On 5/16/2017 7:28 PM, Mark J. wrote:
On 5/16/2017 6:57 AM, Gabriele Russo wrote:
Does it exist a tool (pliers?) for clamping round spokes and avoiding
twisting? Anything like the blade wrench used for truing wheels with
aero spokes?
Thanks.

In my experience (which could be wrong), no. I've tried to kludge
together a prototype, with no success.

Instead,...

Here are a few tips I use for dealing with "wind-up" or spoke twisting,
and dealing with aluminum nipples (I assume you're still thinking of
using them).

1) Use a spoke wrench that grips nipple on four sides (has a just a tiny
slot on side of square nipple cutout, to get wrench past the spoke).
Much harder to damage aluminum nipples with these; they are widely
available.

2) Lubricate spoke threads. Also lubricate spoke-rim contact surface.
The latter makes an astonishing improvement in ease of truing.

3) Grip spoke tightly in fingers while turning nipple wrench - not so
much to stop wind-up, but to sense it. When tightening nipple, spoke
twists just-so-much before threads break free; continue to turn nipple
desired amount, then back off the sensed amount of wind-up. In practice
much simpler than the long-winded description I just gave. Helps to
have heavily callused fingertips. Be careful, super-thin spokes (DT
revolutions, e.g.) can just "keep winding" until they break, or so the
venerated Jobst told us.

4) Mark side of un-twisted spoke with a sharpie (felt-tip marker). In
the right light, this makes it very easy to see wind-up and remove it.
Wipes off with alcohol when finished.

5) Tighten drive-side spokes first, so that rim is too far toward the
drive side, while non-drive-side spokes are undertensioned. Guesstimate,
trying to get drive-side spoke nipples in their final "setting," then
tighten the non-drive-side spokes to desired tension. This means that
toward the end of the build, when tension is highest, you are primarily
adjusting the lower-tension, easier-to-turn non-drive-side spokes. [In
practice, there's some trial-and-error here to get the drive side right
so that in the end, it all comes in at the desired tensions and
correctly dished.]

6) Definitely remember to stress wheel at end of build to stress-relieve
spokes; procedure is better described elsewhere, e.g. Sheldon's site.
Also (carefully) flex wheel to de-tension spokes to eliminate any
residual wind-up. I do the latter by laying wheel on side with axle
resting on a block of wood; push hard downward on opposing sides of rim.
You can feel when you're pushing hard enough. By some miracle, this
has never taco'ed a wheel on me.

7) Make a serious effort to get all spoke on one side of wheel at nearly
equal tension. Tensiometers work nice, but the pluck-and-listen method
works well if you have a good sense of pitch. Tensiometers will also
make sure you've got things tight enough but not too tight.

As you can see, I'm not a /fast/ wheel builder, but I've pushed the
bleeding edge on a few wheels and gotten good results (durable wheels)
that generally never need retruing.

Mark J.

I have, for certain stubborn spokes on old wheels, used a 3" Vise Grip
(locking plier) to hold the spoke.

--
- Frank Krygowski