Wheel truing

[Blue Hills]

Yes, it's the spoke moving back in the nipple threads Until you feel the "jump", the spoke is merely turning with the nipple and twist can be considerable with butted spokes. Turn the spoke key fractionally back and forth after that, and you can feel the mid-point where there is no twist.

am almost certainly being thick here, so be gentle please, but if that jump is untwisting and with that some loosening, I don't understand why you would turn back? shouldn't you just tighten some more to regain what has been lost plus add some more if you had decided that that spoke needs more tension?

I know that musson recommends putting tape flags on spokes to indicate twist so that you can then untwist but that sounds like a bit of a fag. In my wheel fettling at the mo I am relying on tightening and then pressurising the spokes in my gloved hands to try to get twist out of spokes.

 

[rogerzilla]

I probably haven't explained it very well but you always need to turn back and forth slightly to feel that the spoke isn't wound up. Even when the spoke "jumps", it may not fully relieve the twist.

Wheelbuilding machines avoid this problem by pushing hard on the rim to take virtually all tension out of the spoke being adjusted. They don't make terribly good wheels, though.