Bike Oven

The Bike Tools Etc. spoke cutting tools that I've seen have a "not for mass spoke cutting" caveat next to them. I don't know if that will tilt the conversation one way or another, but I thought it was worth mentioning. The only other spoke cutting tools I am familiar with are the massively expensive Phil Wood spoke cutters - which are upwards of $3,000.

On another, unrelated note, I was wondering if anyone has any experience with adjustable spoke keys? I just bought one from Bike Tools Etc. - to use on stripped spoke nipple. I haven't had a chance to test the tool out - but we run into this problem with rims all the time. An okay rim will have one stripped nipple (inevitably where the worst bump is). Being able to adjust that stripped nipple without having to thread a replacement spoke could be a nice fix.

The adjustable spoke key I bought is this one:

Park Adjustable Spoke Wrench SW-10 - Price: $34.95

Per our last meeting David G checked out what the Bike Kitchen does
regarding spokes. As you can see the Kitchen stocks several sizes of
spokes but do not use or recommend a spoke cutter or threader. Forward
to anyone else...........
John Harvey

Begin forwarded message:

> From: "David Gorbenko"
> Date: August 11, 2008 10:04:55 PM PDT
> To: info@bikeoven.com
> Subject: Spokes
>
> Hey Joe, Jay, and everyone
>
> I called the Bike Kitchen and talked with Megan. She told me
> that they order exclusively through the company 'QBP'. You can email
> them at sales@qbp.com. They buy all the spokes between sizes 250-310,
> at the "generic" thickness (14, she thinks). I asked if they had a
> spoke cutter of their own, and Megan said they didn't. She said that
> the spoke cutter is an expensive and very "temperamental" tool. "Not
> worth it" in her opinion. Megan then started saying that they try to
> help whoever needs help with their spokes; however, if they can not
> fix the problem then they just send them to another bike shop. There
> is one across they street that they recommend sometimes, but its a
> profit oriented shop. Other then that they do what they can with what
> they have and occasionally reorder spokes when they have the money.
> If you have any questions you can email me back at
> davidgorbenko@gmail.com
>
> -David

This is good information and appreciated. However, does anyone (of us) have direct experience with cutting and threading spokes? All I get out of the statement from Megan is that the spoke cutter is "temperamental". Well, we see our chain and crank tools being broken regularly. Are they temperatmental too?

If long spokes can be cut and threaded to size, then sheer economics tells us that for small jobs (not complete wheel builds) then it is not practical to keep all sizes of spokes on hand. Doesn't the Kitchen do a lot of wheel building? If so, then they would want to stock the various boxes of spokes and not be doing production scale cutting and threading.

In any case, I will hold off on ordering these tools ($155 for all spoke tools) until we get more input.

Harv
.

I'm all for getting new spokes of every size that we need. Spokes generally come in 2mm increments, that would mean we need 25 different sizes of spokes to cover 250>310. A 2mm variance is considered acceptable. Installing incorrect lengths will either make a spoke with too little threads in the nipple, or if the spoke is too long, sticking out past the nipple it means you don't have enough threads holding the nipple ( you can screw the nipple past the threaded portion) Either way the nipple could strip and cause problems of the wheel breaking while riding. The spokes are under a lot of tension (or should be, check the new tension meter chart & read sheldon, Jobst Brandt, Gerd Schraner, on wheel building ) All of the main wholesale suppliers of spokes require some sort of proper business set up. Also there is a HUGE difference between good and cheap spokes.... before we do any of this we should find the freaking spoke gauge ruler that we had (it's blue, has holes for checking ball bearing sizes and a slot to check spoke length) so we know how to check actual spoke lengths. There is a ebay supplier who sells bags of 72 "Sapim" spokes/nipples/washer for $37 + 7 shipping. We could get mixted sets of 72. (4X18+36 for repair work only, generally 32/36 per wheel) That would be something like $240.

http://cgi.ebay.com/72-Sapim-Race-14-15-DT-Spokes-Washers-SILS-Nipples_W0QQitemZ220267999210QQihZ012QQcategoryZ36144QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

Dave, sadly, at the bottom of the page, it says"The length of the nipple does not change the length of the spoke". For a second, I thought that we would never have spoke problems again.

That ebay guy (his user name is dave_ornee) sells the spokes at an awesome price. However, every once in a while, his availability can get spotty. I think that since we don't have any insurance, we should order from him, but we shouldn't depend on him.

The common sizes for 700c wheels is about 298mm for a 36-spoke, three-cross wheel. I can do some claculations and try to come up with the standard for 26" MTB rims, and for 27" rims.

Here is DT's reply. So it sounds like these would work fine for a 2mm short spoke and you could get away with a 4mm short spoke in a pinch. Wouldn't want to build a new wheel that way, but should be fine for a repair on a used wheel.

Hello David,
It is common practice to reduce your spoke length 1 or 2mm when you use longer nipples. The longer nips are threaded all the way through, but the rolled threads of a spoke will prohibited it from threaded all the way through the nip - so it will bottom out.

from our on-line spoke calculator (see the 'help' button)
All spoke lengths correspond to the use of 12 mm nipples (rims which need longer nipples are marked correspondingly).
When using 14 mm nipples (e.g. Mavic CXP 33) about 1 mm has to be deducted from the established spoke length.
When using 16 mm nipples (e.g. Mavic CXP 30) about 3 mm have to be deducted from the established spoke length.

Best Regards,
David Agapito
Technical Services
DT Swiss, Inc

Butted spokes are definately superior, but they are only better if the whole wheel has them. The only spoke replacements I've done at the shop have been on lower grade bikes with straight gauge spokes, but you guys may be seeing more higher end stuff.

Before you build something "fancy" for storage, if we can find some plastic compartment boxes like this, they work great. Believe it or not, at one point in my life I was in charge of keeping a spoke sorting system organized. I guarantee whatever we do will get mixed up. But if we have them in a small, sealed, well-labeled container that sits behind the desk, it won't get too bad (maybe).

I've fixed a couple rims where a spoke pulled through with just a standard washer before. A little "white trash", but held up fine. Works as long as the rim has a fairly flat surface. I assume you can buy something special for this, but I'm not sure what they do that a plain small washer won't.

Those plastic boxes are kool..... easy to see, simple and efficient....

double butted, stainless, 14 or 15 gauge.... it's true that we see a lot of junk wheels, that's why they're broken... they're junk. But even stainless straight gauge is better than what we mostly see. So do we work towards the lowest, or toward the highest.... if we get double butted (which doesn't cost that much more) we cover most everything, or straight gauge stainless which is certainly good enough, or we get straight gauge steel to save a few pennies and only cover the junky stuff???? I say live the dream..... (but I'm easy too ;-)

Also we should double check that we have a complete set of freewheel removers in GOOD condition. I seem to recall the Falcon freewheel remover and the Campy bb/freewheel removers are all chewed up. Also did we locate the 4 prong BMX/single speed remover - we probably should have spares anyway..........