Originally Posted by
Duragrouch
Ah, thanks, much appreciated. It's been close to 40 years since I read the book. Actually glad to know that manual stress relieving doesn't do much good, as I've never done it. One would think by now that this could be incorporated as part of the spoke manufacturing process, making the bend just a hair more than 90 degrees, so that installed, it bends back just a hair, for reduced stress on the outside of the bend, if that's where stress relieving helps.
The best test for the effectiveness of your stress relieving is to measure the tension drop after each stress relieving cycle. If the tension drops significantly bring it back up to tension and stress relieve again. When the tension no longer drops after a stress relieving cycle, you are done. You are correct, that most of the action is happening at the elbow. I can substantiate that with observations made while stress relieving straight pull spokes. After tensioning to target tension straight pull spokes will drop in tension very slightly if at all after a stress relieving cycle.