Brass vs. Al nipples
 

In terms of staying true, would brass nipples be preferred for building a 32 spoke wheel for a 240 lb rider?
The rims are mavic open pro's.
Without nipples my wheels are running 1800g for the pair due to the fact that I'm building them with straight 20ga. spokes.
The weight difference between brass and aluminum is only 21g per set, but why have them be heavier than necessary?

20 ga. spokes on a 32 spoke wheel? And you weigh 240 lb.? Are you sure you don't mean 14 ga.? Anyway, brass is the better choice. Less problems (i.e. stronger). At some point, pushing for lightness creates far more problems than it's worth. You'll understand what I mean when your wheel breaks 20 miles from home.

the 20ga. spoke thing confuses me, i think you must mean 14ga or 14/15/14.
Anyways, I believe the weight savings is close to 40 grams. It is not worth it, especially for a 240lb rider. Brass nipples are easier to turn, and aluminum nipples crack. You cant use the aluminum nipples on the driveside rear anyways

They measure .077". Ignorance sucks, please educate me as to what gauge that translates to.

Thx

Mike

Nonsense. Aluminum nipples can be used wherever you want. They do present problems that brass nipples do not, but to state what you did is just totally, absolutely incorrect. Typical of many of your posts.

It's:

(.077 in)(25.4mm/in) = 1.955mm

The closest gauge to that would be a 2.0mm spoke, which is the same as 14 gauge.

Any LBS will be able to supply you with these spokes. Ask for 2.0mm or 14 gauge and they will know exactly what you are looking for. The next narrower gauge would be 1.8mm (15ga). As diameter in mm goes down, the gauge# goes up. It's very possible that you got 2.0mm and 20ga confused in your original post. A 20 gauge spoke would be a very fine diameter and not very strong.

Quote from Gerd Schraders book page 48
"I now build rear wheels, be they for mountainbike or for the road, using at least double butted 2.0/1.8/2.0 mm spokes on drive side and - also very important - brass niples".

I am inclined to agree with him as well. Drive side is where the most burden is, why not reinforce this with stronger material? For a lightweight XC rider like myself i would not mind aluminum nipples on drive, but for a 240lb get real. It looks like your posts are the ones full of ****

There is a world of difference between Jobst Brandt's preference and your flat statement that you can't use aluminum nipples on the drive side. This isn't a question of semantics. Nice try, but still wrong.

I dont think you understand this correctly...
I know you can use aluminum on the drive side rear, or anywhere. Hell I have at least 6 aluminum nipples on the driveside rear because thats all i had left. I didnt mean for that to be a general all around mandate, I am reffering to this instance. 14ga. spokes paired with brass nipples is the CORRECT choice for this original poster.

These are your own words:

"You cant use the aluminum nipples on the driveside rear anyways"

There is no ambiguity in that statement. I did not edit what you said. It is wrong, as I have already pointed out.

I will give you credit for one thing. You backpedal better than anyone I have seen on this forum. You are a true expert at that.

I dont get how it is wrong, I am not talking to cascade168 here. I am talking to nomo4me. If i said "you all", it would certainly be wrong

Thanks for the excellent explanation. The wheelset originally came with double butted wheelsmith spokes 14/17/14 on dura ace hubs. Those spokes couldn't hold up to the hard cornering I enjoy and I gave up after having them trued twice.
I wasn't going to hold the ebay seller responsible for my weight, so we worked out a deal where he sold me straight 14 ga. wheelsmith spokes at his cost and included some brass nipples (god I love that word).

I'm looking at a 1900g wheelset, but the alternative is a $600 or so set or loose a bunch of weight.

Both seem beyond me at present :(

Thanks again for all the replies - well, the useful ones :rolleyes:

wheels are expensive, way overpriced i think. You might look into Velocity Deep V rims also, those things will take anything you can dish out. I have seen tandems around here using them. Matched with 14ga spokes and a pretty set of hubs, you wont have the lightest wheelset around but it will be affordable and very strong

Yeah, I'm about $350 in this set (new) and probably should have spent a bit more. If these will hold up and require truing only 2x/year I'll be pleased with the purchase.

I'm no lightweight myself, but at 240 lbs, why are you concerning yourself about a 21 gram weight difference?

What's up with this? Is there a real need to flame the guy? PhantomCow knows what he's talking about. I wouldn't use al nipples on the drive side (actually, on any wheel) either.

If he actually DID know what he is talking about he would not have made the statement that you can't use Al nipples on the drive side. I find it hard to swallow that someone who only started building wheels back in December - a whole nine months ago - tries to pass himself off as expert and knowedgeable. There are wannabees everywhere, in all aspects of life, and people that are new to this forum should be aware that there are more than a few on this forum that attempt to pass themselves off as more than what they really are. This guy is a prime example and if you go back and really examine his history of posts it becomes clear that he is making a lot of it up as he goes and I feel that he should be held accountable for accuracy.

There are plenty of people that clearly are experts and know what they are talking about - raiyn, sydney (although most of his posts come complete with acid), rev chuck, and others, just to name a few. They consistantly give good advice and pass the b/s detector every time. Even they make a mistake now and then and I have seen them all show enough humility and admit it - even sydney. I have made a mistake or two here and have taken my medicine. I make every effort I can to ensure that anything I post is accurate and NOT JUST SPECULATION. If I make a mistake, or give someone bad advice, then I want to know about it and I will admit it and move on. There is a big difference between stating something as an absolute fact and stating that something is your opinion, or what you are guessing at.

Also, the fact that this person was caught in an out and out lie earlier in the year does not help his credibility (see: http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread.php?t=101317). In that case, to make sure I got my facts straight I called the manufacturer (Control Tech) myself, as what had been stated just did not seem to make sense. It was stated that Control Tech had emailed this person and told him that
"their handlebars were not compatible". When I spoke to Control Tech they told me that they had never even manufactured CF MTB bars. Not surprisingly, this discrepancy between his story and that of the manufacturer was never reconciled. As usual, he just had excuses and backpedalled as fast as he could when he realized he got caught.

You should not confuse the volume of someone's posts, or how nice they seem to be, with what the real truth is. The world has plenty of people like Kenneth Lay, Bernie Cornfield, and Michael Milliken. If you don't pay attention to who these people are then you will get burned.

I would not even have replied to this thread at all if I did not see that the person in question is clearly a repeat offender and continues to pass himself off as something that he clearly is not.

Cascade, you need to not care so much about the goings-on of a hobbyist message board. Ain't healthy.
I'm going to use the brass nipples, thanks to all those that helped me decide.

Brass nipples are a great choice!

Jason

HEy ******* so control tech doesnt make CF handlebars?
Im so full of **** right?
Well look
http://cgi.ebay.com/Control-Tech-Car...QQcmdZViewItem
Certainly looks like carbon fiber to me, especially since the TItle of the auction is
Control Tech Carbon Comp Carbon FiberRiser bar new

Why would i lie about this? There is NO REASON to do so. I wanted bar ends and i thought that the ones here
http://www.controltechbikes.com/barends/barends.asp
were nice.

The customer tech support says that their CF handlebars had a reinforcement on the ends for bar ends and even went to offer me a combo deal of CF handlebars and bar ends for a reduced price.

I am a believer in improvising and making things work if they were not necessarily designed to, i have read that easton document plenty of times but i still wanted to see if others had run other bar ends without issues

In a conversation today with Control Tech's international distributor, Linear Components, Inc., I was told that Control Tech does, in fact, manufacture three different CF MTB bars. He also told me that you will not find them on the Control Tech site.

So, in this specific case, I was wrong in what I said. Please accept my apology.

Looks like we all learned a little something, today, didn't we?

Lets all go home, think about our lesson, then have a few beers, forget the lesson, and get back on BF. ;)

peace,
sam

Michael Milliken? He wasn't the problem, he plainly stated to all of his investors that junk bonds were a risky investment that have great potential for gains as well as losses; it was the investors who jumped on the junk bond craze and when they lost all their money went crying to the feds who in turn used him too make an example just like Martha Stewart was...MOST big corperate officers participate in inside trader information this is one of the ways they get so wealthy, she just happen to get caught and they used her to make an example out of; I know this about Milliken to be true because I went to one of his seminars and read one of his books about junk bonds BEFORE charges were ever thought of being leveled against him. Now back to bikes! I'll stay out of the nipple warfare.