GEBE from friction convert, and I AIN'T GOING BACK!

I see your point, but I think they shorten the range of sliding, sure did make it feel more solid.I think I'll glue the X zip-ties also, I'm good with a soldering gun but don't like the permanence of solder on the spokes, in case of road repairs.

Virtually nobody ties and solders spokes anymore anyway. It's an archaic practice used by racers decades ago. World class road and off-road racers do just fine without it. As for the permanence if you need to do repairs, I would worry about the glued-on drive ring.

On just regular bikes in my youth every spoke problem I ever had was the spoke pulling out of the nipple. None were expensive bikes back then. Seems nipples are made of silver, brass, alloys, steel. Brass is a very soft metal. I thought some were stainless but didn't see any on niagras site. Use your own judgement OP, its your risk.

The "regular bikes of your youth" probably had badly built wheels with poor initial tension, and were probably never trued after the bikes were bought, much like today's Walmart specials. All bikes today have brass nipples, except for some expensive racing bikes which use aluminum alloy nipples for some insignificant weight savings, or some riders who like the anodized colors that brass nipples can't have. Any expert wheelbuilder recommends against aluminum nipples. Silver nipples don't exist because they would be too soft and ridiculously expensive. There have never been steel nipples on bicycle wheels. Some motorcycles use stainless ones because of the much higher mass and speed of motorcycles, but they also have much thicker spokes.
 
As for the permanence if you need to do repairs, I would worry about the glued-on drive ring.
No sweat there, gorilla glue is amazing.It fills every space, effectively stopping spoke shift.A little scoring with a blade on each side of the spoke before using the 4in1 tool and they snap out fairly easy.I also don't clean or rough the spokes/sheave slots before gluing, so the little bit of dirt/grease/soap keep it from being too permanent, works more like a hard geckos foot.
The GEBE's only downside I can see is the way the sheave is , or rather isn't attached.All it takes is a few holes, and zip-ties so it pulls on the sprocket side too.I've also thought about threaded carbon-fiber star attachments they could make to push on the rim, but a new sheave is $40 so probably not cost effective.
Nightrider, have/do you build wheels?
 
I think the idea of the zip tie on the spokes, is that one spoke absorbs part of the stress of the other. Some riders swear by it. Can't hurt. If it doesn't work, you didn't spend much on zip ties.
 
Nightrider, have/do you build wheels?

Yes, I've laced, tensioned and trued all of my own wheels for many years. Takes a lot of time since I'm not a professional, but one new pair ever few years isn't hard. Only one broken spoke in all those years.

Page 3 silver nipples, page 4 steel nipples for sale.

Silver refers to the color, unless you think gold, black and red are also materials. "Alloy" means aluminum alloy. "Silver alloy" means aluminum nipples anodized with no color dye in the finish. No telling what those "Wheel Master" nipples really are. They're probably a cheap Chinese brand. DT Swiss, Sapim and Wheelsmith are the brands known for top quality bicycle spokes, preferred by wheelbuilders all around the world. You won't find any other brands on $15,000 racing bikes where a spoke failure would mean losing an important race, or even on any bike over $2000, unless they're types like "straight-pull" spokes that may be proprietary to a certain brand of hub, or fancy, fragile and extremely expensive carbon fiber spokes. No wheelbuilder would touch "Wheel Master" product. All three name brands offer brass nipples as standard, aluminum nipples at extra cost.
 
That's what I wanted to hear.I've always done my own re-truing, but have been somewhat scared of lacing up a hub.Necessity/lack of $$ is forcing me to dive in.
 
Like I wrote, it takes time for non-professional wheelbuilders. Lacing is easy if you can visualize the pattern. Tensioning is pretty quick. Truing takes the longest, trying to get the rim straight, round and centered without messing up the tension so much that it's all over the place. I would set aside an evening or two for the entire process for each wheel. The late Sheldon Brown gave a good tutorial on his site: http://sheldonbrown.com/wheelbuild.html. A truing stand is a must. A dishing gauge can shorten the process considerably, but isn't really necessary.
 
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