Unca_Sam

I've looked for any take on this, but came up short:

Has anyone used no name Chinese spokes from Amazon or Ebay for wheel rebuilds or builds? If you used them, how have they performed?
I'm leery of substandard or counterfeit parts, and the cost savings are usually at the expense of quality control or materials. But, spokes in 32 and 36 spoke wheels are generally well within the expected tensile limit for the stainless steel. Give me your opinions and experiences!

Thanks

Brocephus

I'm admittedly no wheelbuilder, but having busted a few no-name spokes on OEM wheels ( Cannondale/Coda, Trek/Bontrager, Fuji/Oval, etc.) I don't see any upside to even considering the cheapest possible spokes, especially those coming from The Land Of Counterfeit Garbage. The question here is how much money can possibly be saved, particularly in comparison to how much it'll cost to have the wheel re-built with quality spokes (or buying another wheel entirely) ?
And even if someone chimes in that they've used such-and-such spokes without issue, it'll be real difficult to be sure you're buying the exact same spoke they used.
There's just no upside here, IMO.

Unca_Sam

I've broken spokes myself, but from brands like DT Swiss and Wheelsmith. A spoke will eventually reach its fatigue limit simply due to the inevitable stretch and release that spokes experience. Adequate and relatively equal tension are supposed to minimize the severity, but can't prevent it. I agree with the premise that the savings are false economy, but .10 a straight 14g spoke is a hell of a discount to ignore.

Are they just galvanized? Rejects?

AnkleWork

Until you specify a specific, actual spoke it's just hypothetical chat. Considering the tiny investment of money/effort/time needed to build a wheel, saving a few pennies is paramount for the economics to work.

Retro Grouch 

Why do you want to build wheels?

If your object is to save money, the cost effective answer is to buy a factory built wheel.
If your object is to build the best wheel you are able, starting with components that have questionable quality seems counter intuitive.

Unca_Sam

If you must know, I'm building wheels because no one builds 26" rims with vintage suntour hubs, and I'd like to use the accushift system with an accushift cassette!

Never fear! I plan on using brand name spokes, but I am, last I checked, not made of money. I simply saw no threads on this topic, and if the spokes are of comparable quality (only experience will tell, unless you are a metallurgist) why not save 50% of the cost?

The majority of the stuff I see on Amazon that's cheaper than the name brand but apparently identical in design I chalk up to Chinese manufacturers dumping product that didn't pass the name brand's QC check. They sell for less because they have more product to cover the total of the overhead costs, but the product doesn't work well enough for the client to put their name on. Some of it is likely production overrun.

For example Park Tool TM-1 and Ocamo bicycle spoke tension tool

ThermionicScott 

Given how good spokes are in general these days, and how important the wheelbuilding process itself is to wheel life, you might get away with rolling the dice. But Dan's Comp has name-brand spokes so cheap, you don't have to be made of money.

Unca_Sam

I know that it's been suggested to call them because they carry more than they list online, but I didn't see any J bend 14/15 DB, just the lazers and 14/15 straight pull. For straight gauge spokes I'd use them in a heartbeat, but these are ATB tires and we have plenty of clinker in the trails here in Ohio. I'd like the insurance of a DB spoke for strength and elasticity where they're needed, and I'm not sure they'd stock the type of spoke I'm looking for. I'll just have to call and ask!

FWIW, I've got a cart loaded from wheelbuildingparts.com of some Sapim spokes to do the job.

ThermionicScott 

Hmm, I was able to buy J-bend 14/15 Sapims from them the last time I built a wheel, and they were only like 50 cents each, including nipples.

Arthur Peabody

I've gotten a lot of miles out of the cheapest anonymous spokes bought on eBay. If I accounted for the labor I put into it, even at minimum wage, the savings are negligible. Try danscomp.com

JoeKahno

Production overrun, yeah, right, that's what they call it.

I've known several people who had injection molded parts for their products produced in China. The up side is that getting a mold made there is an order of magnitude cheaper than having it done in the US. The down side is that if you develop a market for your product you've already paid the tooling cost for the Chinese knock off that will undercut you right out of business.

What Chinese industry does best is using second or lower tier technology to drop the price point on older designs and generate fresh demand. For example, right now there seems to be a boatload of Shimano Nexus 3 speed hubs on ebay. It's possible Shimano is clearing old stock to make room in their warehouse, but not very likely. The Japanese more or less invented the concept of "just in time" production.

My best guess is that the Chinese company that was producing them went to Shimano and said something like, "There's still a demand for these but not at a price point that would let us pay you royalties. You can either let us sell them built to the same standards as we did for you and put your name on them or we'll pull your name off and sell something that looks like one of your products made out of mystery metal."

The folks at Shimano thought it over and decided the money they lost on the royalties was less important than maintaining the brand. The design itself is probably outside patent protection by now and trying to enforce patent law in China is a losing proposition in any case. As a result, you can get the whole install kit with shifter for less than $100. That's low enough to make it worth picking up a yard sale classic and turning it into a knock around utility bike. Shimano isn't losing anything because they never had that market share to begin with. Having acceptable product out there in a price range low enough to qualify as an impulse buy is going to generate repeat trade for their higher end products. Everybody wins.