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Old 12-29-07, 08:11 PM
  #7  
Rowan
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Originally Posted by waterrockets
Sounds good then! BTW: the popping is because you didn't unwind your spokes after adjusting them. You have to back the nipple off to unwind the spoke, but not enough to start unscrewing it. If you hold the spoke with the other hand, you can feel when it stops and starts twisting, which will tell you how much to back it off, and you should.
Sheldon Brown puts some store in this suggestion, but there are others who believe that just stress relieving the spokes does the job adequately. I suppose it depends on whether you lube the spoke threads and heads before building, and how confident you are of your skills. I've never bothered even with the slight back-off after tensioning each spoke to the required limit. I've just relied on the stress relief and while I get a few pings like rykoala has, it really hasn't affected the wheel's trueness nor the spoke tension.
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