Doing it my way meant I didn’t even have to look at the wheel and cordless screwdrivers are faster (even going twice round) than me handcranking a Bicycle Research nipple driver (which I also had).
pardon me if this is obvious but nor do need to look at what you are doing with a nipple driver which is positively engaged with the nipple. If anything you need to look less. And there is zero danger of chewing anything up with the drill.
I've used the BR nipple driver relatively little, in good part because it seems somewhat unwieldy to me, being bigger and heavier than it needs to be. Needless to say this goes double or more for using cordless drill/drivers; after a few wheels this way my wrists are sore; you are wafting a casing, motor and battery around for hours, all to drive nipples that weigh virtually nothing; it seems a bit mad to me. I found myself wistfully thinking of those tool suspension units they use in car factories, inbetween thinking "there must be a better way". If the drill slips at all it can make a good mess of the rim too.
To get the nipple set ready for the final stages of building only takes ~16-18 turns, which takes only a few seconds with any hand crank tool. If it were fifty, there would be more merit in the drill(s), as it is, it is at best swings and roundabouts.
The BR tool has a crank offset and handle angle that suited the chap that designed it but it won't suit everyone; at least with the nipple drivers I make I can have the crank length and handle angle exactly as I like it, and the tool weighs virtually nothing, so is in no way tiring to use.
I've also used (with varying degrees of success)
- a small 'electrician's screwdriver' with a rubber sleeve over the shank, so that it can be spun quickly and easily
- jeweller's screwdrivers (with a spinner that sits in the palm of your hand, and as slim a shank as I can find)
- the electrician's screwdriver fitted with a top spinner
- a spiralux screwdriver (like a Stanley yankee, but smaller)
- Stanley Yankee
- various 'push-out' nipple setting driving bits (some bought, some made)
- above in about a dozen different cordless drill/drivers (of which I guess an AEG would have been favourite)
- various nipple setting tools (again some bought, some made)
They all got the job done, but they all have pluses and minuses too, some of which will bother some folk more than others. As I said before, none of the 'push-out' setting tools were really accurate when it came down to it.
One of the things I really value about the DIY nipple driver approach is that once the nipple is on the driver, it pretty much can't come off accidentally; even if you only drop one nipple per wheel doing it some other way, it soon gets old, especially if the little so-and-so drops off inside the rim.....
One of the things I've long thought might do the job best of all is adapting a wire-wrap termination tool. This was a popular method for certain types of wiring, decades ago, and you could (and still can I think) get a hand-operated 'pistol' tool which was arranged with a simple rack and pinion drive such that one pull of the trigger spun the tool end about fifteen or twenty times, at low torque. The tool is small and lightweight, and is meant to be handled easily for long periods. They look like this;
just needs a bit of fettling to make a bit that holds the nipple well and gives an accurate 'set'. Probably it'll look a bit like the end of a DIY driver in the first instance. I think this will work really well provided the nipple is perfectly free to turn on the spoke end and isn't binding in the rim drilling in any way.
cheers
