Originally Posted by
auldgeunquers
It seems to me that the inherent weakness in the idea is that by making the bends you are fatiguing the metal and creating a weakness in the spoke.
Spoke wire is relatively malleable, and can tolerate bending to fairly small radii. A single bending operation won't fatigue or materially weaken the spoke, but you don't want to work the bend back and forth trying to get the angle right. In practice you make the far bend first, then the elbow, using round nose pliers or a bending jig. Folks have been doing this for years in all sorts of applications, and it's a tried and true process.
BTW-
fatigue in the metals world refers specifically to a process of progressive stress crack formation over time as a result of repetitive stress loading cycles.