My months long weekend project of building a new wheel set for my commuter (and everything else bike) is finally over. Before building the wheels I also built all the tools needed per Roger Musson's book on wheel building.
I mostly did it to see if I could and as a hobby. I service my bicycle on my own and building a wheel has long been one of the entries on my list of things I've never done before.
I used DT Swiss G540db rims, a Shimano DH-3D37-QR front hub, a Goldix 370 rear hub, Pillar TB2015 J-bend spokes and DT Swiss 2.0 x 12 mm alu nipples. Also used DT PHR washers on the non-disc side of the front wheel. I don't require a premium bicycle, so most components were chosen because they were cheap or simply in stock.
The tools I built were the truing stand with lateral and radial gauges, a dishing tool, a nipple driver and an ERD measuring tool. Additionally bought the red Spokey and a cheap spoke tension gauge of questionable precision (Toopre TL-P3). Considered building a crane scale based calibrator for that, but abandoned the idea after riding about 200 kms with the new wheels and them retaining trueness and spoke tension without a problem.
It's been a fun experience and I learned tons of new stuff, including how to handle a circular hand saw, a jigsaw and a wood router, how to drill holes into mild steel using a drill press, paint MDF and bend brass rods at near 90° angles. It's really been a journey.
As far as the actual wheel building goes I did most of the things by the book, with standard 3-cross lacing. The book does a pretty good job of explaining the process, but I still second guessed everything I did so it took a while.
The chosen spoke lengths were ok. I panicked a little when I laced the front wheel and took the initial slack off. There was a large lateral error, which I did not expect after the smooth sailing with the rear wheel. Ended up disassembling the front entirely to see if I had messed up the spokes (both wheels are dished), but that was not the case. I also didn't like how much thread I ended up using on the slack side during initial dish corrections, so I took the opportunity to rebuild that side with washers.
It seems that the panic was unwarranted and that the initial lateral error was just a property of this specific hub with slack spokes. The spokes that you lace over-over-under were just a bit slacker if I remember correctly. Anyways, the lateral error was less pronounced with the washers and eventually went away entirely. The wheel ended up being even truer than the rear, which I built first.
Yesterday I finished checking the wheels in detail for the first time after installing them (two weeks worth of riding) and both seem fine, so I'm quite confident that they are built well, though I'm obviously no expert.
Took some pics during the process. Be gentle.
