While building the wheel from my previous post,
I stripped a nipple.
For minor damage, I'd normally just loosen it and remove and replace it,
but in the image above, it's completely broken.
In cases like this, I have to loosen all the nipples on one side,
remove the friction between the stripped nipple and the rim,
and recover it that way.
With carbon rims, cutting spokes under tension is absolutely forbidden.
With ENVE or Reynolds rims, there's a risk of cracks forming around the rim holes,
and I've actually seen cases where a Reynolds wheel had a spoke break during riding,
causing the rim hole area to split with a sharp crack.
I made a dedicated tool for recovering stripped nipples.
What you see on the right of the tool is the recovered nipple.
Cutting a spoke causes a sudden drop in spoke tension,
which means the wheel is almost completely built,
but in my case, I finish building wheels with the spoke end face and nipple end face
flush with each other,
so when a nipple gets stripped near the end of building,
the spoke threads extend beyond the nipple slot.
↑2.0mm threaded spoke inserted into the tool's slot
I screwed the spoke into a black aluminum nipple
beyond the slot depth.
The spoke is CX-RAY,
and the cross-section isn't perfectly straight because it's still in its as-shipped condition.
↑This is how you loosen it.
Even when using this method, I still loosen some of the nearby nipples on the same side,
but it saves labor compared to loosening all nipples on that side.
I stripped a nipple.
For minor damage, I'd normally just loosen it and remove and replace it,
but in the image above, it's completely broken.
In cases like this, I have to loosen all the nipples on one side,
remove the friction between the stripped nipple and the rim,
and recover it that way.
With carbon rims, cutting spokes under tension is absolutely forbidden.
With ENVE or Reynolds rims, there's a risk of cracks forming around the rim holes,
and I've actually seen cases where a Reynolds wheel had a spoke break during riding,
causing the rim hole area to split with a sharp crack.
I made a dedicated tool for recovering stripped nipples.
What you see on the right of the tool is the recovered nipple.
Cutting a spoke causes a sudden drop in spoke tension,
which means the wheel is almost completely built,
but in my case, I finish building wheels with the spoke end face and nipple end face
flush with each other,
so when a nipple gets stripped near the end of building,
the spoke threads extend beyond the nipple slot.
↑2.0mm threaded spoke inserted into the tool's slot
I screwed the spoke into a black aluminum nipple
beyond the slot depth.
The spoke is CX-RAY,
and the cross-section isn't perfectly straight because it's still in its as-shipped condition.
↑This is how you loosen it.
Even when using this method, I still loosen some of the nearby nipples on the same side,
but it saves labor compared to loosening all nipples on that side.