Clyde1820

If you end up still looking for a decent wheel builder ...

R&E Cycles (aka, Rodriguez), in Seattle, WA -- A good shop that crafts high-quality, high-strength wheelset builds.

Had a wheelset made by them. Velocity CliffHanger 26", 36H, with White Industries MI-5 hubs, DT Swiss spokes. Very strong, reliable. Exceptional build quality. If I need another wheelset, I will certainly consider them. They aren't inexpensive, on a par with the earlier Sugar Wheel Works mention. But if a strong, reliable, high-quality build is what you're seeking, they can do.

imi

About how long/how many wheels does it take until one may feel confident in building wheels?

Tourist in MSN

A couple wheels will make you feel confident. A few more and you start to realize that you are not as brilliant as you thought you were. (Dunning-Kruger effect.) If you have good mechanical aptitude, you will learn faster. And if you take the time to figure out how to do it from good instructive sources, that will help a lot.

How long and how many? Somewhere between 2 and over a dozen.

fishboat

Your first set should be sufficient if you follow a good process and use good materials. They aren't going to collapse under you unexpectedly.

Download Roger Musson's booklet. He'll walk you through the process step by step. It's quite easy. My first set of wheels(H Plus Son Archetype rims, Ultegra hubs, Sapim 2/1.8 double butted spokes, brass nipples) has about a thousand miles on them now and they run as true as when I finished assembling them. Once you've gone through the process of building a wheel, wheel maintenance/post build truing tweaks are a minor event.

cyccommute 

Start with one. Ride it and see how it goes. The second one is easier as is the third, fourth, fifth, etc. But if you never build the first one, you'll never get confident at all.

Paul_P

The best thing I did in my story of wheelbuilding was to get a Park Tool spoke tension meter, very late in the game.
It's incredibly easy to go around the wheel and get all spokes practically identical or to see where changes can be made for adjustments.
Especially useful on the rear wheel with it's very different tension on each side.
Then once a year while getting ready for the new season, I just go around and make sure everything is still fine.
Sure you can do things by feel and I did for a long time, but I wouldn't go back to that.

pdlamb

Half a dozen wheel builds. Although that can be one set of wheels rebuilt a few times, until you figure out what makes a wheel last.

Second the recommendation of a Park tensiometer. Old pros don't need one, but it's a tool that will let an amateur closely approach a professional's work.

imi

Thanks for all the awesome replies about wheel building.
Like many things,I find, until I’ve started it’s a mystery

fishboat

..forgot to post the link to Musson's booklet

https://www.wheelpro.co.uk/wheelbuilding/book.php

It's mysterious until you get started and then Roger's instructions take the mystery out if it.

Tourist in MSN

You are fortunate, there are great sources of info on the internet.

I built my first wheel before the internet existed, and those that knew the secret dark arts of wheel building were slow to share their wisdom. Thus my first wheel was a disaster. But I learned from many mistakes on that first one.

If you really want to build a wheel or two, if you have not yet learned how to true up a wheel, buy a used bad wheel or find one in the garbage. And learn on that one.

bwilli88 

I build my own,
Rims; Velocity Dyads or A23,
A512 or A312 are also nice rims
Any solid hub mostly 36b holes

typically any SS spoke and only brass nipples

Far From Home

My 720 is in for wheel building. In this photo they were using one of their wheels to confirm
that brakes would work with 700c.

elcruxio

I feel like it depends a lot on how lucky your are with your first component selection and how good your equipment is. Building wheels is really quite simple, but going at it with a spoke wrench and a fork can make it feel like it's far more complicated than it is. On the other hand with a good building manual, truing stand, dish gauge and tensionmeter building wheels with good components becomes almost trivial.

My first build while quite successful was a difficult experience because I had a pair of mavic rims which did not want to straighten out. But that experience taught me so well that the wheels I've built since with DT Swiss rims have almost built themselves.

Wheel building is definitely not rocket science.

Paul_P

It'll be a lot easier if you have some prior experience in taking things apart and putting them back together properly.
If not, you're probably better off seeking outside help, or expect things to feel weird and overwhelming for a while.

cyccommute 

There’s a Chinese proverb (probably) that says the best time to plant a tree was 15 years ago. The second best time is now. It would have been best if you started building wheels 15 years ago. But since you didn’t, the next best time is to start today. If you don’t start today, you’ll never find out how many wheels you need to build to become confident.

You also don’t need a bunch of tools…life is easier if you have them but you don’t really need them. Many of my earliest wheel builds were done on something like this Sunlite truing stand. You don’t even need a dishing tool as you can just turn the wheel around in the stand to gauge the dish. Nor do you need a tension meter. Strike the spokes and listen to the ones that are flat (too loose) or sharp (too tight). I just use a spoke wrench to strike the spoke.

A very good way to practice is to take an old wheel apart and put it back together. I do this with my wheel building class. I have a bunch of old wheels that I’ve taken apart and the students put them back together, tension, and true them. It’s hard to ruin a wheel during a build but it is possible. If the wheel is old and is never going to be ridden again, it’s less of a risk if you do something wrong.

Good tools are a joy to use but you can make very good wheels with minimal tools. But you have to start now before you can get good at it.

bikemig 

700c wheels will work with an 80s Trek 720. I rode across the country on my 1983 Trek 720 with 700c wheels. The problem you may run into is that the bike was designed around 27 inch wheels and not all cantilevers have the ability to adjust down to work with 700c wheels. Plus the posts on an old touring bike are narrower than on a modern bike so not all cantilevers will work on the bike. There are threads on this (and solutions) in the C&V forum. The bottom line is that you can get this to work.

Far From Home

I knew it would work, they did not want to start until the shop believed it would work. I am looking forward to 40 spoke wheels.

Tourist in MSN

I think 40 spoke is overkill, but the only downside is greater cost. So, if that is what you want, go for it. My touring bike wheels are 36 spoke, except my light touring bike has 32 in front, 36 in rear.

zacster

I built my own wheels with a Shimano 3N72 dynamo hub in front and a LX T670 hub in the rear that could take a 10sp cassette, laced to Mavic XM317 rims with Wheelsmith DB14 spokes. They are 26" wheels that go on my 1990 Trek 7000 MTB. I built them about 10 years ago, maybe 12, and commuted on them until I retired in NYC. They are rock solid and haven't needed to even be touched up in all those years. I just realized today that I was still carrying a spoke wrench from when I built these wheels and one of my road wheels and never once used it on the road.

cyccommute 

Read this before going to 40 spokes. I’ve been running 36 spoke wheels with triple butted spokes for about 20 years on loaded touring bikes which solved the problem with broken spokes that I previously experienced. Better spokes is as good as (or better) than just more spokes.

Jaywalk3r

On my only long tour, I rode on a handbuilt rear wheel (Mavic A719 36-hole) built by a LBS. My front wheel was the machine-built 32-hole Alexrims DH19 that came on my bike when it was a new 29er MTB.

On my in-progress build, I'm using two wheels built by Peter White. The front wheel on the 29er with which I toured has also since been replaced by a Peter White built wheel. (All are 36-spoke wheels.)

I'm very detail-oriented, and I'm confident that I could build up a strong and true wheel using Jobst Brandt's The Bicycle Wheel as a reference. However, it would take years of practice before I could lace a wheel well enough and fast enough to make it worth my while to do it myself instead of letting a highly-reputable builder like White build it. His labor was very reasonably priced, probably less than I would have had to pay to have the wheels built locally here in the PNW.

Tourist in MSN

I am retired, I do not mind taking the time to research which rims I need to buy, calculate the spoke lengths to buy, nipples, hubs, etc. And I am not in a rush, i might spend two hours lacing up and truing a wheel, but having a glass of wine or two while I am doing that in the evening does not speed things up any. My time is free for things that I do not mind doing.

LeeG

I was confident after the third wheel. Turns out I was a little overconfident in that I was under tensioning them but didn’t know it as Ididn’t have a gauge. I was riding a lot w light loads and rims weren’t particularly rigid back then. I replaced rims/wheels from crashes so I never had the chance to see fatigue failures as was common on old poorly tensioned wheels like I saw on customers bikes.

irwin7638

Velocity Wheels

Marc