jyl, That's just made me realise something, which I hadn't thought important before. When I had the 1st wheel removed at the LBS I remember the guys there having a brief conversation about if they should mend it or swap it.

I had the other wheel so I was all for swapping it because it sounded less expensive anyway, but the thing that made the shop guy agree was when the other one said "he's broken some spokes too".

At the time I just couldn't see why this mattered. I thought If you brake a spoke you just put anew one in. They are pretty cheap. But now I realise maybe he was meaning it will be hard to get the freewheel off if some of the spokes are broken. And without getting the freewheel off it would be impossible to add new spokes anyway, so a bit of a chicken and egg scenario.

It's really important, because I just noticed a couple of broken on the wheel that's still on the bike. I'm going to take it into the shop as soon as possible before I break any more and hope they can still fix that one.

Also, I'm going to look round for a nice professionally built set of wheels for the other bike and then try to start with a bit of spoke tightening if they start to go out of true.

I don't know if it's worth buying more stuff to keep trying with this wheel. If the new wheels need the same tool it might be worth getting and I could continue to have a play with the one I messed up, but I guess that depends on the type of freewheel that comes on the new wheels.