Originally Posted by
cjenrick
i tighten the derailleur side spokes til the wrench almost starts to round off the nipples.
don't blame me, that's what ken spears told us to do in the wheel building class at Bicycle Outfitter in Los Altos.
Yes. My pet peeve: the dimensions of spoke nipples for bicycles were established many decades ago, long before high-strength stainless steel spokes became ubiquitous on the market. Rounding off of spoke nipples, a.k.a. the old mechanic's joking universal instruction to "tighten the bolt until it breaks and then back off a quarter-turn," would become a thing of the past if the width of spoke nipple faces were increased just a few thousandths of an inch.