Originally Posted by
FBinNY
Mak a pile of all the spokes and move a decent magnet among them to pick up and remove whatever spokes it will. Those are plated steel, what's left is stainless.
Yes, there are magnetic stainless steels but they aren't commonly used for spokes (if at all).
Once you've sorted by material, then separate the butted from plain gauge, then sort by gauge and length.
Oddly enough, I have come across quite a few stainless spokes that are faintly magnetic. I use an extremely powerful neodymium magnet that will cause blood blisters if you let it attach to a metal surface with your skin in between. Those magnets seem to even attract stainless spokes but just barely. Like it will cause the spoke to move a bit to the direction of the magnet but won't be able to be picked up by it.