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Without spoke head washers the heads sit all pissed in the larger holes which introduces movement/fatigue.
The tension, and stress relieving step, will pull the heads to a position they won't move from. From there, the only reason a head can move is if the spoke loses tension. Unless it's a steel flange, washers probably do more to protect the flange than the spoke, once you've employed a sufficiently tensioned and stress relieved butted spoke.
Kimmo
M_V
Without spoke head washers the heads sit all pissed in the larger holes which introduces movement/fatigue.
You can probably build a wheel without them and get away with it, for a while at least, but they’re neither expensive, hard to get or difficult to use so why take the risk?