Originally Posted by Al1943
That sounds like a good way to run out of threads before reaching the target tension.
Actually, I've concluded that the spokes ARE too short, by at least 2, and maybe 3, millimeters. When the spokes are tight, there are still 5 or 6 threads exposed in some cases (in others more like 2 or 3). I think that's the problem.
That raises another (to me, at least) interesting question: do you just have to accept the fact that when you're building a wheel with a given hub and rim, there's a substantial chance that you'll start with the wrong spokes? I ask because I consulted several different spoke calculators, which gave lengths that varied, as I recall, by about a millimeter or more. For no good reason, I finally went with the Spocalc length, which called for, as I recall, 300.6 or something for the front wheel and non-drive side rear, and 298.3 for the drive side. The DT Swiss calculator was quite a bit shorter. I rounded down, not wanting to run out of threads too soon. As it turns out, I would have come up short even if I'd rounded UP.
So what's a wheelbuilder to do? Once you find a combination that works you can obviously build the same wheel successfully again and again, but for a first try it seems to me that you have to choose a spoke calculator based on educated guesswork, round up or down based on a guess with no data, buy the spokes, and hope for the best. I'd guess that people must come up wrong pretty often. Is that the case?
I'm going to try again with new spokes. At least now I have a good handle on what the actual length needs to be.
JV