Where did all the rim eyelets (‘sockets’) go?

[TheBomber]

Last time I built any wheels, quality rims all seemed to still come with eyelets in them. Now I’m looking into a new pair this no longer seems to be the case. Do the nipples gall into the rim as you approach full tension? Should I plan to use washers in the rim to avoid this? And more generally, why did we used to think the eyelets were a good thing but now that no longer seems to be the case?

[Brucey]

BITD when rims were mostly not 'aero' in design, eyelets were seen as a good way of distributing the service stresses over one or two thinnish walls which might otherwise need to be thickened considerably in order to resist cracking properly. There have always been eyeletless non-aero rims and these are not inevitably terrible; however they are likely to be slightly heavier than they need to be, especially in double-walled form perhaps.

However as soon as you have an aero-ish shape to the extrusion, the benefits of spreading the stress into the inner wall of the rim (eg using double eyelets) are reduced and likewise the penalty for locally thickening the rim where it is drilled is much less too, simply because the thickened part need not be very wide.

The result is that most rim manufacturers now offer aero shaped rims with no eyelets, and they are mostly strong enough, too. They don't always get it right first time though; for example the H+Son 'archetype' rim had a spoke bed that was too thin in its original form, so was likely to crack in service (driveside rear as usual). The extrusion was revised to be a fraction thicker where it matters (going +10g and from 593 to 595ERD in the process) and cracking pretty much stopped.

Some aero rims are designed to use curved washers from the start . If you use the wrong washers with any given rim it can do more harm than good. Brass nipples don't usually gall badly against the rim but some builders grease the nipple seats in the rim before building with such rims.

Note that if you use a deep-ish rim which doesn't have double eyelets, you are best off using a nipple driver (one which holds the nipple captive) to build the wheel with, else nipples tend to get lost inside the rim (v. annoying).

cheers

[531colin]

I was never very convinced that "double" eyelets shared much of the (spoke tension) load to the inner rim wall. I have built too many wheels with double eyelet rims where you could get a sheet of paper between the flange of the bellwasher and the inner rim wall even after the spokes were up to tension. They seemed to me a heavy and complicated way to put a washer under the nipple head.

005 by 531colin, on Flickr

[Brucey]

I have seen similar things. However when the tyre is inflated, the well of the rim is pulled upwards as the rim tries to 'splay' and the spoke tension load is shared rather better between inner and outer walls than you might at first suppose.

Double eyelets are complicated perhaps (and therefore expensive, but it doesn't stop some double eyelet rims being amongst the cheapest....) but they need not be heavy. Some rim extrusions are sold with no eyelets, single eyelets or double eyelets and the weight difference between them is smaller than you might expect.

When Mavic started making deep aero rims, they often had sleeves in the spoke drillings when there was no double eyelet. The sleeves were only there to help the wheelbuilder, since they didn't have any load bearing capacity, but they did stop nipples from disappearing inside the hollow part of the rim.

cheers

[531colin]

....Note that if you use a deep-ish rim which doesn't have double eyelets, you are best off using a nipple driver (one which holds the nipple captive) to build the wheel with, else nipples tend to get lost inside the rim (v. annoying).....

I did invent a tool which could pick up a nipple and start it on the spoke thread, all with one hand...long time ago, now...

Nipple Picker 060 by 531colin, on Flickr

[peetee]

On significantly deep rims I thread the nipple from the head end onto a spare spoke then push that down into the hole. I start the thread on the intended spoke by hand. Within a couple of turns the nipple has disengaged from the spoke tool and the build can progress in the usual manner.

[Brucey]

more than one way to skin a cat and all that but if setting the nipple on the spoke end is quick and easy enough, the preferred option is then to use a nipple driver (such as the Bicycle Research one) to set the nipples all to about the same depth.

If the nipples can be set using Mk1 fingers, this is almost certainly the fastest way of hand-lacing a wheel. One of my chums does this several times every day and he tells me his Ma could knit woollen jumpers (even in complicated patterns) whilst watching the TV and having a conversation about an unrelated topic, all at the same time. My chum clearly has the same skillset because he can lace a wheel faster than anyone else I have ever seen do it and furthermore he does it well and rarely makes mistakes, all whilst chatting away about all kinds of things.

Several times I have watched him lace a 32h wheel (with a shallow rim) and he has comfortably done it in five or six minutes. I can't get anywhere near that speed, not without making mistakes and showering nipples all over the shop; the difference is partly that I have 'only' built low thousands of wheels and he has built tens of thousands.

Anyway when building deeper section single eyelet rims he used to place the nipple on the spoke end (using one tool) and then use the nipple driver as normal. He now tends to use a single tool for both operations in deeper rims, because it is overall quicker (in this depth rim) and better (the nipples are set more consistently than with a BR driver). The 'better' bit can halve the time it takes to finish a wheel, having laced it. The tool he uses is one based on my DIY driver which is made from an old spoke. It works much as peetee describes except it is much, much faster and it also sets the nipple depth more consistently than any other tool I have yet seen.

It takes a few seconds to load up a single driver tool with each nipple, and you can't do it without putting the spoke key down. I have therefore experimented with having multiple identical drivers and loading them at the same time, since picking up a 'loaded' driver does not require that you remove the spoke key from your other hand. Having built and used 36 identical nipple drivers, I have concluded that this is probably more than is required, and it is almost as easy to load up nine (a quarter set in a 36 spoke wheel) at a time and use them that way instead.

The main reason for this seems to be that there is a natural break in the work with each quarter set, (so that half a minute spent loading another driver set is neither too long or too short a time to be annoying or to break the flow of the work), and picking one loaded driver out of a pot containing nine is a lot easier than picking one from a pot containing 36 of the things; because of the cranked handle they tend to get tangled with one another, and the more there are, the worse it gets. I may experiment with better designed pot(s) to keep the loaded drivers in, so that they are less likely to get tangled with one another.

edit: More here https://forum.cyclinguk.org/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=117817 but things have moved on since then and I need to update that thread.

cheers

[rogerzilla]

Low tech here. I use a cocktail stick for deep aero rims. I do not build quickly, although I did manage a 32h wheel with a Velocity Deep V rim in a lunch hour last year.

I'm not all that bothered about eyelets or sockets, having never had a spoke pull through. Some rims have nasty non-stainless eyelets that look terrible if used in winter. Many Campagnolo rims of the early 90s, for instance.

[531colin]

.........It takes a few seconds to load up a single driver tool with each nipple, and you can't do it without putting the spoke key down. .....

Mine picks up a nipple in a second or less with one hand.

Rack up 9 or more nipples

006 by 531colin, on Flickr

Pick one

012 by 531colin, on Flickr

Lace it

016 by 531colin, on Flickr

drive it EDIT...really "Start the thread"

017 by 531colin, on Flickr

....the people who really annoy me are the ones who can spoke up the entire hub and then sort it out from there, including disc rears with different leading spokes either side. Makes my head spin. I suppose it means they really understand the pattern.

[Brucey]

I like the rack....correct me if I am wrong but does the tool set the nipple depth? In my dreams there is a tool which is as easy to load as that and sets the nipples to an exact uniform depth. This would be quickest of all...?

cheers

[531colin]

I like the rack....correct me if I am wrong but does the tool set the nipple depth? In my dreams there is a tool which is as easy to load as that and sets the nipples to an exact uniform depth. This would be quickest of all...?

cheers

I always sort of "set the nipple depth" lining up the end of the spoke thread and the end of the nipple,... EDIT...using a "BR" cranked nipple driver.... so I don't know how well it would work....

015 by 531colin, on Flickr

Its a bit of 6mm stainless tube 2mm bore; end cut as a screwdriver; the spoke picker is a bit of 1.8mm DB spoke flattened at the end to wedge a nipple;
So, I suppose eventually the picker would lift the driver out of the slot, but I don't know if this would be reproducible.

(Its not quite that straightforward, of course; I made a tool to go in the vise to flatten the wire, and another to put 3 dents in the tube so the wire couldn't fall out; and there is a knob on the top of the wire made from a nipple, of course!)

The bloke who machined the racks also made the milling cutter; he couldn't buy one that was right for the job!

002 by 531colin, on Flickr

[Brucey]

one of the things I really like about the DIY tool is that it sets the nipple depth very uniformly indeed. Another is that it is very unlikely that the nipple will fall off inside the rim... which I have always supposed would be quite likely with a tool that has a wedging action into the nipple. However first impressions are one thing and extended use is quite another. I guess I have built three or four wheels using wedge action nipple holders and I don't think I managed to complete any without losing at least one nipple inside the rim. Not all such tools are made equal and with practice things should get better, but how infrequent an occurrence can it eventually become?

I guess the wedge action tool could be made to kick the driver out of the slot much as tools with a 'pip' in the centre such as modified screwdriver bits and the BR nipple driver do, like you say. IME this is usually a consistent depth within +/- about half a turn, with most of the error coming from the way the driver bit is kicked out of the slot, which varies with slight angle changes between the tool and the nipple. I wonder if there is a slightly different shape for the driver bit which could improve this? For example the drive flats could be slightly chamfered, so even if there is a slight angle, the tool always gets kicked out in the centre, and this might be more consistent...?

cheers

[TheBomber]

Thank you for these replies on the merits or otherwise of the eyelets - makes sense now so I shall not worry. I had noticed that many DT rims come supplied with washers so in that instance they are presumably recommended but the supplied ones should at least be the optimum shape.

Interesting that Brucey mentioned H+Son as their Hydra (disc) rim was on my shortlist but currently my preference is for the Pacenti Forza offering as that is asymmetric, which makes sense to me. And yet my research had highlighted a past problem with some models of Pacenti rims cracking, though that now seems now to have been resolved also by making them a little heavier.

Any time I’ve needed to get nipples into a rim without double sockets I’ve used Peetee’s approach, because I don’t build that many and am not in a hurry. Having seen the discussion here it might be worth experimenting with some alternatives though.

[NickJP]

All the DT Swiss rims without eyelets that I've built into wheels recently have had nipple washers supplied with the rims. The rims also come supplied with the DT Swiss Squorx aluminium nipples, though depending on the intended use of the wheels, I sometimes use brass nipples instead.

If you only build the occasional wheel, you can build a nipple driver for non-eyeleted rims from a spoke: https://forums.thepaceline.net/showthread.php?t=202500.

[531colin]

A nipple driver which drops the nipples inside the rim isn't really much of an advantage, is it?
Close-up of the business end of mine shows a fairly gentle taper which gives a good grip on the nipple. Taper was made by pressing the wire in the vise between 2 semi-circular bits of metal (attached to a spring, as I recall....I chucked a lot of this stuff away when moving house.)
However, because its a 2-sided taper, the depth it goes into the nipple depends on whether or not it aligns with the nipple slot, so no, I don't think it would give a particularly predictable depth of insertion. (I use it to start the thread, and then drive all the nipples with a BR cranked driver until the spoke thread disappears into the nipple....I have edited above posts to be clearer.)
I suppose you could make a taper that wasn't 2 sided, but a cranked driver is quicker anyway.

IMG_5238 by 531colin, on Flickr

IMG_5243 by 531colin, on Flickr

In the second picture, the muck on the wire probably shows the limit of insertion into the nipple?
...I can't get a better picture than that on my compact camera!