Stress Relieving Wheels

[buffedupboy]

Okay peeps,

Lying awake thinking aloud. If most factory built wheels are not stressed relieved, and hence is the cause of most spoke breakages, why don't just purchase factory built wheels and stress relieve them? Surely this will make for a lightweight indestructable wheel?

Also, how do you stress relieve a radially laced wheel? No 2 spokes are parallel?

One last thing that is keeping me up now... Sheldon Brown's explanation of stress relieving is to kinda deform the spokes where they cross or to seat the nipples on the flanges, whereas Joe B. concept is to eliminate stress risers? Which is what? From what I can gather, both of them accomplish the same but why take a crank to your spokes? And is it possible to cold set your spokes this way?

I'm not starting a war, don't flame me, I've read through most of the archives and cannot identify the difference because perhaps I'm not so smart. Just wondering out aloud.

Happy New Year guys.

 

[daveornee]

Check the following link for some help:

http://yarchive.net/bike/stress_relieve.html

Many factory built wheels do some form of stress relief, but not all and not to the degree required.

Sheldon's method can work, but it may be hidden beind other "benefits" such as bedding in an making the spokes follow the shortest path.

Radial spokes can be stress relieved by carefully applying significant force in the lateral direction.
Grabbing nearly parallel pairs isn't always the best way as you might make the spokes yield and lose some spoke alignment. The spokes should have the same or less tension when stress relieving is completed than before.
You may need to retension, rebalance tension, and stress relieve in iterations.