cleaning spokes in-situ

[Paulos]

Has anyone come up with a cunning plan for cleaning/polishing spokes without stripping the wheel down

[80-85 husky]

steel wool and wd 40.

[Moto]

Try using some boot laces,about two wraps around the spoke and the polish,grinding paste,WD, etc of your choice.Push,pull the lace ends.

[Paulos]

Some cunning plans there, thanks gents

[rocketfrog]

Depending how deteriorated the spokes are, try using some autosol polishing compound before you reach for a harsh abrasive. The bootlace technique or the steel wool are great suggestions, but you wouldnt want to rub all the plating of the spokes if you didnt need to. This would accelerate the deterioration.

[Paulos]

Didn't have any boot laces handy, but did have the offcut off a roll of chux that i cut down to fit in a dispenser. 1/2 inch roll of chux 50m long, have only done a few spokes with autosol but it works a treat. Thanks guys

[FAT-TOY]

    If you have an old pair of jeans they also work great, just cut into strips and they probably wear better than the chux and they are no use for anthing else not even a workshop rag.
                                                                                    Zane

[80-85 husky]

if they are badly corroded, I have sprayed them with silver paint to give a serviceable but cheap finish where owners have not wanted to replace them

[bigk]

Engage the services of a son or daughter at slave labour rates. Works for me.
K

[Paulos]

Engage the services of a son or daughter at slave labour rates. Works for me.
K

Best idea yet. Unfortunately the 11 yr old makes a goldfish seem like yoda.

[MaxPower]

In the past year I have built 3 wheels. I don't know what I was afraid of for 32 years. It's really not that difficult. I'm not saying you should break your wheels down. Only it's easier than I thought of for me. The reason I got the guts to try it was the spokes were so bad. Even with putting each spoke in a drill I think I would have been better just buying new spokes.

[Colin Jay]

I have been cleaning up the spokes on the old YB100 Yammie I got from the local tip by removing a couple of spokes at a time and giving them a rub with a nylon scouring pad using Autosol mixed with CRC. By carefully re-tensioning the spokes when put back into the wheel, the wheels have remained fairly straight, and only needed a bit of tweaking to get true afterwards.

I have had to resort to a heat gun to "thermally shock"some of the spoke nipples to get the nipples to turn, but all the nipples eventually came free. I have uese a anti seize paste on the threads during re assembly to make things easy if I ever decide to restore the bike and get the spokes replated.

[bigk]

Just got 2 grubby wheels done by step daughter, took her 4.5 hours to turn some shabby wheels into shiny wheels using W & D sand paper, soapy steel wool, brake cleaner & autosol. $10 per hour =$45 to her. Girls seem to have more patience than boys for that tedious stuff. Good value for me, as it would have driven me nuts doing it.
K

[FourstrokeForever]

Just got 2 grubby wheels done by step daughter, took her 4.5 hours to turn some shabby wheels into shiny wheels using W & D sand paper, soapy steel wool, brake cleaner & autosol. $10 per hour =$45 to her. Girls seem to have more patience than boys for that tedious stuff. Good value for me, as it would have driven me nuts doing it.
K

If only I could train my dogs (our kids) to do those tedious jobs....... I wouldn't have to fork out anything more than a few straps of schmackos!

[Paulos]

Although I've built a few wheels from scratch i decided not to do the full bare-metal resto on this bike, so stripping the wheels down wasn't happening.  I ended up doing what col suggested and removing a couple of spokes at a time. Luckily they're straight pull so easy to remove and polish up.