What is commonly used?
What is the purpose of applying it?

One experienced wheel builder told me they use linseed oil.

Ennybody?

When I buy a wheel's worth, my shop gives me a complimentary dose of Wheelsmith or Phil Wood spoke prep.

The idea is that it acts as a lubricant while you build the wheels and a thread locker after it's cured a bit, too keep the spokes from backing out.

Jobst Brandt claims it really was invented to facilitate machine-built wheels and is unnecessary.

Linseed oil is indeed used but I hear it needs a few days' cure time.

Eh, so it's spoke prep.

I'll google it. Thanks

If you want them not to back out, apply proper tension. As for lube ,linseed oil sounds ok if your nipples bind while tensioning the spokes. Use a tension guage and you can pretty much forget about truing often.

Spoke prep compounds may be unnecessary. I've built a few sets of wheels using only oil on the spoke threads. I may've used Phil Wood Tenacious Oil. The wheels held true and never loosened. I think proper preload/spoke tension is key.

I use Spoke Prep on every wheel I build. I've never had one come back.

Spoke prep is good stuff, I use it as well.
I dip one spoke into the little jar of the suff, but only so 2/3 of the threads have it on. The amount on that spoke is good for 5 or 6 spokes, so I take one spoke and it next to the one which I dipped into the jar, so the compound spreads to the other threads. And just do that over and over, let it sit for a few minutes too

Whoops, made a wrong turn. I thought this was the Smoke dope thread.

what spoke prep do you guys commonly use?

spoke prep is the product name that Wheelsmith produces

I was in Performance Bike in Scottsdale, AZ today and the wrench said he used red loctite. He said amatuers should only use blue.

Wassup with that?

Dont use loctite, its brutal. The milder flavors might be okay but I still dont like that idea, it makes truing in the future harder

Yeah, seems like it would lead to spoke twist once cured.

Something sounds fishy here. Loctite is great for locking threads together - red is high strength, blue is medium strength.

1. If pretensioned corrected threaded fasteners are highly resistant to loosening by vibration. For example, think of the lug nuts on a car wheel - 10,000's of miles and they don't come off.
2. If red or blue Loctite is used, it is highly doubtful that the rim can be trued once the compound has set (24 hours?). And if you do manage to break the joint free to true, is the mechanic suggesting that nipple be removed complete and new Loctite used in the threads?

I've read a couple of wheel building books. Jobst Brandt's comes to mind immediately, and I believe he suggests oil (quite the opposite of Loctite).