Cycling UK Forum

its all been covered upthread. If the spokes are zinc plated there are plenty of ways of testing for that.

If the strength of attraction of a magnet is less than for a galvanised spoke, that spoke is almost certainly a stainless steel spoke.

cheers

Mick F wrote:How can you tell a galvanised spoke from stainless?

I mentioned this before - but you could try polishing it. The brighter it gets, the more likely it is to be stainless.

Brucey wrote:If the strength of attraction of a magnet is less than for a galvanised spoke, that spoke is almost certainly a stainless steel spoke.

Sounds like an experiment is on the cards.
I have lots of spare galvanised spokes, and a variety of magnets too.

Just tried it.

The small magnet I used to compare the magnetic pull on the galvanised vs the stainless showed up a small but noticeable difference.
Difficult to quantify, but the pull was slightly less on the stainless.

Time will tell of course, as galvanised will go grey over the months and years.

FWIW those who thought the spokes in the middle of my photographs were stainless were correct; the others were plated spokes.

cheers

Mick F wrote:Ok.
Back to the subject.

How can you tell a galvanised spoke from stainless?
Are my "stainless steel" spokes from eBay stainless or not?

They seem stainless IMHO, and seem not plated at all.
I know what galvanised spokes feel like and look like, but these aren't like that in the slightest.

We've discussed what the run of the mill stainless spokes are like ........................but these ............... ?

How can you tell a galvanised spoke from stainless?

Post a picture of the spokes on a green background with one of your Sapim spokes for comparison.

They're all built into wheels now.
The front has 36 of the eBay ones, and the rear has 32 SS Sapim plus four eBay.

I suppose I could place a green cloth inside the rear wheel and photo that. May have some green baize somewhere.

As I've said, I'm almost sure the eBay spokes are SS, but probably not as stainless as "normal" spokes. Remember, SS cutlery is magnetic so magnetism alone cannot differentiate SS vs plated.

I'm definitely not going to undo the wheel to take one out to test it!

note that it is possible that not all cameras do the same thing as mine (a Fuji) does with colour balance, so in some cases a green background may be of little added value. If you want to see if it does or not, taking photos of something rusty (like my 'underwater' SA internal) seems to be a good test.

cheers

Just fitted a piece of green paper in the spokes.
There's four in the shot and only one is the eBay.

Which one is the eBay one?

Personally, I couldn't tell, green paper or not. I only know which one because of the spoke head.

the second one from the right looks different to me, but that might just be the illumination. FWIW I've used a flash in my pictures, but at an angle so that the strongest reflections are avoided.

cheers

Yes, the second from the right looks like it, but you're wrong.

The photo was cropped. Here's the original but it still doesn't show up which is which.
It would be better for me to dismantle the wheel and lay the spokes alongside each other ............. but I won't!

This photo shows the spoke better.
You can see the odd spoke head.

Mick F wrote:It would be better for me to dismantle the wheel and lay the spokes alongside each other ............. but I won't!

just take them in and out of a wheel instead.... which is so much easier....?

cheers

This afternoon, out of interest, I put a magnet to some spokes I was using.

Sapim Race DB, Sapim PG, DT DB, DT plain gauge - all these had very slight attraction to a magnet. The Sapim a touch more than the DT.

Sapim Strong single butted - noticeably magnetic. This surprised me, the effect was so strong it was way beyond the extra cross section of the spoke.

Suggests the Sapim Strong is different.

Update on the salt water experiment.



The other spoke is a DT Swiss.