Bicycle spoke nipple insertion tool by cmh

Last crawled date: 2 years, 11 months ago

I enjoy building bike wheels, and I enjoy nice tools. I also enjoy 3D printing and making nice tools with the 3D printer. This is one of those cases. In the photo on the top is a $20 spoke nipple insertion tool, (I'm not affiliated with BHS but am a very happy customer) it's a really nice piece of steel with a taper on the pointy end that creates a friction fit when inserted in the top of a spoke nipple, which allows you to pass the spoke nipple through the rim and thread it onto the spoke. I've used other spokes in the past, but you have to take time to thread the spoke nipple onto the spare spoke, and then thread it off, and that takes time. Using the tapered end and the friction fit is much, much faster.
I had an idea of how I could create my own version - yes, even though I already bought the fancy one - that anyone could 3D print. I searched until I found a screwdriver handle that I liked - see the sources for a fantastic little screwdriver handle, then cleaned it up, gutted it, cut off the threads and scaled it down. I put a hole in the end, and sized this to around 2mm. Into this hole, I inserted a piece of wire clothes hanger, which measures 2.3mm and is therefore large enough to get the friction fit once the end is tapered.
To make your own, find a wire clothes hanger - or any wire that's around 2.3mm in diameter. Cut it to length, and then file or grind a taper on the end. This may take some doing, and I suggest having a spare spoke nipple on hand to test the friction fit. Once you've done that, put the wire in a vice with the taper pointing down, and lightly hammer the wire into the handle. Voila! Bicycle spoke nipple inserter.
To make getting at the spoke nipples from the top as easy as possible, be sure to check out my spoke nipple shuffler - it quickly organizes spoke nipples so they're heads up, making it really quick and easy to grab one as needed.
Happy wheelbuilding!
Update: I built a wheel using this instead of my purchased tool for the same purpose, and have to say that it worked quite well. The only issue I have is the taper on the end of the wire is a bit too gradual - it holds the nipple quite well but the tip continues and it winds up hitting the spoke. This isn't a huge problem, and could be addressed by shortening the pointed end of the tip.