Bike Mechanics didn't work out for me, so I'm posting here as I know there are a lot of knowledgeable wheel builders here.

So I decided to cheap out on spokes for my girlfriend's build and bought straight guage spokes for some reason. In hindsight, I should have just bought double guage spokes, but at the time I thought that it doesn't matter (and I'm sure it doesn't in reality) since all she does is commute and go an occasional short ride with me. The wheels are now laced and are pretty close to being perfect. They are the gray anodized open pros laced a 6600 rear hub and 105 front hub. I'm trying to decide if it's worth it to tear down the wheels, get double butted spokes, and rebuild them. I would then save the spokes for a build with some Open Sports and whatever hub I come across in the future. Would that jsut be a total waste of time? The perfectionist in me is annoyed by this.

The spokes I got for the rear are too long. They poke out a bit... like 3mm or so. However, there was enough thread to bring the wheel under ~110 DS/~85 NDS. Think it'll be a problem? Shouldn't matter if I use good rim strip like velox right?

And a general question: How do you guys go about setting the tension for the wheel? Every post I look at gives a tension range your wheels should be at. Would you ever not want to put it at the highest tension within the range? It may be not necessary for lighter riders, but why wouldn't you if you are already going through the trouble of tensioning?

I'm new to wheel building. Have built 5 sets and I'm hooked.

Its fun isn't it!

There's nothing wrong with straight gauge. You don't have to think of it as cheaping out either, you're gaining an advantage in durability and in reality the weight savings can be more than offset by using a quality tire. The strongest wheels I've built are on my Schwinn Varsity. They're 26" Rhyno Lite rims and straight gauge spokes and these wheels take a pounding and never flinch.

If you've got a wheel that's tensioned and true I think you are correct, shouldn't need to worry much as long as you use good rim tape. You could always trim the spoke ends if you were really concerned.

if you are using spokecalc, consider a different calculator. I think you'll find that there's more folks than care to admit who've had spoke lengths come up wrong and I'm of the opinion that its spokecalc to blame. Google spoke calculator and use like anything else. I like this one and have had good results with it https://www.prowheelbuilder.com/spokelengthcalculator/

as for tension i just shoot for 100-120 and settle on whatever the wheel seems to want.

I'm no professional. I've got just shy of a dozen sets under my belt at this point, but I am feeling more confident lately.

I wouldn't stress out too much on tension. I never used to worry about it at all, just went by feel and sound of spokes when pinged and built wheels that lasted for years and never needed truing. Finally, I bought a spoke tension gauge, I really use it more when first tensioning the spokes, just get everything sort of even as a baseline and work up from there. By even, I mean +-10%. A lot of this is going to depend on the quality of the rim, getting even spoke tension. Sometimes you are just going to have a tight spoke or two unless you want to possibly discard the rim.... But if you are habitually having a wide range of tensions, maybe you might rethink your wheelbuilding process a little - as i mentioned, I like to get spokes more or less equal tension at a level mayber 20% or so below final tension and then be adding tension via dishing, roundness adjustments, or just going around the whole wheel adding tension to spokes if those dimensions are ok.

As for the nipples, that seems a little high, but the real question is how far below the rim tape surface are these spoke ends. You can get a pretty good idea of how much the rim tape deforms into the holes by looking at used rim tape. If you got a lot of margin there, I wouldn't worry a lot about it, although others may.

1. Toss the tension gauge. I've never used one and never will. So what do you do if you get even tension and the wheels out of true or needs truing? Do you leave it out of true in lieu of perfect tension or do you true it and screw up perfect tension? You true it.

2. Sticking out a little is no problem as long as the nipples aren't binding.
3. Tools are made for sniping off the ends of long spokes. I doubt you'll find one so here are 3 tried and tue options
3a. Leave them as is and run at least 1 layer of Velox tape, 2 if needed.
3b. Take a flat bladed screwdriver and use it as a chisel to wack the extra length. Trust me....been there dont that.
3c. Buzz them off with Dremel. Never did it myself only because the boss made me do it like in 3d.
3d. File them down with a file.

My tensioning techiniue is to over dish towards the gear side then tighten the non-gear spokes to bring it back in line.

Ditto.

Neal

Hmmn, I used spokecalc for my first totally scratch wheelbuild where I did not know spoke length in advance (i.e. not a copy of an existing wheel). I calculated for 3X and they came out way too long. I restrung the wheel 4X and it worked out pretty well. Next time, I'll try a different calculator, I guess.

I don't know that there is a durability advantage to single (i.e. large) gauge spokes vs butted spokes. That would only be the case if the butted spokes were failing in the butted section.

On the other hand, butted spokes are inherently more robust, as a spoke is really just a very stiff spring, and a thinner spoke will exhibit less tension variation and arguably experience less fatigue than a thicker one, everything else being equal. That said, it would take some very intricate analysis or very meticulous testing to determine whether the difference is significant. Things I know for sure are:

1. butted spokes are theoretically more robust
2. butted spokes save a small amount of weight
3. butted spokes save a small amout of drag
4. butted spokes cost more to make

My version of Spocalc displays all versions of crossing (0,1,2,3,4) in the same box. There's even a spot for fractional crosses- good for oddball rear wheels (as in 16 drive-side, 8 non-drive-side). It's been perfectly accurate for me, even with the wacky recumbent wheels I build.

I don't own a tension meter either. I kind of go by the feel when I tension relieve the spokes by grabbing groups of four and squeezing. I've found that doing that several times during the build helps me the most. That way spokes are better formed to the hubs by the time you get to your final true and tension. As a rule, when a set of wheels gets around 100 miles on it, I bring them back in and put them in the stand for a check. They might need the lightest of touchups but usually that's it.

I've done about 45mph on a downhill on a set of wheels I've built...I guess *I* trust them...

I use Spocalc, BUT I use my dimensions not theirs. Not sure why it does it the way it does. I also cross check with the one that Zaphod linked to. I am anal, I don't like the spoke ends protruding beyond the nipple if I can help it. I cut them off with bull nose nippers and then dress the end with a dremel tool.

Tension gauge. I use it mainly as a verification tool, or if I get a set of wheels that I didn't build up. On most of my wheels I aim for somewhere in the middle to high end of the chart. NOT maximum tension, I want some wiggle room. On just about all of my wheels I can get a round, true wheel and have the tension readings plus or minus 10%, usually closer. On older wheels that have seen rough use, I don't worry as much about it as long as they are close.

+1 on relieving the spokes as you tension up the wheel, there are a variety of methods, grabbing spokes, putting long screw driver across pairs of spokes, putting the wheel on the floor and pressing down on the rim, etc.

Aaron

Thanks for all the input guys. Seems a little pointless to rebuild using DB spokes right now and the nipples poking out seems like it won't be a problem.

Time to build my next set... this time I will crosscheck between different spoke calculators.

I want to go into this tension gauge thing a little, been thinking about it. For years, I pretty much operated along the nlerner/miamijim philosophy. Didn't own a truing stand, used a frame, tensioned by feel & sound of spokes. Built plenty of fine wheels, it really is a common sense thing mostly, once you understand the problem.

When I say I started using a tension guage, I mean I just started, only have built 2 wheels with it, just wanted to experiment. And I still agree w/nlerner/miamijim, it is unnecessary.

So far, it seems to me that it may useful in the initial stage to speed things up a little though, right after you take up all the nipple slack so that threads aren't showing. And then you put it on the stand, typically some big whoop-de-doos in the wheel at this point. Again, I've only tried this on two wheels, but it seems like at this point going around the spokes and roughly evening up the tension gets the wheel to a fairly decent baseline pretty quickly rather than the typical iterative process. After that point, I don't really have any use for the thing, not sure why I spent the money on it, just curious.

One thing to keep in mind though, is that there is not one unique set of spoke tensions for a set of spokes, hub, and rim to be in true. There are three solutions/constraints (dish, average radius, max runout) and n (>3> variables, each n being the tension of an individual spoke. So it is quite possible for a wheel to be in true w/relatively even spoke tensions all around and it is also possible for a wheel to be just as true w/a wide variation in spoke tensions. I think most would agree that the first case is more desirable, although how desirable is arguable.

Again, I'm just playing w/the tension gauge, my opinion is that it may be a bit of a productivity enhancer at that first stage of building, but I may decide it is a waste of time, sell the thing, and go back to my old ways. It certainly is not any critical component of wheelbuilding.

I also agree wholeheartedly w/using dish to add tension. When I'm hitting on all cylinders on a wheel build, a last dish adjustment around the wheel tightening the spokes 1/4 turn on the appropriate wheel side is my last operation.

I really only use a tension meter for the baseline. I am not as good as others here, but the tension meter adds to my confidence when building a new wheel. When I true wheels that are already at adequate tension, I rarely use the meter.

Once I have established a base line I seldom use the tension gauge, I look on it as a belt and suspenders type of thing. I have built wheels in the past with no tension gauge. And probably will build more in the future. I suspect that even tension is much more important as your spoke count goes down. The lowest count wheels I have are 28 spoke, and most of mine are 36 spoke. As a border line clyde I want strong, durable wheels.

Aaron

Oh yes it will be a problem! Road bicycle tires run at fairly high pressures. The inner tubes do work against the tires, and against the liners, and against anything else they touch. This work causes friction and those extra long spokes will just add to the friction. The OP will experience flats because of the extra length. 3mm is quite a bit, when you have a thin piece of rubber being shoved and rubbed into it, for a long time, at very high pressure. Also...

With the higher pressures, forget the old rubber rim liners. They will distort into spoke nipple depressions on the newer style rims, once again, offering a perfect inner tube failure point - 36 of them, actually.

That's how I see it.

Then I guess I should cut them off. There is a good amount of space from the nipple and where the rim strip burrows into the rim holes. Just thought that the strong Velox stuff would hold up as they don't burrow in anymore than 1-2 mm on my other builds.