This is for pastorbob and everyone else out there thinking they might try to build their own wheels...

Yesterday I got a package in from Cambria Bike with the third set of spokes for this build, the new 27" wheels for the Barracuda Mk.I. Parts include a NOS pair of Araya 27x1 rims, Shimano 333 High Flange hubs and DT Swiss Champion DB 2.0/1.8 spokes.

I setup the truing stand, all of the parts, my laptop and tools on the table and started with the front wheel. Following Sheldon Brown's directions on wheel building I soon ran into the first minor issue, the spoke drilling on the rim put the key spoke one hole away from the valve hole instead of right next to it. Sheldon's website mentioned this possibility but all of the images were shown with the key spoke next to the valve hole which threw me for a mental loop a bit. It took a couple minutes of triple checking what I was looking at before I proceeded with the first two sets of spokes. Unfortnutely somewhere along the line I still hadn't gotten it right and after placing my first leading side spoke I had a crossing spoke right above the valve hole.

So back apart it came and I redid everything one more time, realizing where I'd gone wrong and going again on the first two sets of spokes. This time when I laced the first leading spoke to the opposite side of the valve hole, everything was perfect, the two spokes were parallel giving all the space needed to get in on the valve. The third and fourth set of spokes went in and I started tensioning up the spokes. Slowly going around the wheel, trying to even up the tension as I went. Tension started coming up and I pulled out my new Park TM-1 tension meter and the guide and started to check where the tension was and how they related to each other.

I soon discovered that there was a small problem with the tool. The pivot screw had come slightly loose and was causing the two plates of the tool to rub against each other introducing addtional friction which was throwing off the accuracy of the readings. Oddly enough the screw took a SAE size allen tool to tighten up. I plan to dab the back side of the screw with some glue soon to keep it from getting loose again.

Front wheel I was able to get the tension pretty close and the wheel true and round. Maybe a little fine tuning to do after the first couple of rides, but hopefully that will be minor.