Originally Posted by
bark_eater
I've done that plenty of times with larger fastenings that are meant to be permanently installed. Seems like for wheel building it would prevent that spoke from ever loosening, and you would have to go back and grind the burr off if you every had to tighten the spokes. What I'm wondering is if "back in the old days" the ends of spokes where peened down on intently to keep them from unwinding?
Surprisingly, 'wacking' them left a nice clean edge and they could still be easily tightened/loosened. Too often, using a nipper, a spoke end would bend versus nipping clean. That sucked. Too do it right you needed the slot to be perpendicular to the nipping direction.
We didn't peen anything....but we did 'crimp' the nipples. What really sucked was over crimping crap nipples to the point they cracked/broke. We didn't do much with 'spoke prep' thread lockers either. And we never used tension gauges. What's the point? If the wheels properly spec'd n built and the gauge says too high/low what are going to do?
The two greatest innovations in the history of wheel building were the welded seam/machined sidewall Mavic rims and 'Mr. Spokey' spoke wrenches.