Another wheel day (and so on).
A customer brought in a 20-inch WO rim rear wheel.
It came as part of a frame + front and rear wheel set from a certain small-wheel bike brand,
and it's one we sold at our shop in the past.
Both wheels were originally built with Pillar 14/15 numbered round butted spokes
and 14mm length aluminum nipples,
but before sale, I rebuilt the front wheel with black CX-RAY straight spokes
and DT 12mm length aluminum nipples (→here).
Since the spokes are Pillar, the nipples should be Pillar too,
but these nipples have a long grip section,
so they look like 16mm long nipples, but they're actually 14mm.
The reason the customer brought it in was
a nipple had broken, and they wanted it replaced.
Normally, the broken piece left inside the rim would fall and rattle around,
but in this case it was stuck to the inside of the rim.
As I wrote in the linked article,
this was because during the pre-sale inspection, I had inserted DT Spoke Freeze (a spoke locking compound)
from the outside of the rim,
and you can see the red ring remaining in the image above.
I could have replaced just the one broken nipple,
but since the customer is from out of town,
it would be a hassle to keep fixing individual nipples each time one breaks in the future,
so I decided to replace all the nipples.
There was a moment when the hub and rim separated,
so it satisfies the "another wheel day (and so on)" condition.
Technically it's wheel building, but since we sold this wheel from our shop,
there's no standard wheel building labor charge.
I forgot to mention this earlier (though it's written in the linked article),
this rear wheel has a somewhat aggressive spec of 12:6H with 18 spokes,
which is why I decided to replace all the nipples.
If it had been a balanced 24H,
I might have just dealt with the broken spoke area.
Though the reasons and timing are different, we ended up rebuilding both wheels.
Here's the actual weight of the rim.
I wrote "slightly lighter than 323g" in the title
because the customer had weight tape on the rim.
All built.
I reused the spokes as they were.
↑The nipples I replaced
The Spoke Freeze was still effective,
so disassembly took a bit more effort than usual.
Several nipples showed wear marks on their rim contact surfaces,
but I didn't find any that looked like
"yeah, this one's definitely going to break soon."
After rebuilding, I used 12mm length nipples,
which I believe minimizes the breaking risk (right side in the image above).
I rarely use these so I had trouble finding where I'd stored them.
These are different nipples from the ones I used when rebuilding the front wheel.
A customer brought in a 20-inch WO rim rear wheel.
It came as part of a frame + front and rear wheel set from a certain small-wheel bike brand,
and it's one we sold at our shop in the past.
Both wheels were originally built with Pillar 14/15 numbered round butted spokes
and 14mm length aluminum nipples,
but before sale, I rebuilt the front wheel with black CX-RAY straight spokes
and DT 12mm length aluminum nipples (→here).
Since the spokes are Pillar, the nipples should be Pillar too,
but these nipples have a long grip section,
so they look like 16mm long nipples, but they're actually 14mm.
The reason the customer brought it in was
a nipple had broken, and they wanted it replaced.
Normally, the broken piece left inside the rim would fall and rattle around,
but in this case it was stuck to the inside of the rim.
As I wrote in the linked article,
this was because during the pre-sale inspection, I had inserted DT Spoke Freeze (a spoke locking compound)
from the outside of the rim,
and you can see the red ring remaining in the image above.
I could have replaced just the one broken nipple,
but since the customer is from out of town,
it would be a hassle to keep fixing individual nipples each time one breaks in the future,
so I decided to replace all the nipples.
so it satisfies the "another wheel day (and so on)" condition.
Technically it's wheel building, but since we sold this wheel from our shop,
there's no standard wheel building labor charge.
I forgot to mention this earlier (though it's written in the linked article),
this rear wheel has a somewhat aggressive spec of 12:6H with 18 spokes,
which is why I decided to replace all the nipples.
If it had been a balanced 24H,
I might have just dealt with the broken spoke area.
Though the reasons and timing are different, we ended up rebuilding both wheels.
Here's the actual weight of the rim.
I wrote "slightly lighter than 323g" in the title
because the customer had weight tape on the rim.
All built.
I reused the spokes as they were.
↑The nipples I replaced
The Spoke Freeze was still effective,
so disassembly took a bit more effort than usual.
Several nipples showed wear marks on their rim contact surfaces,
but I didn't find any that looked like
"yeah, this one's definitely going to break soon."
After rebuilding, I used 12mm length nipples,
which I believe minimizes the breaking risk (right side in the image above).
I rarely use these so I had trouble finding where I'd stored them.
These are different nipples from the ones I used when rebuilding the front wheel.