Airlite hubs - to brass washer spoke heads or not?

deliquium

Retro Guru
Just building up a pair of wheels using SF Airlite hubs, Conloy ASP rims and new stainless steel 15/17/15g (1.8/1.5/1.8mm) spokes. The aluminium flanges are somewhat thinner than modern hubs, being ~2.3mm thick as opposed to ~ 3.3mm.

I've just laced the rear 40 hole and used brass spoke washers on the outside spoke heads only - my thinking being these spokes have a slightly more direct run to the rim and an obvious small gap between the flange and just beyond the elbow.

Before I continue and start tensioning the wheel I wondered what others would advise on this matter?

Are washers necessary at all? Would the inside spoke heads benefit from washers too?
 
If it were me I would definitely use washers on each spoke head to close any gap between the elbow and flange, using more than one washer on each spoke head if needed. Stress relieving the wheel after building would also help to build a strong wheel.
 
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I didn't, because the lie of the spokes looked ok. I always use washers on older SA hubs as rhe flanges on those are paper-thin - even the original alloy shelled hubs.
 
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Brass on aluminium is not the best idea, Though I doubt the corrosion caused would affect the hubs much. On the other end we used special alloy washers under the zinc plated nipples when building Conloy rims.

The rims were not very popular, expensive and not very straight.
Not much choice in the early 50's, The hollow W/O rims were about 16 ounces, and stronger than extrusions.

For about 80 years raleigh used 14G spokes because the hub flanges were far too thin and spoke holes enormous. This made it easier to lace up the wheel. A factory time to loose assemble the spokes for a 40 hole wheel was 2.5 minutes, the best i could do was 3 minutes.

Keith
 
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