Originally Posted by
gaucho777
Spokes are expensive, too. Unless you find comparable rims that could be used with your existing spokes, you'll be out the cost of spokes, too. I assume no truing stand? Spoke tension meter? These aren't essential, but greatly increase the chance you'll do it right and the wheels will stay true. At the end of the day, I bet you'll save money on a used wheelset compared to new rims, spokes, rim tape, bearings, tires?, etc.
But building wheels is a nice skill to have. Just may not be the cheapest/best option in this case given the info you provided.
I agree. I learned to build wheels because, like OP, I had hubs and didn't want to see them go to waste after a toasted a rim and becasue I thought it would be a good skill to have. That said, by the time I bought rims, spokes, paid shipping, etc, I probably spent about what I would have on comparable machine built wheels and not too much less that what hand built would have cost. And that doesn't count cost of tools, which was significant initial investment. But now I build all my wheels because I like to.