# Anyone own a spoke cutting/threading machine?



## Tad (Jan 13, 2004)

I know Phil Wood make one, but I'm not shelling out  $3000  for something I use only occasionally. Are there any others on the market?? I have heard of one by a Japanese company called Asahi.

Where I am (tokyo) I can't get my hands on shorter than average spokes to build slightly exotic wheels.


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## bighitdon (Oct 28, 2004)

any decent shop should cut them for you, but honestly, a private citizen (so to speak) with a spoke cutter is unheard of. and the shops all have waiting lists to get them when they start up.

good luck tho, i remember the shops in japan hooking people up pretty well.


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## Tad (Jan 13, 2004)

*found what I was looking for...*

http://www.hozan.co.jp/cycle_e/catalog/wheel_stand/C-700.htm

Doesn't state the price, but goes for around $US100 in Japan. Watch out for the funny English.

I guess one day I'll end up buying one. Many shops don't have one, the ones that do are really busy.


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## Tad (Jan 13, 2004)

http://www.hozan.co.jp/cycle_e/catalog/wheel_stand/C-700.htm

Oops, here's the address.


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## bg. (Jan 28, 2004)

For the occasional spoke cut the Hozan works well enough. For home use it's perfect.

The Phil Wood tool is of less value these days for shops since many high end wheels have special spokes, areo bladed or whatever. Also given the price at $3000, you can buy tons of pre cut spokes for that price. That said, I'm sure there's plenty of people who think it's a must have for a shop....I'm just not one of them.


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## mistermoto (Jan 22, 2006)

*Oh yeah*

Mmmmm....Phil Wood spoke cutter/threader. Yummy. Not at all practical for joe blow, but still something to lust after.


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## hollister (Sep 16, 2005)

*hozan/phil wood*

ive used both, the hozan tool is good if you need to do just a few spokes, the PW tool is by far the best available,having one in the shop is invaluable:thumbsup:


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## wyrm (Jan 19, 2004)

As far as having a spoke cutter in a shop....... I have to say that it is one of the best investments that our shop has. Shops all over the valley send their customers in here to get spokes cut. We get referals from all over the place. It makes us look professional and we get lots of wheel building jobs.

Before when I was just a regular customer I had a b!tch of a time finding the right spoke lengths for my wheels. They had to often special order and make me wait. Now I get the right spoke lengths. All the shop has to do is buy out all the closeout spokes from the distributer... all the weird lengths that others don't want or can't use. Use those by cutting them down. Charge the customer for spoke cutting and for the spoke at regular price of a spoke.... you've made a profit.


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## bg. (Jan 28, 2004)

wyrm said:


> As far as having a spoke cutter in a shop....... I have to say that it is one of the best investments that our shop has. Shops all over the valley send their customers in here to get spokes cut. We get referals from all over the place. It makes us look professional and we get lots of wheel building jobs.
> 
> Before when I was just a regular customer I had a b!tch of a time finding the right spoke lengths for my wheels. They had to often special order and make me wait. Now I get the right spoke lengths. All the shop has to do is buy out all the closeout spokes from the distributer... all the weird lengths that others don't want or can't use. Use those by cutting them down. Charge the customer for spoke cutting and for the spoke at regular price of a spoke.... you've made a profit.


I had the same discussion with Phil Wood at Interbike a few years ago.

Your points are valid, provided that you can get a couple bucks per spoke, and other dealers don't have the spoke lengths in stock. I know Phil says that everyone should charge a couple bucks a spoke, but not every market can do that, at least not for a silver straight gage. When you're already sitting on a large spoke inventory, and you're buying mainly pre-built/exotic wheels to begin with, it can take years to pay off the machine. Also, many odd ball spoke sizes, such as for 24" DH rims, are no longer as hard to find as they once were.

Beautiful tool, but I can think of other places to invest the $3000 that would make alot more business sense. But that's just me.


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## wyrm (Jan 19, 2004)

I'm gonna try the math. Okay....... if the price of a spoke was 45-50cents... and the price of a cut was 15cents... and your profit margin was 40%.... you would roughly make 25 cents a spoke. To pay off the $3000 spoke cutting tool you would have to cut 12000 spokes. If you made a wheel a day at 32 spokes a wheel it would take 375 days to pay off the spoke machine. Roughly a year. Even if you cut half that amount it would still only take you two years to pay off. And the machine we have in our shop has been going on 18 years. So at that rate if has paid its self off 16 years ago.

$3000 is not much for a high end shop that builds wheels and works on tons of bikes. Every day we cut at least 40-50 spokes whether it be for a wheel build, broken spokes, other shop referals in town, or for the wheel build enthusiast who wants to give his wrenching a try at wheel building.....


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## bg. (Jan 28, 2004)

wyrm said:


> I'm gonna try the math. Okay....... if the price of a spoke was 45-50cents... and the price of a cut was 15cents... and your profit margin was 40%.... you would roughly make 25 cents a spoke. To pay off the $3000 spoke cutting tool you would have to cut 12000 spokes. If you made a wheel a day at 32 spokes a wheel it would take 375 days to pay off the spoke machine. Roughly a year. Even if you cut half that amount it would still only take you two years to pay off. And the machine we have in our shop has been going on 18 years. So at that rate if has paid its self off 16 years ago.
> 
> $3000 is not much for a high end shop that builds wheels and works on tons of bikes. Every day we cut at least 40-50 spokes whether it be for a wheel build, broken spokes, other shop referals in town, or for the wheel build enthusiast who wants to give his wrenching a try at wheel building.....


What wheels are you building? We sell tons of wheels, but they're almost all pre-built. I can see selling tons of wheels, but only having to build a few a week, at most. If' you guys are building wheels when you could be buying them, well, you might want to recheck the math on that.

If you're always cutting the same lengths, then you'd be crazy to keep cutting them when you can order precut spokes cheaper, from a supplier you deal with more often than Phil Wood........Good point on the close out spoke sizes though, that's a good way to do it.

Different markets I guess, round here, the high end handmade wheel has long since been replaced with boutique wheelsets from Mavic and others.


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