Originally Posted by
HillRider
The consensus is that, if you reuse a hub, you lace it the same way it was originally done to avoid making additional grooves in the flanges at the spoke holes. And, yes, every groove is a potential stress raiser and failure point. Now whether it is a real problem or just a theoretical problem, I don't know, but for the hubs I've reused, I lace them the way they were at first.
Well, being a more adventurous individual myself, I have some data to bring to the table.
In spite of the consensus, I've never seen any ill effects occur as a result of ignoring it, which I've always done because I'd rather risk destroying a hub than be arbitrarily restricted to an asymmetric pattern 99% of the time. I've even laced a 36h HB-6400 (almost) radially in a 24h rim without a problem. Flange failures are pretty rare and only happen to cheap or crazy light stuff, IME (no wheel I've built has failed
AFAIK).
Some may baulk at the cosmetic issue of uncovered deformations, but in practice the aesthetic detriment is minuscule. And that's the extent of the cons as far as I've found. But then, I'm not all that heavy, and I tend to build a nice wheel if I do say so myself.