Originally Posted by
mrrabbit
If you know the history of the previous wheel - i.e., spokes were fine and did not show a recent history of fatique such as periodic broken spokes - and the spokes are DT, Wheelsmith, Union, Alpina, Echelon or of decent quality...it is worthwhile reusing them if you are on a budget.
I reuse DT frequently. Has never been an issue for me. Nor will I toss DT spokes...unless I know they have shown signs of fatique or show obvious damage such as that which occurs with a dropped chain.
=8-)
You can't see fatigue, nor measure spokes for how much of their life expectancy is used up, the way you can measure a chain for stretch.
The fact is that spokes do have a finite life expectancy, which varies with the quality of the original build, and the conditions of use; heavy rider, lots of hard hill climbing, bar roads, etc.
It boils down to the value you assign to your time. You know how much replacing the spokes will cost, and if building for yourself can decide if it's worth your time to save the dough. It also depends on what you're expecting from the new wheel. For instance if you were building a wheel for a planned cross country tour vs. a training wheel for off season use.
When building for your own use, re-using spokes is a personal decision, but I consider re-using spokes when building for sale to be the epitome of unprofessionalism, and if a client asked me to reuse his spokes, I'd decline the work. Re-using hubs is fine and makes sense, since a decent hub is valuable and will easily survive many builds unaffected. But for me, spokes and rims are strictly use once, throw away* items.
*recycle SS spokes and aluminum rims after punching the eyelets out.