finally... i was tired of being the dark cloud around here.. but seriously...wtf?

If you want to do it right, it only saves money if you want to build several wheels and you expect to ride them forever. You'll need a truing stand, tensiometer, spoke wrench, plus individuals wheel parts, which alone will cost much more than a prebuilt wheel. Spokes cost 1-2 dollars a piece. For a 36 spoke wheel - you'll spend nearly a hundred or more on spokes alone.

I'm in the process of building up my own set of wheels and its going to cost me like 500-600 bucks for the parts and tools..and they won't even be high end wheels (surly hubs with some 27 inch Sun rims.) If you have lots of bikes and plan on building lots of wheels I can see where it would be worth it. I plan on building several more wheel sets...but if you only want one pair of wheels, building them yourself will cost way more than just buying some prebuilts.

At any rate, I can't understand why anyone would want to go from 3-cross to radial laced..3-cross is stronger and less risk of breaking your hub. The weight savings is insignificant.

more clearance for spoke riders

ive built 3 wheels, and i own neither truing stand, tensionometer, and spoke wrench. i sort of assumed the OP just wanted to relace his wheel and use his own hub, and he'd be paying for the rims anyway.

All it takes is a friend who has that stuff already or a shop that lets you do work there. I laced my wheel at home with a screwdriver, took it to a friends house and trued it up. then i took it to the shop to have them check w/ a tensionometer and they got both wheels perfect for me for 10 bucks.

my mtb came stock with a radial front wheel. Been riding for like 5 years with no probs. rim brakes, not disc.
Also I agree that building your own is not really cheaper unless you have access to the tools already ie a bike co-op. Of course building your own will give you geek status and allow you maintenance skills, and chix dig guys with skills.
peace.

i built myself a set of wheels recently. got a stand for $40 and a spoke wrench. had a shop measure the spokes and the spokes plus measurement cost me $35 for both spokes and labor for 2 32 spoke wheels!i got them built and trued in probably 6 hours. the only thing i'm not sure of is tension, but i have a book that suggested you could pretty much use common sense. don't make them loose and don't make them tight as **** either. of course i could see how this idea could be troublesome to some, but i've been riding these wheels every day for a month on ****ty ass philly streets and the ****ers are still true so... do with that what thou wilt...
however, having read what 128 said, i'd like to have a shop check them just to know how close i got and maybe pick up some tips on how i could have done it better for next time.

I doubt that a shop would be willing to do this due to the liability exposure. It is risky to do radial spoking on a hub that was previously spoked semi-tangentially, becaue the old spokes will have "notched" the spoke holes, creating a stress riser.

It is not unusual for this to cause flange failure. It has happened to me and to my wife. I might still do this on a wheel for myself, but wouldn't do it on a customer's bike.

Sheldon "Willing To Risk It" Brown