building the rear wheel

I've written a couple posts (see this one on the book, and this on the parts) about building wheels for my bike; I've had a hankering to do it, and finally felt I had the knowledge. The parts came, and I spent about seven hours over the past two days building the rear wheel. I figured that one would be harder, because the spokes on the two sides are different, and because in addition to getting the rim straight (laterally true) and the hub central in the rim (radially true), the "dish" has to be correct: the rear hub has gears on the right side, so the distance from the center of the wheel to the flange where the spokes go is shorter on that side than the other, and you've got to get the rim centered correctly.

Did you catch that offhand thing about seven hours? That's a long time, and it took me that long because, except for ordering the wrong parts, I made about every mistake imaginable:

• In the book I used, the Professional Guide to Wheelbuilding, author Roger Musson is adamant about oiling the spokes and the rim where the nipples will go to ensure that parts tighten correctly. I took his advice to a fault, and used far too much oil.
• He also makes quite a deal about not tightening nipples too much, too early. The first time I assembled the wheel (yes, first time; there was a second), I left the nipples too loose, and some fell off. The easy ones to recover fell to the garage floor, among the sawdust, wire ends, and other detritus that collects there because I don't clean the garage nearly often enough. Others fell into the rim, in the channel between where the nipples attach and where the tube is supported. Those are hard to locate, and harder to remove; the best way is to disassemble the wheel (oh, dear...)
• So after building up the wheel the second time, I made sure it was laterally and radially true, but I waited far too long to check the dish. It was WAY off, about 1cm too far to the left. This meant I had to try to fix the dish by tightening the spokes on the drive side, which are both shorter and less angled so there's less leverage than on the left...
• ... and in so doing, I COMPLETELY messed up the lateral and radial true. It took hours with the spoke wrench to get it back to lateral and radial true, and ALSO with correct dish.
• I used my Pedro's spoke wrench. I've used it frequently for truing my own wheels and at the Bike Exchange, but building from scratch is a different story. The back side, that actually turns the nipples, has edges that are not sharp enough to cut skin, but are painful under repeated pressure nonetheless. After hours with that wrench, I know every wrong way to hold it, and I can probably feel the individual threads in fine satin today, my hands are that raw.

When I get involved in a project, I can't let it go; I woke up at 2:30 this morning thinking about that wheel, and couldn't get back to sleep, so I went and finished it (I'm off for Election Day today, so there's a nap in my near future). The wheel is done (although I haven't mounted a cog on it or put it on a bike yet). I have the parts for the front as well; let's see if I can resist assembling that long enough for my had to heal first. At least I know a number of things NOT to do...