Ted Ernst, who must be older than the mountains :-) wrote:
I don't think they made "long" nipples during the war. Material shortage probably took care of that luxury. Had to pay for the war somehow. I suspect they put short nipples in all the spoke boxes, wood rims were out, and flat steel rims were the only game in town. <snip> +++++++++++++++++ Well, that was a challenge, so I went back through the pile of dirty black spoke nipples. Most were about 16 - 16.5 mm long, really marginal for a wood rim. But, I found a 24 mm. Nice black one. But, not steel... So, I don't know what kind of sheep gave that wool....
harvey sachs
mcLean va