Originally Posted by
Jwink3101
One question I had that did not really seem to be addressed is if I get another build, how to I weed out the ones I shouldn't trust.
The only two reliable options are
1. Learning to do the work yourself. It takes patience but isn't hard.
2. Delegating to a reputable one-man shop (Peter White, psimet, etc.)
Going to (formerly) reputable bike shops with more than one mechanic you risk having some one incompetent build your wheel on his first and last week, failing to put enough tension in your wheels, the rear never staying true, and the front collapsing on a small bump.
(I'm speculating about that first and last week part; maybe he was bad for longer and maybe he didn't get fired. The rear wheel did not stay true, the front did collapse, and I quit delegating my wheel builds until we wanted to upgrade a 3 speed IGH wheel to 8 for my wife and I felt lazy. I spent more time fixing that than I would have building it from scratch and wouldn't be running out of spoke threads at full tension).