Thanks everyone who posted on this. I deliberated the advice, read Sheldon Brown’s web guide on wheel building, and jumped right on in to the deep end.
Thanks especially to Toys19 – I was ready to bring you a whole van load of pasties.
I fashioned a wheel jig for about 30 pence out of a 6″ ruler, 2 elastic bands and 2 cable ties – on the basis the main part was already paid for being the bike frame I was building.
Photos
Lacing up the spokes took a Friday evening in front of the telly.
Truing about 4 hours for both wheels over the weekend.
I think I have them in true vertically and laterally to about 0.5-0.25mm. My only concern is on the rear wheel, which has an Alfine 11 hub, all the spoke calcs said same length spokes on both sides. The right appear a little long, left a little short (RH – spokes all the way through the nipples,perhaps 1mm over, LH, 1-2mm short of the top of the nipples). To get the dish, I just tried to get the rim dead centre of the frame between the seat stays – I used a carpenters sliding square to measure the distance between stay and rim until both sides were the same. Don’t know if that’s right but it looks logical to me!
Hope to have the bike finished in the next few days, so the first ride will see if the wheel collapse under me!
Cheers