Well, I must admit that I'm not using a tension meter and do it all by feel. So please kick me for not using the proper tools, but i havent been able to find an affordable one over here (Holland). I am using Barnett's ( very good long-term investment!) as a guide to wheelbuilding and frankly, the section about tension meters freaks me out!

As to rim quality, this was a brand new Alesa 9017, box section rim, which seemed plenty strong, but i guess it's pretty low end, because I didn't pay a lot of money for it. Built by LBS with double butted stainless steel spokes and a new shimano threaded hub.

I was doing a tune up on this wheel and started by making all corrections by tightening , which probably led to the spoke failure. I understand that i need the tension meter to determine whether to correct by loosening or tightening (except when correcting radial of course). But I seem to suffer from impatience ( and I considered myself sooo Zen and patient :-) and overcorrecting which leads to more errors.

Question: If you do break a spoke when truing, doesn't the loud snap and the rim basically popping outward and to the opposite side of the spoke that snapped create so much stress/deformation that when you replace the spoke , equal spoke tension cannot be achieved anymore and wouldn't I just be better off buying a new rim right away?

Long story, but I do have another question: how much do you turn the nipple to correct an error generally? I'm prone to half turns, but I guess that is leading to the general overtensioning and spoke failure. Oh and I'm using the Tacx Exact truing stand
, is that any good? I'm not finding it very ergonomic to work with. Does anyone use it?

Thanks for all the replies!!

Ivo