Just laced my first wheel!

My friend from the shop is going to walk me through the fun/agony of truing them on Saturday.

So excited. Thanks Barnett's!

nice

always good to learn how to build your own wheels

i'm building up my next set too, but not before some practise on some others =]
kudos to you

Yeah, honestly, see if your LBS has a QBP account. If they do, they have access to the QBP spoke calculator, which is usually spot on.

Otherwise, DT Swiss has a good online calc.

You're still going to need to measure everything by hand. I know with DT Swiss you can always round up or down depending, but with QPB's it tells you what you should go with regardless.

You can always do the measurements yourself and then take them to your LBS and have them double check it for you.

Beer works for a good bribe (only because I work at a shop and like beer).

To be honest it might be a waste of time to practice on others. I'm not sure how you can really destroy any of the components by screwing up. On top of that, just double check everything after every step. Everyone has their wheel building guide preference, but our master tech just handed me Barnett's guide, and honestly it worked really well. I read through it once and then worked as I read the second time and it looks like it worked out fine.