Thread: Spokes ain't good spokes sometimes.

I sent off for some stainless spokes for the front wheel from an Aussie supplier. They arrived, so I chucked the front hub, trued the flanges removing the casting marks and lowering the joining bridge so I could get a mop in, then polished it. The rims were in terrible condition, badly oxidised and it looked like the previous owner had used a hammer and chisel to get the tyres on. I ground down the edges of the rims, removing most of the gouges, the walls of the rims was then hit with a nylon fibre wheel to remove the scratches and gouges and then I polished them. Unfortunately I couldn't remove all of the damage, but they came up reasonably well.<br>
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I then laced the front wheel, centred and trued it only to find there was about 3mm of thread showing between nipple and rim on every single spoke. The spokes were obviously threaded too far. I contacted the seller and for my trouble I received a number of abusive texts and emails. The last one he sent a picture of a rear wheel his 'professional' wheel builder had spoked using his spokes and lo and behold there was thread showing on the spokes as well. When I pointed that out, he said both he and his 'professional' wheel builder said it was perfectly acceptable.<br>
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Spokes are normally ordered by length using a calculator into which you enter rim size, hub flange size and cross pattern, prior to the internet there were formulas for sizing spokes. At worst, you may get a few mm of thread showing above the spoke head which is easily fixed by cutting the excess thread off. I spoked my first wheel in 1968, since then I've spoked dozens and dozens of wheels, both bicycle and motorcycle, never have I experienced this problem before, and yet the guy that supplied these spokes has his wheel builder spoke his wheels like this as a matter of course. Thread length is pretty standard and nipples are counter bored for around 3mm to hide any excess thread due to rims being slightly off. However, for some popular classics, like mine, spokes can be ordered for the bike, correct length, correct thread length, correct gauge, correct head angle and so on. <br>
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Fortunately, he didn't have any rear wheel spokes so I ordered them from Holland (same price despite coming from Holland). The spokes arrived so I chucked the rear hub, trued the flanges and removed the casting bridges between the fins and polished it, then laced the wheel using the rim I'd already polished. And what do you know, the spokes were correct, no thread showing. Looks 100percent better.<br>
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I also spun up some stainless spacers, then spun up some ally dust covers and pressed them over the spacers. The front hub has mounting holes for disks on both sides of the hub, but as the bike only has a single disk, I spun up and ally cover to cover the excess mounts and to replace the stock steel cover which was rusted away.<br>
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Both wheels look ok, but I do cringe whenever I look at the front wheel.