[email protected] wrote in message news:<
[email protected]>...
> Anthony Anagnostou writes:
>
> > I want to build wheels, but the parts prices are prohibitive (ya' like that alliteration?). It
> > kills me how I can buy a wheelset cheaper than I can buy its parts and build it myself.
>
> > Anyways, I can get hold of cheap rims and cheap hubs? However, I've never seen cheap spokes. If
> > all I want is a simple straight 14g set of spokes, isn't there a generic I can buy somewhere?
> > I've only ever seen the name brands for sale. What do department store bikes use? The ones
> > around campus don't seem to be rusting.
>
> > Yes. I'm sure one can only find name brand for a reason, but I can't help but wonder why a
> > cheaper stainless spoke can't be made/sold. No butting. No blades.
>
> It took the principal spoke manufacturers many years to develop a wire from which durable spokes
> could be formed. A wire that must have high tensile strength and high ductility for forming and
> installing spokes it in a wheel, an operation that causes additional plastic deformation. Not long
> ago spoke failure was so common that most riders carried spare spokes, a spoke wrench, and a
> freewheel remover.
>
> Today, spoke material and manufacture has improved substantially, and I believe partly as a result
> of understanding how spokes are stressed in use as well as what causes failures, something that
> was not generally known until recently. Spoke steel is not the same as ordinary structural or wire
> stainless steel, its requirement of high strength and ductility being contradictory. Tensile tests
> of better spokes (name brand) show that his has been achieved today.
>
> It isn't worth your while to build wheels with anything but a reputable brand name spoke, and
> these are all relatively expensive. Your best bet is to look for a better price rather than lesser
> quality. While you're at it, you might also reconsider your choice of straight gauge spokes.
> Butted (or swaged) 1.6-1.8mm spokes are probably the best choice for a wheel.
>
> Thinner spokes wind up excessively from tightening torque unless special skills are used. When you
> think spokes, think long screws and that a screws usually fail in their threads, the smallest
> cross section. Machine screws designed for high cyclic loads are often "strain screws" with a mid
> section smaller in diameter than the root of the thread, essentially swaged spokes.
>
> Jobst Brandt
[email protected] Palo Alto CA
Sapim "Indian Head" 14-g almost fit the bill... they have a decent stainless spoke and are half the
price of DT etc. They seem to be more flexible/less brittle than some - Ъ×