Bicycle Mechanics - First wheel build in 5 years

I've been out for awhile and I just finished lacing up my new King/Mavic rear wheel. It took me about an hour of taking my time and remembering stuff. I first started lacing to the wrong holes on the rim, once I figured that out it was smooth sailing. When I get in the shop tomorrow I'll finish tensioning/truing/stress releaving her. Just thought I would share. I love building wheels.:D

I just did my first two wheels ever, and it has left me with a surprising sense of accomplishment.

My bike had Mavic tubular rims, and I wanted to go with clinchers but also wanted to keep the high flange Campy hubs. I bought new Mavic Open Pro rims and used Spocalc to get the spoke lengths, bought a truing stand and tensiometer, and followed the directions in Barnett's Manual. What a rush to have them turn out round and true.

http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d7/k4drd/Bicycles/Lacing.jpg

http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d7/k4drd/Bicycles/TruingandTensioning.jpg

http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d7/k4drd/Bicycles/Rear.jpg

It does create a nice feeling of accomplishment, doesn't it? I really love riding on my own wheels because I trust myself more than a mass production machine. Plus I know I can have it done to my specs, not some generic rider who isn't at all like me. The bike I just bought had wheels with the trailing/leading spokes opposite on each side, but the rim is starting to show some real brake wear. I can hardly wait until I have an excuse to build up a new set.

I have a new XT hub that needs to be built up. I just need to find a rim...

^ Sounds like me. I buy deals when I see them. So I currently have a Record front hub, and am keeping my eye peeled for a rear 9any campy 28h), then I will probably just buy the rims new because I don't want to be random on that. My MTB wheels are on XTR hubs I found cheap, and old racing wheels were vintage lightweight rims on newer hubs I also found a deal on.

I just got started building wheels again (also for the first time in awhile - 6 or 7 years on my end) over Christmas. A fair bit of my recent practice has come with properly tensioning old single-wall-rim 27" wheels.
Now I've got a fair bit of stuff sitting around waiting to be built up. XTR front hub from early/mid 90's (pre-parallax, beautiful classic design and not much different than a road hub) that I'll build up with an Open Pro rim. I've also got two Sun M13II rims, to be built up with recent-model 105 rear freehub and LX front hub. Just need to buy spokes (14/15/14) for all three.

Gonna have my freind, a mechanic from the shop I used to work at check it over in a bit. Just too see how bad I did.:p

I always keep referring back to my book for each wheel build, mostly for initial rim orientation because this is something I don't do often, so you forget....:)