Sapim D-Light actual spoke diameter

[NickJHP]

I'm building a pair of wheels using black Sapim D-Light spokes - haven't used them before. After I'd put a small amount of tension on the spokes, I measured them, and they're all slightly over the nominal 1.65mm diameter. Both with a good quality Mitutoyo vernier caliper and a Starrett micrometer I get diameters of 1.68-1.70mm for the couple of dozen spokes that I measured at mid-section. I don't have any D-Light spokes in plain stainless I can measure for comparison: does the blackening process add to the thickness of the spoke; should I just treat them as 1.65mm for the purposes of getting spoke tension from the tensiometer readings?

Not that it really makes much of a difference: when I look at the conversion chart, for the readings I can expect with the spokes up to proper tension, there's about six Kgf difference in the tension value if the conversion is taken on 1.7mm vs 1.65mm.

Edit: I subsequently found one article on the web (https://off.road.cc/content/feature/how ... -made-2466) which says, FWIW, that the process that DT use for blackening spokes only adds a layer about one micrometre thick - ie 0.001mm, so not significant in terms of the measurements I made.