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Back when replacing the nipples on my rear wheel I found that the Park Tool SW-40 Four-Sided Spoke Wrench (on the right above) didn’t work well. Because of the orientation of the hole through which the nipple and spoke pass, if the spoke came off of the nipple at a particular angle it would jam against the vinyl grip, wedging the tool on the nipple. I emailed Park Tool about this and they indicated that some of the SW-40 wrenches were made wrong, and that they would send a replacement.
Well, a week and a half later I received the replacement, a Park Tool SW-20 Master Mechanic Spoke Wrench. As seen on the left above, this is a solid metal wrench with lots of space both around the part which grips the nipple, and plenty of place to hold when turning the wrench. It worked out very well when rebuilding my front wheel today. I also used a recently purchased WAG-3 (used) and TM-1, which all worked out quite well. Hopefully I’ll be able to get a test ride in tomorrow, just to be sure there aren’t any problems before heading out to some single track on Monday.