I think you will find the exercise both fun and educational. My only advice - get new spokes and nipples (you will have to going from 27 to 700C anyway) as it makes truing so much easier. I have done 5 or 6 wheels now, and the ones where I reused spokes and nipples were the hardest.

One other tip: check, double check, and recheck your starting spoke positions to avoid having the spokes cross over the valve stem.... (don't ask me how I know).

I've used Alex DM18s in all of the builds I did, but I have a pair of CR18s in the wings for the next build. Alex is inexpensive and easily available locally.

Nice bike BTW - that's a lot of lock though....trouble with theft in the Peg?