The Tale of a Bicycle Wheel #3

Last week Jane struggled home from her work having suffered another broken spoke on the new wheel.
I removed the wheel.
She took the wheel back to the shop.

“Oh yes, we’ll sort that,” said [B]'s helpful young assistant.
“I’ll collect it later,” said Jane.

Three hours later we collected it.
PING!

[B] was summoned.
Once again he complained to us, the consumers, (not the manufacturer/supplier!) about the quality of materials.

PING!

He searched his stock, but was unable to locate a matching complete wheel.
He then undertook to replace all the spokes on the existing wheel with a ‘DT’ variety.

I made the mistake of asking what the term ‘DT’ actually means.

I was educated, at considerable length, including a creditable thesis involving scientific terms about tensionometry, and the material-strength and elastic limits of stainless steel.

“Hooke’s law of elasticity states that … F = - kx.”

“Oh yes,” that’s what my physics teacher told me.”

“Yes, BUT stainless steel is not a linear-elastic (Hookean) material.”

I’d already guessed that!

“Perhaps someone could invent a wheel with rubber spokes,” I jested.

Unfortunately [B]’s sense of humour is hard to detect. He continued his lengthy dissertation explaining why my idea was geometric and mechanical nonsense.

I’d guessed that too!

“Come back next week,” he said.

To be fair to [B], he phoned at 7.00pm that same Saturday evening to say he had completed the task.

Will this saga continue?
May I borrow your tensionometer?!