think it does much harm (with a brass nipple) for the first mm or so; if you look there is no sign of any real damage to the spoke and I can't say that I've seen a spoke failure where that would be the reason.
hondated wrote:I have just replaced a spoke in my touring wheel with one I had in my garage which is of a lighter gauge can you tell me whether this will do the job at least for a while or should I replace it with a thicker one. Thanks.
It'll be fine. It'll be even better if you stress-relieve the wheel, that's much more important than spoke thickness, brand, and a host of other stuff folk worry about. (but its something you can't see, you see.... )
531colin wrote:Didn't we have a thread recently about DT nipples and whether the thread was longer in the longer nipples?
So we did, here. It included a cutaway photo of 12, 14, & 16 mm DT Swiss nipples from Roger Musson's wheelbulding book showing that the threaded length does indeed vary.
531colin wrote:Didn't we have a thread recently about DT nipples and whether the thread was longer in the longer nipples?
So we did, here. It included a cutaway photo of 12, 14, & 16 mm DT Swiss nipples from Roger Musson's wheelbulding book showing that the threaded length does indeed vary.
On that thread 'crunching' the spoke threads with 14mm DT Swiss nipple occurs about when the spoke end is flush with the top of the nipple head. This compares with my observation of the OEM wheel's spokes and nipples, the latter of which are also 14mm, though from unknown manufacturer, almost certainly not DT Swiss as it is a Halfords Carrera bike.
Sad people with no social life can recognise DT nipples by the very sharp delineation between the spoke key flats and the round body of the nipple......sapim nipples have a much softer transition as well as a more pronounced curve to the underside of the head, and ACI nipples have a triangular feature where the spoke key flats merge into the round body. (note to self....need to get out more....)
In other words some other budget manufacturer- and my red Spokey does not fit them.
Whilst out there I looked at the two wheelsets I have from Rose Bikes and was surprised to see ACI nipples, even though the wheels are supposed to have been built with DT Swiss spokes. Obviously not a concern as they are fine, unlike the awful quality things that are on the wheels of my daughter's Dawes Duchess, which my red Spokey would not fit and using a cheap spoke key still had me swapping between sizes every other spoke when I tried truing them.
IIRC the Sapim 'polyax' nipples may be slightly slimmer in the shank than some others; this is presumably intended to allow the nipple to articulate in the rim hole slightly as they claim their design better allows.
Very many factory wheels out of Taiwan/China use 14g spokes with nipples that are best tackled using spokey yellow; they poke a fair way out of the rim and the nipples are often 16mm long or so. These nipples don't always have the same length thread inside them; some are even made of steel instead of brass. An occasional problem is that the centre holes are not drilled centrally; this appears to cause the nipples to be more likely to fail if/when the spokes are set a couple of mm too short (as they often are).
If you find yourself struggling to consistently fit a three-sided key onto a factory wheel, very often the reason is that the spokes are heavily angled as they leave the nipple. This causes many types of key to foul on the spoke, and it is often easier to use the next size key up, even though it risks rounding. Again Spokey Yellow is often a good solution; you can afford a slightly loose fit (that articulates slightly) because the drive is more positive than most other keys anyway.
For anyone regularly having to deal with wheels with tight nipples where a spokey won't fit eg because the nipples don't poke out of the rim far enough for a secure fit, a smaller 'butterfly' pattern key may be the solution, if you can find one that drives on all sides. I may yet butcher a 'Fat Spanner' spoke key (which normally fits four sizes, but binds on angled spokes) by cutting it in half, and relieving the centre slot. This way each half will be a 'butterfly' pattern key that will fit two sizes of nipple. This key gives a very positive drive on well-fitting nipples, but probably less well on slack-fitting nipples than a spokey because of the way the hole in the key is shaped.
niggle wrote:Hi there experienced wheel building types, I am about to embark on my first attempt. It will be a 26" disc rim being reused on a Shimano DH-3D32 6 bolt disc compatible dynamo hub. 36 spoke, 3 cross.
how did you find the drag on this hub? I've been thinking of buying one, but there's no reviews, other than a couple on rosebikes that said it dragged more than "expected". Plenty of reviews for the XT dyno hub - people seem to like that one.
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