On Sunday, October 21, 2018 at 8:50:54 PM UTC-7, news18 wrote:
On Sat, 20 Oct 2018 07:56:28 -0700, jbeattie wrote:

Wheel building has also slowed down for me because I have this mass of
old spokes and nipples and end up spending time measuring spokes and
looking at the lip on the nipple opening to determine whether it is 14
of 15g. Poor housekeeping slows the process.

BTDT.
Lesson one is not to use rubber band to bundle them.
Lesson two is tape requires them all to be cleaned.
Lesson three is string can fall apart over the years and loose labels.
lesson four is sometimes it is just easier to just buy a new lot when you
do need them.

So far the only thing that has lasted is the film canisters holding the
nipples. At least the permanent market hasn't faded on them.

I used paper painters tape and wrote length and "in" or "out" to maintain the orientation of used spokes -- on about 20% of my spokes, most of which are useless with modern aero and semi-aero rims. I still have a bunch of left-over 310mm spokes in a box from a 4X Weinmann Concave touring wheels I built 40 years ago. Most everything is in the 295-298 range, which means 605 ERDs and struggling to find swap-able rims. I miss the days when you could buy 14/15 spokes for $.10-.20 per. Now spokes are a significant expense and harder and harder to find for a reasonable price.

-- Jay Beattie.