Spoke lengths for old wheels.

[Vetus Ossa]

Beware of Sapim spokes, seem to suffer from material defects and prematurely break in places they shouldn't.
My experiences are with Sapim Race. An internet search does throw up a few references to this issue.

I certainly don't want to build with them anymore and will stick to DT.

Thanks for your thoughts Des.
TBH I have found many favourable reviews of these spokes, and none bad so far, but your comments are noted and will browse some more before I buy when I have time.

[Tortoise]

Sapim are fine, as are DT. You'll find reports of occasional failures of all brands and speaking generally, it's hard to know in many cases whether it's a product failure or some other cause. I strongly recommend anyone to buy Roger Musson's eBook as linked to above, which is the best I've read on the subject and is worth the modest cost as a good read even you never personally touch a spoke key.

[Keezx]

Beware of Sapim spokes, seem to suffer from material defects and prematurely break in places they shouldn't.
My experiences are with Sapim Race. An internet search does throw up a few references to this issue.

I certainly don't want to build with them anymore and will stick to DT.

\What about expierience?
I've built about 20 wheelsets the past 5 years, exclusively with Sapim Race.
Not a single problem.

[Des49]

I will try to find time in the next few days to take some pictures of some of the broken spokes I have collected and start a new post on this subject. I am very interested in finding out more myself.

I do agree though that it cannot be too widespread a problem as Sapim would be out of the spoke business with many reports of premature breakages, but in 3 decades of building wheels I have had 2 batches of Sapim spokes in the last couple of years that have had problems. Assuming I was just unlucky, but now I try to avoid using Sapim.

[Keezx]

Nothing is perfect, but indeed one of the market leaders cannot afford getting a bad name.
I've heard something about a bad badge of straight pull spokes which is something what can happen.
Never heard or expirienced anything with ordinary Race spokes.