Originally Posted by Retro Grouch

Through the years I've built a good number of wheels - definitely in the hundreds but probably not 1,000. During that time I've gone from using no spoke prep to linseed oil, DT spoke prep, a few with post application loctite and, most recently, bee's wax. I've never just used a lubricant or soaked the nipples in oil. The fact that so many wheel builders have such strongly held, but conflicting opinions, tells me that it probably doesn't make much difference. If it did, they'd have failures and they'd change their spoke prep practices.

During that time the only failures that I've had have been with using linseed oil. It's low on the labor intensive scale but it's the messiest. I've found a secret is to let the wheel "age" for a week or so before riding it.

On all of my most recent builds I've used bee's wax and if I were building a set today, that's what I would do again. I think that it's a little btter than anything else. Last spring I took apart a wheelset that I'd built a couple of years ago using bee's wax on the spoke threads. I liked the uniform way that the spokes felt while I was tensioning the wheel and I liked the way the smooth, uniform way the nipples felt when I deconstructed the wheelset. It's also the most labor intensive. I heat up the spoke threads with a hair drier and roll each one individually in a block of bee's wax.