Given sufficient time and determination it's possible to build a wheel with the ubiquitous $7 Park Tool spoke wrench. You can eyeball the wheel's roundness and check its true by mounting it in your bike's frame and watching the gap between the brake pads and rim. The end result will be roundish and true-ish, but not all that reliable or pretty.
A good friend of mine is a restoration carpenter. Of the many things I learned from him, the most important (and relevant) is the value of quality tools. For him, a $60 chisel and a $5 chisel might do the same job, but the cheaper chisel loses its edge much more quickly and thus needs to be sharpened more often. (Sharpening is very time-consuming.) A sharper tool requires less time to complete a task. Finally, the higher quality tool often lasts longer than its less expensive counterpart.
Wheel building is no different than carpentry in that good tools will save time and yield a better result. In addition to the $7 spoke wrench, I use a Park Tool TS-2 truing stand. It is relatively expensive and heavy, but I have owned it for 15 years and its robustness means it is less likely to fall out of adjustment. I have rebuilt and recalibrated it twice in the past two years.
If there's a weak spot in my suite of wheel building tools, it would be the tensiometer. The Park Tool TM-1 (mentioned in the previous post) is simple and fairly inexpensive (there are certainly people building wheels with less capable equipment); however, it lacks precision and is very cumbersome.
There are plenty of options for moving to the next level for spoke tensiometers--it all depends on how much you are willing to spend. For something precise and accurate the entry point is 400 bucks, which will get you something with an analog dial from DT Swiss, Hozan, or Icetoolz. Fancier digital models go for $800+.
Back to reality: this isn't my day job, and I am on a budget. I continued looking for something a little more appropriate. Found it!
Less expensive and…. made in the USA!!! If you really want to dork-out...
The Wheel Fanatyk also sells the world's best and most expensive truing stand:
Stay tuned for a review...
