Originally Posted by
Johnonaschwinn
I have a set of wheels for another bike where the dumb a$$ who laced it did not have a spoke cutter and used longer spokes and it works. I had time to burn and spokes to throw away. My 93 year old friend would say it was free and did not cost anything to try it. I will confirm later with Mr. Rabbit about the "magic" size spoke. Thanks for the reply and help
A DT spoke has up to 9.5mm of thread
A 12mm DT nipple has 8mm of thread measured from the top of the nipple so it's possible for the spoke to protrude 1.5mm beyond the top before it runs out of thread.
Assuming that you're aiming for the nipple slot and get no stretch you can use spokes that are at most 2.5mm too long. You get about .5mm of stretch on a 2.0/1.8 spoke which leaves 2mm.
If you were aiming for the top of the nipple 1mm too long can bottom.
Other spokes and nipples are similar.