Recycling Bicycle Spokes

The Dougster said:

Any thoughts, pro, con, or tech?

Er, <http://www.sheldonbrown.com/brandt/reusing-spokes.html>?

--
Tom Sherman - Behind the Cheddar Curtain

Funny I thought the guys at www.bikedump.com were being overly cheap
when they
recycled spokes,I know better now.

Nate Knutson said:

Quoted message said:

One of the questions I have about what Jobst says is whether it would
be an issue to remove spokes from their wheels and use them in new
wheels if you kept track of which were inbound and which were outbound.

It should be noted that Jobst is talking about quality, stainless steel
spokes that were stress relieved by the wheelbuilder to begin with.
Spokes that have never been stress relieved can be assumed to have
accumulated some amount of fatigue, weakening them and (by my
understanding) possibly putting at least some spokes beyond the point
where stress relieving them now will prevent breakage in the future.

Re-using non-stainless spokes of any kind is probably not worth it -
you're likely to run into corrosion problems on most of the wheels
you'd be getting them from, and you can pretty much assume none of them
have ever been stress relieved.

It is always interesting to read about things like high end electronics
and high cost bicycle equipment.

When one buys new spokes, do they come in two packs, one for inbound
and one for outbound? My guess is that they do not. There is not a
lot of difference in the angle.
What would be an interesting experiment, would be to lace up a wheel
with used spokes. And lace it with half of the wheel having spokes
where the used inbound spokes are used for inbound and the used
outbound spokes are used for outbound.
But with the other half of the wheel laced where the used inbound
spokes are used as outbound spokes, etc. One could use the valve hole
to keep track of which side of the wheel had the position preserved.

When bike spokes fail, do they normally fail at the hub end? Or do
they fail at the threaded end?

I am also interested in how the wheel builder stress relieves spokes.
And does an additional stress relief after some use affect the fatique
life. I would think that one could increase fatique life by stress
relieving before ever using something, but question whether performing
an additional stress relief after some amount of use, would add to the
fatique life.

Dan

"Nate Knutson" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

It should be noted that Jobst is talking about quality, stainless steel
spokes that were stress relieved by the wheelbuilder to begin with.
Spokes that have never been stress relieved can be assumed to have
accumulated some amount of fatigue, weakening them and (by my
understanding) possibly putting at least some spokes beyond the point
where stress relieving them now will prevent breakage in the future. So
if you start re-using lots of spokes from random wheels, some (perhaps
many) will break eventually even if they get stress relieved at the
start of their new life.

Nate, what do wheel builders mean by "stress-relieving" spokes? What is the
process they use?

--
Ed Huntress

Ed Huntress said:

"Nate Knutson" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

It should be noted that Jobst is talking about quality, stainless steel
spokes that were stress relieved by the wheelbuilder to begin with.
Spokes that have never been stress relieved can be assumed to have
accumulated some amount of fatigue, weakening them and (by my
understanding) possibly putting at least some spokes beyond the point
where stress relieving them now will prevent breakage in the future. So
if you start re-using lots of spokes from random wheels, some (perhaps
many) will break eventually even if they get stress relieved at the
start of their new life.

Nate, what do wheel builders mean by "stress-relieving" spokes? What is the
process they use?

--
Ed Huntress

There are many, many descriptions in the archives of this group.

Quoted message said:

Nate Knutson said:

Quoted message said:

One of the questions I have about what Jobst says is whether it would
be an issue to remove spokes from their wheels and use them in new
wheels if you kept track of which were inbound and which were outbound.

It should be noted that Jobst is talking about quality, stainless steel
spokes that were stress relieved by the wheelbuilder to begin with.
Spokes that have never been stress relieved can be assumed to have
accumulated some amount of fatigue, weakening them and (by my
understanding) possibly putting at least some spokes beyond the point
where stress relieving them now will prevent breakage in the future.

Re-using non-stainless spokes of any kind is probably not worth it -
you're likely to run into corrosion problems on most of the wheels
you'd be getting them from, and you can pretty much assume none of them
have ever been stress relieved.

It is always interesting to read about things like high end electronics
and high cost bicycle equipment.

When one buys new spokes, do they come in two packs, one for inbound
and one for outbound? My guess is that they do not. There is not a
lot of difference in the angle.

There is considerable difference after the wheelbuilder deliberately
changes the angle of the outer spokes at the hub.

Okay...the consensus is in 6 replies visible is that stainless is the
thing to recycle for sure, and we have some debate on whether inboard
and outboard spokes should be separated for reuse.

I am thinking S-bend spokes would be highly recyclable. Nip to length,
form new bends, and reuse. There'd be no need to own or operate a
threader. Just a pair of special pliers, quick and easy. Preserve the
threaded end.

The Eldi Emergency Spoke Tool, no longer available, comes to mind. I'm
looking around for a 14-15 gage S-bend plier tool. I have found a 15
gage tool used by model airfcraft hobbyists, and ordered it. There is a
Z-bend tool used by hobbyists for wire to 0.062. Spoke wire sizes are
0.072 and 0.081, I think.

Would universal use of straight gage S-bend spokes instead of headed
spokes be a change that would encourage recycling of spokes, rims,
wheels, and bicycles? Recycling is big with bicyclists. Would it also
provide a safety problem? Do such spokes eventually unbend or loosen?
Would S-bend spokes work with automatic wheel builders? It seems that
they would be easier to use with such equipment.

Some artists recycle spokes into craft productions like bracelets, key
rings, etc.

Do double-threaded spokes recycle well? Was that the intent for that
variety, or was there another reason?

The Dougster (I) said:

Any thoughts, pro, con, or tech?

Doug Goncz
Replikon Research
Seven Corners, VA 22044-0394

Ed Huntress said:

Nate, what do wheel builders mean by "stress-relieving" spokes? What is the
process they use?

--
Ed Huntress

I looked at the rec.bicycles.tech use group briefly and found that
"Stress Relieving" in the bike world seems to mean cold forming to
improve alignment. My ideas of stress relieving aren't close to
theirs. I was picturing using a torch to heat the spokes and wondered
how they controled the process.

Dan

Nate Knutson said:

There is considerable difference after the wheelbuilder deliberately
changes the angle of the outer spokes at the hub.

In that case I would think one would not need to keep track of which
were inbound and which were outbound. It would be obvious by merely
glancing at the spoke.

Dan

Ed Huntress said:

"Nate Knutson" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

It should be noted that Jobst is talking about quality, stainless steel
spokes that were stress relieved by the wheelbuilder to begin with.
Spokes that have never been stress relieved can be assumed to have
accumulated some amount of fatigue, weakening them and (by my
understanding) possibly putting at least some spokes beyond the point
where stress relieving them now will prevent breakage in the future. So
if you start re-using lots of spokes from random wheels, some (perhaps
many) will break eventually even if they get stress relieved at the
start of their new life.

Nate, what do wheel builders mean by "stress-relieving" spokes? What is the
process they use?

Dear Ed,

Sitting in front of a wheel in a truing stand, grab two pairs of
spokes, one pair with each hand, and squeeze mightily. Wearing gloves
is recommended.

A pair of spokes should be roughly parallel, not crossed.

The nipples of the four spokes should run down the rim A-B-C-D, with A
& C being squeezed with one hand, and B & D being squeezed in the
other hand.

The theory is that this raises the spoke tension enough to relieve
residual stresses from bending the spoke elbow during manufacture and
then the slight bending if the spokes are bent to lie against the hub
flange and to exit the rim at a slightly different angle.

Believers emphasize that this is not merely seating the spoke nipples
and elbows at the rim and hub.

Despite sincere belief and anecdotes, there are no reports of any
spoke testing that confirms or refutes the theory.

The lack of controlled testing (as opposed to anecdotes) leads to
frequent debates on RBT. Unfortunately, automated fatigue testing of
spokes is an incredibly tedious and lengthy business.

The only spoke fatigue tests that I know of were performed over 20
years ago at Stanford for WheelSmith, but did not compare squeezed to
unsqueezed spokes:

http://www.duke.edu/~hpgavin/papers/HPGavin-Wheel-Paper.pdf

Of the 76 spokes tested, 68 broke at the elbow, 8 at the threads.
Testing was stopped because it had taken two months, which gives you
some idea of how tedious it is, particularly since road test stress
ranged from 20 to only 150 MPa, while the test stresses started at
174 MPa and reached 501 MPa.

The first formal description of spoke-squeezing for stress-relief came
in 1981 in "The Bicycle Wheel," by Jobst Brandt, a frequent poster on
RBT.

Twelve years later, Jobst wrote in the third edition of his book:

"It appears that the better spokes now available would have made the
discovery of many of the concepts of this book more difficult for lack
of failure data. I am grateful in retrospect for the poor durability
of earlier spokes. They operated so near their limits that durability
was significantly altered by the techniques that I have outlined."
--Jobst Brandt, "The Bicycle Wheel," 3rd Edition, 1993,
p.124

In other words, some improvement in spokes had made spokes so much
more durable within a decade that Jobst himself thought it would be
difficult to discover his theory "for lack of failure data"--not that
there is any data in the sense of results from controlled testing.

I waver between believing and doubting the theory that squeezing
spokes by hand relieves internal stresses.

Recently, I wasted a lot of time measuring the actual tension increase
in squeezed spokes.

Contrary to ad hoc theories that a modest squeeze force must produce a
large tension increase, it appears that 32 and 36 spoke rims of
ordinary construction deform in a faint M or W shape when squeezed in
the traditional fashion because the top and bottom spokes of the
A-B-C-D pattern are pulling largely unopposed in opposite directions.

To boil the uselessly detailed statistics down, a one-handed 60-pound
squeeze force on spokes A & C and a simultaneous one-handed 60-pound
squeeze force on spokes B & D raises the tension of each spoke only
about 55 to 65 pounds.

Squeeze forces greater than 60 pounds tend to leave faint, permanent
bends in the spokes. The dramatic bend angle fooled many people into
thinking that the spoke tension increase must be enormous, with
calculations estimating that a gentle 30-pound squeeze force would
raise spoke tension an impressive 150 pounds, instead of the measured
tension increase, which is actually often under 30 pounds.

From a practical point of view, no one claims that spoke-squeezing
hurts anything. Even those who doubt that it relieves residual
stresses emphasize that spoke-squeezing is necessary for seating and
bedding the spokes.

It's one of the regular topics for debate on RBT.

Cheers,

Carl Fogel

Quoted message said:

Ed Huntress said:

Nate, what do wheel builders mean by "stress-relieving" spokes? What is the
process they use?

--
Ed Huntress

I looked at the rec.bicycles.tech use group briefly and found that
"Stress Relieving" in the bike world seems to mean cold forming to
improve alignment. My ideas of stress relieving aren't close to
theirs. I was picturing using a torch to heat the spokes and wondered
how they controled the process.

Dan

Dear Dan,

Whew! Glad that you checked before experimenting.

Despite the flames that accompany the topic, pairs of spokes are
squeezed together to raise tension, not toasted.

Posters who believe that squeezing spokes together raises tension and
relieves residual stress might disagree with your description of the
process as "cold forming."

They do bend/cold-form the spokes to get the spokes to lie flatter
against the hub flange and to change the entry angle at the rim. These
bends are visible.

But I think that they see this as entirely different from squeezing
the spokes together to raise tension in hopes of relieving residual
stresses. Spoke-squeezers often emphasize that this is a microscopic
change, and they insist that it is not cold-forming.

"Cold-forming" tends to suggest "strain hardening," which is sometimes
a sub-topic in the debate. In general, spoke squeezers say that what
they do involves stress-relief, not work or strain hardening, and is
entirely different from bending things to improve the spoke line.

Cheers,

Carl Fogel

<[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Ed Huntress said:

Nate, what do wheel builders mean by "stress-relieving" spokes? What is
the
process they use?

--
Ed Huntress

I looked at the rec.bicycles.tech use group briefly and found that
"Stress Relieving" in the bike world seems to mean cold forming to
improve alignment. My ideas of stress relieving aren't close to
theirs. I was picturing using a torch to heat the spokes and wondered
how they controled the process.

Dan

Dear Dan,

Whew! Glad that you checked before experimenting.

Despite the flames that accompany the topic, pairs of spokes are
squeezed together to raise tension, not toasted.

Posters who believe that squeezing spokes together raises tension and
relieves residual stress might disagree with your description of the
process as "cold forming."

They do bend/cold-form the spokes to get the spokes to lie flatter
against the hub flange and to change the entry angle at the rim. These
bends are visible.

But I think that they see this as entirely different from squeezing
the spokes together to raise tension in hopes of relieving residual
stresses. Spoke-squeezers often emphasize that this is a microscopic
change, and they insist that it is not cold-forming.

"Cold-forming" tends to suggest "strain hardening," which is sometimes
a sub-topic in the debate. In general, spoke squeezers say that what
they do involves stress-relief, not work or strain hardening, and is
entirely different from bending things to improve the spoke line.

Cheers,

Carl Fogel

Sometime I have to look into this. As the former materials and heat-treating
editor for metalworking magazines, I have to see how they claim that any
kind of cold work is going to relieve stress in any grade of steel -- with
the single exception of high-frequency vibratory stress relief.

I don't doubt that it does something useful, but relieving internal stresses
at a "microscopic level" by low-frequency cold work of any kind would be a
new one in the world of metallurgical science.

Artisans in a number of fields use the term "stress relieving" differently
than engineers and scientists do. There's nothing wrong with that but it
does lead to some confusion.

--
Ed Huntress

carlfogel said:

Contrary to ad hoc theories that a modest squeeze force must produce a
large tension increase, it appears that 32 and 36 spoke rims of
ordinary construction deform in a faint M or W shape when squeezed in
the traditional fashion because the top and bottom spokes of the
A-B-C-D pattern are pulling largely unopposed in opposite directions.

To boil the uselessly detailed statistics down, a one-handed 60-pound
squeeze force on spokes A & C and a simultaneous one-handed 60-pound
squeeze force on spokes B & D raises the tension of each spoke only
about 55 to 65 pounds.

Squeeze forces greater than 60 pounds tend to leave faint, permanent
bends in the spokes. The dramatic bend angle fooled many people into
thinking that the spoke tension increase must be enormous, with
calculations estimating that a gentle 30-pound squeeze force would
raise spoke tension an impressive 150 pounds, instead of the measured
tension increase, which is actually often under 30 pounds.

Both physical measurements, and "ad hoc" calculations can produce
erroneous results. But certainly a force applied perpendicularly to the
spoke can increase the stress in the direction of the spoke considerably.
I tend to doubt the accuracy of your measurements more than the basic
physics.

--

David L. Johnson

__o | I believe that the motion picture is destined to revolutionize
_`\(,_ | our educational system and that in a few years it will supplant
(_)/ (_) | largely, if not entirely, the use of textbooks -- Thomas
Edison, 1922

Quoted message said:

Dear Dan,

Whew! Glad that you checked before experimenting.

Despite the flames that accompany the topic, pairs of spokes are
squeezed together to raise tension, not toasted.

Posters who believe that squeezing spokes together raises tension and
relieves residual stress might disagree with your description of the
process as "cold forming."

They do bend/cold-form the spokes to get the spokes to lie flatter
against the hub flange and to change the entry angle at the rim. These
bends are visible.

But I think that they see this as entirely different from squeezing
the spokes together to raise tension in hopes of relieving residual
stresses. Spoke-squeezers often emphasize that this is a microscopic
change, and they insist that it is not cold-forming.

"Cold-forming" tends to suggest "strain hardening," which is sometimes
a sub-topic in the debate. In general, spoke squeezers say that what
they do involves stress-relief, not work or strain hardening, and is
entirely different from bending things to improve the spoke line.

Cheers,

Carl Fogel

I am pretty much of the " if it ain't broke, don't fix it " school so
there wasn't much chance that I would be getting out the torch. At
least not until I had multiple spokes break.

I used cold forming to mean changing the shape without cutting or
using heat. So it my mind if there is a visible bend made without
applying heat, it was cold formed and now almost surely has more not
less residual stresses.

Dan

<[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

<detailed explanation of spoke squeezing snipped>

Thanks, Carl. That really is interesting, and I appreciate your taking the
time to explain it.

I have a first-edition copy of _The Bicycle Wheel_ that I bought over 20
years ago. I forgot about the squeezing business.

As I mentioned in another post, I wouldn't suggest that there isn't
something going on there. But relieving internal stresses is not it, at
least, not from the perspective of metallurgical engineering and
science...at least, not that I've ever read, over 20-some years of studying
and writing about the subject.

Nevertheless, the sophistication involved in wheelbuilding today is
impressive and interesting.

--
Ed Huntress

I recycle all the metal parts of my bicycle. Either by putting it in my
"parts bin" to be scavanged as needed, or in the appropriate metal bin
at a recycling center.

- -
Comments and opinions compliments of,
"Your Friendly Neighborhood Wheelman"

My web Site:
http://geocities.com/czcorner

To E-mail me:
ChrisZCorner "at" webtv "dot" net

"The Dougster" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Any thoughts, pro, con, or tech?

Doug Goncz
Replikon Research
Seven Corners, VA 22044-0394

They work as handy parts for Radio Control Model linkage rods. You can put
in a Z-bend on one end too.
The 2x56 threading usually fits the nylon pushrod linkage too.
You can also put in a Z-bend on the unthreaded end and use it as an
emergency spoke replacement on those wheels with a shorter spoke too.
I have bent the unthreaded end, and put on a strong little magnet on it to
use to fish out parts deep inside something before.

Quoted message said:

Nate Knutson said:

There is considerable difference after the wheelbuilder deliberately
changes the angle of the outer spokes at the hub.

In that case I would think one would not need to keep track of which
were inbound and which were outbound. It would be obvious by merely
glancing at the spoke.

Dan

Perhaps, but seperating them initially is faster, and spokes with the
angle bent into them are harder to measure accurately.

The Dougster said:

Any thoughts, pro, con, or tech?

Doug Goncz
Replikon Research
Seven Corners, VA 22044-0394

OK, someone has to do it......

Non Bicycle uses for Bicycle spokes

1. Cut in 6 inch lengths, stick in your herb pots, stops bloody cats
sleeping on them. (having great trouble with my Italian Parsley at the
moment..)

2. Stainless steel ones useful for cleaning out the centre pins of
PL259 connectors to re-use them. Ditto for cleaning solder sucker tips.

3. Bent a small hook on one end, useful to hook out swarf from the
lathe mill etc.

4. Again the hook idea - use to fish for dropped stringing lines behind
wall cavities.

5. Support for cables over gantries where some movement is required and
you dont want the cables drooping over the machine.

6. Can be cut down to make quarter wave mobile whips for 70cm band.

7. General poking things with.

They will never replace the wire coat hanger for utilitarian value, but
hey, their free - lots of bicycles left lying around in the
streets........

Any more suggestions?

Andrew VK3BFA.