Alloy spoke nipples

I recently discovered the spoke nipples on my Hunt wheels were crumbling away, the wheels are just under 3 years old, mainly dry use and cleaned after a dirty ride. When I contacted Hunt in regards to this they were very good in sorting the issue out under the 3 year warranty and offered me the choice of brass (10g heavier) or alloy nipples as a replacement

I cant understand why all wheels are not fitted with brass nipples

must say the customer service with Hunt was very good not so sure about the alloy nipples though

seriously?! 3-4 years of riding on rim brake carbon rims is quite good. and they've been good in honouring the warranty and the refund, and still you make a thread on a public forum warning people to not buy them. That's a super shitty thing to do. You are aware that carbon rims aren't as durable as aluminium right?

As an aside from the character assassination, any chance you clean your bike with washing up liquid? The salt in that will eat at the spoke bed.

shitting on Hunt wheels is a hip thing to do

If you read the title of the thread it says think twice not don't buy, and fyi I usually use a wire brush and bleach to clean my bike

ahhhh, that makes sense. I should have ignored the troll

I usually use a wire brush and bleach to clean my bike

Thread title changed from something like 'Think twice before buying Hunt wheels', to 'Alloy spoke nipples'.

I've definitely come across crumbling ally nipples on all sorts of wheels; I've wondered if exposure to seaside air is a factor (no road salting happens anywhere near me, but that would certainly do it too).

I haven't seen Shimano's beefy oversized ally nipples crumble though; I think the reason is probably twofold - firstly the surface area to mass ratio is much smaller, but probably the main thing is that the standard nipple's dimensions were specified with brass in mind (or perhaps even steel; they do seem a bit light-on for brass).

Given that it's not too hard to round off a brass nipple, making ally ones the same size is asking for trouble. A bit of fatigue, a tiny amount of corrosion, game over. Shimano may have overcooked theirs though; they're so big it doesn't seem as if lightness could have been the point - maybe it was just about ending the rounding problem and being able to do them in colours (although I think they've only ever done them in silver and red).

Mavic's huge splined ones which are captive on a fat ally spoke and which thread into the rim don't crumble either... But those wheels seemed pretty dumb - what's the point of an aluminium spoke if it has to be at least three times the volume of a steel one? That can't be any lighter, and it certainly isn't aero. And, epic fail - on every pair of those I've come across, the nipples are all seized solid to the rim.

Someone else did splined ally nipples too, but they were the size of brass ones... was it DT? Anyway, those were also dumb; if the nipples seized, the tiny splines would just strip right off in a heartbeat.

The chunky Shimano ones are definitely the best ally nipples I've come across; you can break seized ones free without damaging them. This pretty much makes them the best nipples, period.

It's a shame that Shimano proliferated so many different wheel designs with zillions of subtly different spares (with consequently awful support for availability, and replacement rims completely unheard of), instead of settling on a particular standard which they could have had a go at establishing as a new modern equivalent of the old modular system - instead of 32h j-bend, 16/20 straight-pull, with their beefier nipples making for larger spoke holes in the rim. But this century, if you ding a rim, it's a whole new wheelset. Damn single-use proprietary wank.

It's a shame that Shimano proliferated so many different wheel designs with zillions of subtly different spares

Simple reason why I rarely order Shimano wheels apart from the budget stuff.
If I'm building customer wheels? Brass. Brass Brass Brass. Lubricated at build, and re-tensioned after some use to get them to spec again. Anecdotal, but daily workload related, I've had less issues with Brass than any other mating material.
DT's Pro lock Is good. Mavic's UST and R-Sys system in theory is amazing, but if I cant get spokes and nipples, it can do one.

In Canada Shimano and Mavic spares are not available.
It’s like trying to get an OLED tv repaired…Wheels are useless if anything happens. Another reason to hate the assholes who run the cycle industry.
DT stuff is always on Ebay.

On the other hand, because low spoke count wheels have significantly higher spoke tension, spoke failures are a lot less common because the vast majority of them are due to fatigue, which occurs because of spokes getting too slack. And if it's a Shimano wheel, standard spokes fit no worries; it's just the nipples which are special. And they are, or were at point, sort of available, at least in theory.

But no chance of any spare rims? Get fucken fucked.

Alloy nipples are absolutely fine to use as long you build them with the correct spoke prep to prevent galling, you use the correct spoke length and interference washers if using carbon rims.

If you are rounding off alloy nipples during build most likely you are not using adequate lubrication/spoke prep, right size spoke key and perhaps you are a little hamfisted.

The best option with alloy nipples is to use socket style nipples in the hex flavour , ideally the new model of Pillar nipples , which has a very beefy head.

It's not alloy nipples, it's how you use them.

Most factory built wheels won't be built with the above on mind .

If you're referring to plain ally nipples, absolutely fine is quite a stretch IMO, particularly on 24h and lower. I'd say brass, at least those common ones that fit a 14g spoke but fit the 15g slot in a cheap spoke wench, are only mostly fine. On low spoke count wheels, even with brass, you need a four-point wrench, and even then, on a 16h wheel, you might have to resort to pushing on the side of the rim to add tension without giving the nipple too much of a hard time, and that's with new lubed parts.

If you're talking about normal ally nipples at the same slim 14/15g size, they're just completely stupid on anything under 28h. Even on 32h, on an old wheel, you'd be silly not to use a fiddly tight four-point wrench. With brass, you can kinda get away with making the square into a slight parallelogram once, but do that on ally and it's game over for that nipple - you better hope it's where you want it at that point.

Those typical cheap ally nipples are completely undercooked in aluminium, just like HyperGlide splines and the old handlebar clamp diameter. It shouldn't require special techniques and a super tight wrench to avoid munting nipples. Which is why there are improved designs which all use more metal.