On Friday, October 19, 2018 at 7:51:30 PM UTC-7, Steve Weeks wrote:
On Friday, October 19, 2018 at 1:24:06 PM UTC-5, wrote:

I can build a wheel and true it in a half hour. This is with spoke tension equal so that it doesn't go out of true. But I don't consider it fun.

It's a good thing I don't build wheels for a living... it takes me a couple hours. But I'm only building one every couple years, so I enjoy it. :-)

The rim transfer we're talking about here cannot be done in half an hour. It's a tedious job. And building a modern wheel on a deep section rim takes more than half an hour because you have to fish the nipples through the rim.. I used to build wheels as a cottage industry during college, and the standard wheel was a ModE/E2 36 spokes on a Phil or Campy hub, and I could do a front in the half-an-hour range, but I was tightening the nipples to probably 70% of final tension with a power drill. And my tension meter was my hands and ears. I wasn't chasing nipples around in the rim or checking each spoke with a tension meter. I used oil on the nipples and not linseed oil thread lock or some other thread lock, which is pretty SOP these days with lighter rims with no spoke hole reinforcement. Wheel building has also slowed down for me because I have this mass of old spokes and nipples and end up spending time measuring spokes and looking at the lip on the nipple opening to determine whether it is 14 of 15g. Poor housekeeping slows the process..

-- Jay Beattie.