Bicycle Mechanics - Lubricating spoke threads

Quite excited I´m about to start my carreer of wheel builder;)

One thing I do not get, I read in many threads of the ways people lubricate nipples and spoke threads.
Used stuff ranges from thin oil to thick grease (going through bee wax and some more), so I´ll guess I´ll try different solutions looking for the favourite one.
But what´s the math of that: different medias for different situations or about anything would do the trick? :rolleyes:

If u wanna get complicated. Grease is all I use on a bicycle. Keep It Simple and Stupid.

If u wanna get complicated. Grease is all I use on a bicycle. Keep It Simple and Stupid.

Grease for the chain too? :eek:
It can be either "complicated" or "attentive" and "professional".
Anyway, "stupid" it´s not something I like. :beer:

When I built my MTB wheelset the mechanic at that shop I bought the spokes from put a spoke prep on the threads. I want to say that he said it was a DT Swiss product but I've got CRS so I can't remember what I did yesterday let alone last year. Anyway, he dipped the nipple threads into this stuff so that it covered about 3/4 of the threads and had me hold the spokes thread end down for a few minutes while the stuff set up. It wasn't completely dry but had some tack to it and he said it would help lube the nipple as I start to really put the spokes under tension and help prevent the nipples from seizing up. He recommended I follow that with some DT Swiss spoke lock. I did, and despite some hard riding those wheels have remained tensioned and true from day one. So, ask your local mechanic about this stuff.

I will also say this, DT Swiss specifically states on their website that they advise against using oil or grease in the assembly of a wheel. They seem to know a thing or two about wheelbuilding so I'd tend to listen to their advice.

Mike

always try to use fresh new spokes-- properly matching nips--- wheel building is fascinating--
I dont do a lot of my own new builds--- but if you were to work on old stuff--- use oil--- better than no oil--- a properly tensioned new wheel does not need a lot of thread prep-- thats my opinion--- but they do need tweaking and proper break in-- obviously if one or two are not tensioned properly ( no matter what was applied to the nip) the whole wheel will suffer...
I like to work on junk so the feel of a pro built wheel is easy to discern...

I say no on oil or grease because they don't provide a threadlocking function. Wheels go out of true when the nipples rattle loose at the bottom rotation. SpokePrep or blue Loctite provides a lube function as well as a threadlocking function so that the nipples don't spin and cause your wheel to go out of true. Yet, they provide lube and anti-corrosion function to keep the nipple adjustable at a later time.

I say no on oil or grease because they don't provide a threadlocking function. Wheels go out of true when the nipples rattle loose at the bottom rotation. SpokePrep or blue Loctite provides a lube function as well as a threadlocking function so that the nipples don't spin and cause your wheel to go out of true. Yet, they provide lube and anti-corrosion function to keep the nipple adjustable at a later time.
A properly built wheel does not need threadlocking. The nipples won't rattle loose if properly tensioned. Your nipples won't spin and cause your wheel to be out of true.

I have never used nor needed any type of glue for my spokes or nipples. I use a lot of oil. When building a wheel, I place all of the nipples in a small glass bowl, covered in oil. I then dip the threads of the spokes in the oil and lace up the wheel. A well lubed nipple/spoke combination makes it easier to tension and reduce spoke wind up.

If the rim doesn't have eyelets, I also put a dab of grease on the nipples.

I will also say this, DT Swiss specifically states on their website that they advise against using oil or grease in the assembly of a wheel. They seem to know a thing or two about wheelbuilding so I'd tend to listen to their advice.

Mike
You don't think they might be trying to sell you a $20 bottle of their thread lock do you? I'd take advice from respected professional wheel builders who say to lube and no thread lock is needed.

I've read boiled linseed oil works as a poor-man's spoke prep and it's what I used on my first wheelbuild recently. I screwed up the rear wheel like 3 times and had to de-lace it and I can attest the stuff does act somewhat like a threadlocker. It lubes when you first put it on then sets up without becoming glue-like.

A properly built wheel does not need threadlocking. The nipples won't rattle loose if properly tensioned. Your nipples won't spin and cause your wheel to be out of true."Properly" is subjective and if you asked every single wheel-builder to quantify all the variables they will ALL be different. So no one can actually agree on what "properly" refers to.

The thing is, you cannot and will never ever be able to anticipate all the riding-styles and obstacles a wheel will encountre during its lifespan. Bunny-hopping kerbs and speed-bumps will ALWAYS untension the bottom spokes due to the loads imposed. Heck, just riding over a speed-bump without rising out of the saddle will subject the wheels to 1000lbs of loading and end up untensioning the bottom spokes.

Now the only "properly" I may agree on is a "properly" ridden wheel that never ever hits a pothole, never goes off a kerb, never goes over rocks or speed-bumps and never bumps into a parked-car. In those cases, then yes, lubed/unlocked nipples will perform just as well as thread-locked ones. ;)

Of the hundreds of wheelsets I've built, the ones with SpokePrep, Loctite or linseed-oil on the nipples have stay true the longest. Heck, I had a set that was 20-years old and over 50k-miles that I rebuilt recently due to spoke-fatigue. Although my weight-gain from 180 to 245lbs probably helped its demise. :)

No, properly is not subjective. It means to build a wheel so that it won't loose tension and it stays true. Wheels that need to be glued or re-trued after 100 miles for break in were not properly built.

If your wheels come out of true because you hit curbs, bunny hop, etc. that is because you are not using a strong enough rim for your riding conditions and have bent the rim or because the wheel was not properly built. Not because the spokes have lost tension in a well built wheel.

Well, not everyone I have built wheels for has given me a log of their miles, riding conditions, etc. But I do know that the wheels that I have built for people I see regularly and myself have never needed to be re-trued and I do hit a lot of pot holes. I travel through a city that has some of the worse roads I have ever seen.

My only guess why your wheels with glue are better than the ones without the glue is because you are not building them properly and need the glue to keep the spokes from losing tension. Which sounds like the case since your spokes fatigued after only 50,000 miles. Spokes should last through many rims before they fatigue.

I say no on oil or grease because they don't provide a threadlocking function. Wheels go out of true when the nipples rattle loose at the bottom rotation. SpokePrep or blue Loctite provides a lube function as well as a threadlocking function so that the nipples don't spin and cause your wheel to go out of true. Yet, they provide lube and anti-corrosion function to keep the nipple adjustable at a later time.

+1
A properly built wheel is better with spoke prep. My LBS dips the threads in spoke prep at no additional cost to me. Spoke prep acts as a lubricant and as a mild locking agent. The nipples will be fully adjustable at any time after using spoke prep.

Al

Linseed oil. I tried the spoke prep product that sells for $20 for a small vial. In my experience, it tightened up quickly and didn't provide much lubrication when tightening and tensioning spokes.

joel

When I learned how to build wheels I was told to use a drop of TriFlow in the back side of the nipple once you have the wheel laced. Obviously before you tighten anything...

I've been building wheels for big boys for a while, lubing with a light oil, and had no loosening spokes.

Just spent four nights trying to re-dish an old six-speed wheel to accept a 7 speed freewheel block. I kept breaking spokes on the drive side during the final adjustments.Finally stripped off all the nipples and lightly oiled the nipple threads & spoke eyelets, did the job again last night and Hey, Presto - it worked! I now figure the New old stock chromed butted spokes were winding up under the final tension, so will always use some sort of lube in future - whether a proper spoke prep, linseed oil, grease or oil

so that it won't loose tension

It's safe to say if you can't spell lose properly we can ignore the rest of your post.

"Properly" is subjective and if you asked every single wheel-builder to quantify all the variables they will ALL be different. So no one can actually agree on what "properly" refers to.

The thing is, you cannot and will never ever be able to anticipate all the riding-styles and obstacles a wheel will encountre during its lifespan. Bunny-hopping kerbs and speed-bumps will ALWAYS untension the bottom spokes due to the loads imposed. Heck, just riding over a speed-bump without rising out of the saddle will subject the wheels to 1000lbs of loading and end up untensioning the bottom spokes.

Now the only "properly" I may agree on is a "properly" ridden wheel that never ever hits a pothole, never goes off a kerb, never goes over rocks or speed-bumps and never bumps into a parked-car. In those cases, then yes, lubed/unlocked nipples will perform just as well as thread-locked ones. ;)

Of the hundreds of wheelsets I've built, the ones with SpokePrep, Loctite or linseed-oil on the nipples have stay true the longest. Heck, I had a set that was 20-years old and over 50k-miles that I rebuilt recently due to spoke-fatigue. Although my weight-gain from 180 to 245lbs probably helped its demise. :)

What a bunch of monumentally bad advice.

Spokes need lubrication, be it phil wood tenacious or grease (if you can get it in there). The only exceptions may be when you're building radially laced wheels.

If you're recommending NO lubrication for everything else, you either

a) need to learn how to build wheels properly
b) obtain the tools needed to build wheels properly

Spoke prep is a waste of time, waste of money and shows a lack of real wheelbuilding skills if you're using it as a stopgap to keep wheels from going out of true.

The question of lube or locking compounds seems to be a split issue. Some are in the camp that likes the thread lube to then dry to a soft locking "glue". That includes the boiled linseed oil that hardens after a week or so and apparently Spoke Prep that I thought was just a lube and any other locking agent.

Then there's the oil and grease camp. I'm in the oil and grease camp. Out of the dozen or so sets of wheels I've either built or rebuilt I've lubed all of them with a "soup" of grease with just enough mineral spirits in it to thin the grease to a thick oil consistency so it'll flow around the nipples. I dump the nipples in and swish them around and wipe a smear on the threads of the spokes as I install the nipples. The mineral spirits dries away over a few days to leave a thin film of grease to keep out water and prevent corrosion. Over the years the wheels need the odd tweak here and there but this is highly variable and I'm pretty happy that it's due to fair wear and banging around rather than the spokes actually coming loose from cyclic loading making the nipples creep. I DID have a couple of spokes come loose on me with one wheel but I chalked it up to poor tensioning on my part. It was fixed and the overall wheel tuned back up a couple of years ago and it's been fine to this day.

On the other hand lots of folks use the Spoke Prep or linseed oil with good results as well. So really it comes down to YMMV. I like my grease method not only for the lubrication and water repellancy but also because 5 and 6 years down the road I can still easily tweak out a bit of runout without the spokes binding and winding up.

Personally, I use grease for everything except the chain.
For it, I use the ShelBroCo Bicycle Chain Cleaning (and lubrication) System, Details here: http://sheldonbrown.com/chainclean.html

Disclaimer: I'm not a bicycle mechanic, I just pretend to be one on the internet.
And for truly improved performance, I grease the tires.

Let's give PNB some targets in figuring out if his wheel is "properly" built:

1. what spoke tension is acceptable to be "proper"?
2. what spoke tension variation-range?
3. what +/- radial and lateral trueness is "proper"?
4. what load-ranges must the wheel be able to withstand with what degree of run-out?
5. how many miles must the wheel be able to run with what amount of run-out?

If 100 people can agree on the exact numbers for the above, I'll accept that the wheel is "properly" built. Otherwise, it's all a group of varying opinions. Anyone with over +10-years hands-on shop-experience and having built hundreds of wheelsets and raced for 10-years is welcome to add their experinece as well.

You see, for the first 5-years working in a shop and 1st year racing, I was firmly in the oil/grease camp having gotten my hands on so many old wheels with corroded nipples that made truing difficult if not impossible. Then I started noticing trends (wheels aren't binary). After the first 100th wheelset, you begin to see the difference between oil/greased nipples versus SpokePrep/Loctite/Linseeded ones. Same with riding 50k-miles on the same wheelset and comparing it to others of different construction. :)

Jobst Brandt (http://www.amazon.com/Bicycle-Wheel-3rd-Jobst-Brandt/dp/0960723668) might know a thing or two about wheel building.

He says:

"The correct way to replace
the nipple is as you did, but the right way to avoid the problem is
to lubricate the nipple sockets with 90W gear oil to prevent galling
and excess friction that leads to the problem. 90W gear oil is
pretty good stuff for both the spoke threads and the rim sockets."

source of above quote (http://yarchive.net/bike/spoke_lube.html)

Let's give PNB some targets in figuring out if his wheel is "properly" built:

1. what spoke tension is acceptable to be "proper"?
2. what spoke tension variation-range?
3. what +/- radial and lateral trueness is "proper"?
4. what load-ranges must the wheel be able to withstand with what degree of run-out?
5. how many miles must the wheel be able to run with what amount of run-out?

If 100 people can agree on the exact numbers for the above, I'll accept that the wheel is "properly" built. Otherwise, it's all a group of varying opinions. Anyone with over +10-years hands-on shop-experience and having built hundreds of wheelsets and raced for 10-years is welcome to add their experinece as well.

You see, for the first 5-years working in a shop and 1st year racing, I was firmly in the oil/grease camp having gotten my hands on so many old wheels with corroded nipples that made truing difficult if not impossible. Then I started noticing trends (wheels aren't binary). After the first 100th wheelset, you begin to see the difference between oil/greased nipples versus SpokePrep/Loctite/Linseeded ones. Same with riding 50k-miles on the same wheelset and comparing it to others of different construction. :)

Thanks for your comprehensive contribution.
1 or 2 more questions if you don´t mind:

- Uncooked lineseed oil is to any degree effective as thread locker or works just as another oil?

- What´s the correct "cooking" procedure? (I guess I should put a container with some oil inside in a boiling water bath, but how long? Something special to care about?)

Once more thanks!

THe raw linseed will dry after some time but it's measured in months. The boiled linseed dries hard in a few days to a sticky consistency and dries hard after around a month.

No need to cook your own oil. It comes in both raw and boiled forms from better hardware stores. Or at least it USED to. You may need to go to a specialty wood working store that carries finishing supplies or a better paint store to find it these days. Some of the shops that pander to furniture re-finishing should have it. In any event do NOT try to cook your own oil at home. It involves care and the oil is raised to a point where a flash fire is a very real risk.

Another option that you won't hear much about is raw tung oil. It's actually an edible oil that is used by hobbyist woodworkers as a finish for salad and other food contact wood utensils. It dries to a stiff but relatively soft polymer after about a week or so of air contact. If you can't find the boiled linseed oil the raw tung would be a good option.

Walnut oil from a health food store is yet another nut oil that dries in air. I believe that you're looking more at a month or two for walnut oil to dry to a non sticky state. And what you don't use in wheel building goes nicely in a salad dressing..... I'd put a smilie in here but this is true.

Up here in Canada Lee Valley has the raw tung oil (it's NOT tasty in salads. It's edible but tastes terrible, I tried a fingertip's worth once). In the US you'd need to shop around but there was a company called Garret-Wade that used to have much the same lines as Lee Valley.

THe raw linseed will dry after some time but it's measured in months. The boiled linseed dries hard in a few days to a sticky consistency and dries hard after around a month.

No need to cook your own oil. It comes in both raw and boiled forms from better hardware stores. Or at least it USED to. You may need to go to a specialty wood working store that carries finishing supplies or a better paint store to find it these days. Some of the shops that pander to furniture re-finishing should have it. In any event do NOT try to cook your own oil at home. It involves care and the oil is raised to a point where a flash fire is a very real risk.

Another option that you won't hear much about is raw tung oil. It's actually an edible oil that is used by hobbyist woodworkers as a finish for salad and other food contact wood utensils. It dries to a stiff but relatively soft polymer after about a week or so of air contact. If you can't find the boiled linseed oil the raw tung would be a good option.

Walnut oil from a health food store is yet another nut oil that dries in air. I believe that you're looking more at a month or two for walnut oil to dry to a non sticky state. And what you don't use in wheel building goes nicely in a salad dressing..... I'd put a smilie in here but this is true.

Up here in Canada Lee Valley has the raw tung oil (it's NOT tasty in salads. It's edible but tastes terrible, I tried a fingertip's worth once). In the US you'd need to shop around but there was a company called Garret-Wade that used to have much the same lines as Lee Valley.

Pity, since just yesterday I bought a bottle of linseed oil in a supermarket and I planned to use it once cooked.
So I´ll browse the hardware stores, but I´m not in USA or Canada, rather on the other side of the atlantic ocean and not very close to the seeside too ;-)

Sure there is no way to cook our own oil?

Any time you bring any oil up to near its boiling point you'll find highly flamable vapours being given off. And added to that neither of us knows the proper temperature or the time to hold it at and it's best to just lay down until the feeling goes away. And then when you get back up go buy the stuff that's already been done.

Use the stuff you got for salads or whatever raw linseed from a supermarket is good for and go buy the wood finishing stuff. Call around to paint shops. Likely if they don't have it they'll know someplace that does.

Any time you bring any oil up to near its boiling point you'll find highly flamable vapours being given off. And added to that neither of us knows the proper temperature or the time to hold it at and it's best to just lay down until the feeling goes away. And then when you get back up go buy the stuff that's already been done.

Use the stuff you got for salads or whatever raw linseed from a supermarket is good for and go buy the wood finishing stuff. Call around to paint shops. Likely if they don't have it they'll know someplace that does.

I guess I´ll take your wise advise and use raw oil for the salad instead.
The oil I bought is a fairly expensive organic one, not that I needed it, I just found nothing else.

Per the late, great, Sheldon Brown:


Preparation

Spoke threads and spoke holes in the rim should generally be lubricated with light grease or oil to allow the nipples to turn freely enough to get the spokes really tight. This is less important than it used to be due to the higher quality of modern spokes, nipples and rims, but it is still a good practice. In the case of derailer rear wheels, only the right side spokes and spoke holes need to be lubricated. The left side spokes will be loose enough that it will not be hard to turn the nipples even dry, and if you grease them they may loosen up of their own accord on the road.

...sort of tells me it isn't absolutely necessary.

"Properly" is subjective and if you asked every single wheel-builder to quantify all the variables they will ALL be different. So no one can actually agree on what "properly" refers to.

The thing is, you cannot and will never ever be able to anticipate all the riding-styles and obstacles a wheel will encountre during its lifespan. Bunny-hopping kerbs and speed-bumps will ALWAYS untension the bottom spokes due to the loads imposed. Heck, just riding over a speed-bump without rising out of the saddle will subject the wheels to 1000lbs of loading and end up untensioning the bottom spokes.

Now the only "properly" I may agree on is a "properly" ridden wheel that never ever hits a pothole, never goes off a kerb, never goes over rocks or speed-bumps and never bumps into a parked-car. In those cases, then yes, lubed/unlocked nipples will perform just as well as thread-locked ones. ;)

Of the hundreds of wheelsets I've built, the ones with SpokePrep, Loctite or linseed-oil on the nipples have stay true the longest. Heck, I had a set that was 20-years old and over 50k-miles that I rebuilt recently due to spoke-fatigue. Although my weight-gain from 180 to 245lbs probably helped its demise. :)

+1

It may take 10-15 years of riding, but an un-threadlocked/spoke-prepped spoke can eventually de-tension itself. And threadlock/spoke-prep holds up to time and the elements better than oil/grease/linseed, in my experience. They make those products because they work. I can understand shops not wanting to use it to keep customers coming back for wheel touch-up$.

Thanks for your comprehensive contribution.
1 or 2 more questions if you don´t mind:

- Uncooked lineseed oil is to any degree effective as thread locker or works just as another oil?

- What´s the correct "cooking" procedure? (I guess I should put a container with some oil inside in a boiling water bath, but how long? Something special to care about?)

Once more thanks!Linseed and tung oil undergo an oxidation process that's accelerated by heating. The double-bonded hydrocarbons are polymerized through hydroxyl and hydroperoxy groups and create crosslinked conections. This is the old paint-curing process similar to enamels. Look up furniture re-finishing with tung-oil and it'll go into all the gory details.

As with paints, technology has undergone tremendous revolutionary steps in the past several decades and we have synthetics now that work much better than the originals. There are varnishes and polyurethanes that can beat tung-oil for ease of application, toughness, durability and longevity.

Same with spoke threadlockers. Basically what you're doing is applying a liquid that initially acts as a lubricant which turns into a hardened plastic-like substance as it dries. SpokePrep, Loctite and boiled linseed oil all work the same as a NyLock nut. It gives you enough friction in the threads to grip the nut and prevent rattling and loosening over time, yet not too much to prevent later adjustments.

If you screw on the nipple on a loose spoke and shake it around, you can feel the large clearances in the threads (and even hear it). What these compounds do is fill the gap between the threads so there's no rattling. And just as importantly for decades old wheels, is that they displace air and water from the gap to prevent corrosion; something oil and grease don't do well after 10-years.

Coming form a BMX background where 48-spoke on 20" rims are the minimum are needed to keep the wheels somewhat resembling a circle, I'm pretty tough on wheels. Getting 3-feet of air and doing table-tops on a road-bike is pretty much tougher on them than anything else I can think of. Although getting into numerous 10-20 rider pile-ups in races can be pretty harsh as well. ;)

I think it probably makes a difference with spoke count, spoke length, tension, nipple material, and spoke type. Double butted spokes stretch more to reach tension, which battles the detensioning at the bottom. Lower spoke count wheels can generally be brought to higher tension, given the same rim, and this stretches them more too. Aluminum nips oxidize onto the spokes eventually, also battling detensioning. Longer spokes (for 700c) also stretch more to reach full tension compared to shorter (20" BMX) spokes.

I've got probably close to 20,000 miles on my front wheel right now, and have never had to true it or tighten any spokes. It's a 3x 32h Deep-V with 2.0/1.8/2.0 spokes, and brass nipples. I curb hop multiple times daily on it. It's my commuting, training, and racing wheel, and it's oil-lubed.

With a 48h 13 gauge straight-gauge 20" BMX freestyle wheel, the spokes just don't have much stretch to them, on top of being put through lots of lateral impacts.

So, I'll concede that spoke prep of some sort can help with certain wheels, but with road training and racing wheels, I just haven't seen any use for it. Granted, my sample size of wheels is small, at around 50 that I've built, and they've all been road and 26" MTB wheels.

I've heard that the difference between boiled and unboiled linseed is just how long it will take to congeal. Just built a wheel for my rain bike with regular linseed, as it's what I had around. Worked fine. If it looses tension, I'll just fix it. In other words, I really don't think it matters, in the grand scheme of things, what the hell you put on your nipples. Just put something on there. I feel the same way about chain cleaning - just do something!

I have a headache...............

One thing I've not seen mentioned in this thread is the affect of lubrication on the stress relieving step.

I've only built a few wheels and don't claim any special expertise, but the wheels I've built turned out quite well. In my last build, I replaced corroded alloy nipples with brass ones on an otherwise good wheel. In getting the corroded nipples off, I used WD-40. I didn't use any lube on the subsequent build, but I didn't do anything to remove the WD-40 from the spokes and noticed the build went smoother than usual.

When it came time to stress relieve the wheel, nothing happened - even after several tries with different methods, there was no residual twist in any of the spokes. I'm assuming the residual oil made the nipple easier to turn and avoided twisting the spokes. Is this typical when using lubrication for the build?

L
Same with spoke threadlockers. Basically what you're doing is applying a liquid that initially acts as a lubricant which turns into a hardened plastic-like substance as it dries. SpokePrep, Loctite and boiled linseed oil all work the same as a NyLock nut. It gives you enough friction in the threads to grip the nut and prevent rattling and loosening over time, yet not too much to prevent later adjustments.


Nonsense. Anaerobic thread lockers (loctite, et al) form a film that bonds the the male piece to the female piece. If you break that film, by say, truing the wheel after the loctite has set (less than an hour, depending on temperature, and the threadlocker), then you've destroyed the locking function of the threadlocker. To regain it, you need to disassemble the parts, clean them, reapply the thread locker, and then reassemble. If you don't do that, you've got a normal threaded joint, with some foreign material in it. That foreign material may, or may not, prevent the thread from working loose. It's not at all uncommon for thread-locked fastener that's slightly loosened or where the operating temperature range of the threadlocker is briefly exceeded to then vibrate off.

An elastic stop nut (NyLock being a trade name for a particular type, with a nylon insert. There are other brands, and other, all-metal styles that work on the same principle.) relies on the elastic deformation of the threads of the nut. (or in the case of one with a nylon insert, the unthreaded nylon portion). These provide locking even when they're not fully tightened, and even as they're being undone. It's very unusual for an elastic stop nut to vibrate off, even if it's not properly installed, or if it's partially removed. (Nylon insert types tend to fail at about 250F, when the nylon loses its elasticity. All metal ones work at much higher temperatures.) Most types are also reusable.

Using loctite on spoke threads just covers up sloppy wheel building. Either the spokes aren't put in enough tension, or there aren't enough of them, or they're of insufficient size. Wheels should stay true until they wear out, or are damaged by crashing.

Not all Loctite compounds work the same way. The blue stuff doesn't have much bonding strength and it's primary function is a gap-filler and vibration damper. The red stuff is the one that bonds to the metal and actually requires heat to unlock. MANY, many bolts in the auto-biz and some in the bike-biz come with blue Loctite pre-applied.

You simply cannot tension a wheel so tight that it will not ever lose tension on impacts. There's an upper limit to the tension that a rim can withstand. A 3-4ft drop with a 200lb rider, hitting potholes/speed-bumps at speed, running over downed riders, etc. will ALWAYS push up on the rim hard enough and displace it inwards enough that even the tightest spokes will always loose tension.

Do a test with a bare rim. Even the strongest rims will easily deflect 1-1.5mm when you barely push down on it with your body-weight. Add 20-50x that force and you'll see that spoke-tension is paramount in keeping that wheel straight and true.

You build me a wheel any way you think is "best" and I'll take it out for some training rides and you'll find that there's quite a range in "proper" and quite a large range of outcomes in durability. Wheels aren't binary, there's a range of parameters and results. A lot of times, they are conflicting as well such as weight versus strength/durability.

I put my nipples in a bag with WD-40. It lubes them on, then it dries up, leaving very light lube in place. It also prevents wind-up.

Not all Loctite compounds work the same way. The blue stuff doesn't have much bonding strength and it's primary function is a gap-filler and vibration damper. The red stuff is the one that bonds to the metal and actually requires heat to unlock. MANY, many bolts in the auto-biz and some in the bike-biz come with blue Loctite pre-applied.


All threadlockers form a film that bonds the two parts together. The strength of the film depends on the product. Loctite make a range of products with different strengths, depending on the application.

Fasteners with pre-applied threadlockers don't have something like loctite 242 (the common blue stuff) pre-applied. They've got something like Loctite Dri-Loc 211 on them. Dri-loc is a very cool product; it consists of resin, and an activator. The activator is encapsulated in little micro-spheres. When the bolt is inserted, the mating fastener's threads crush the micro-spheres, which releases the activator. The activator mixes with the resin, and produces a fast-curing threadlocking film.

I eat a doughnut and have a red eye before work --- encouraging wind up and road rage; if a spoke breaks I start drinking heavily to wind down.......

Grease your spoke threads and nipples where they contact the rim.
In a pinch (no grease) use machine oil.

END OF THREAD. :)