I built my first wheel!

I am pretty excited, let me tell you.
Last night I got the spokes and nipples for the wheel build and I figured it would make a fun weekend project.  Well, I pretty much couldn't help myself so I laced the wheel last night, and then trued it up the rest of the way today.

Here's the wheel...

Other than that the Sturmey-Archer three-speed hub is quite heavy and made things awkward, the whole build was actually not that difficult.  I expected to get a lot more frustrated.

At first I kind of messed up the lacing.  So I sat and stared at the pattern for about 20 minutes until the answer just came to me.  Like the guy in "A Beautiful Mind" it was like I suddenly saw the pattern.  I had the series slightly out of order.  Thankfully the fix was easy and didn't require me to disassemble the whole thing.

I originally wanted to use brass nipples but the LBS doesn't have any to spare right now, so I used stainless.  For my daughter's purposes I am pretty confident this will do just fine.  Perhaps one day she will rebuild her rebuild and switch them out.

The lads at my bike co-op loaned me a Park wheel true stand.  They're always a big help.  Cheers to them.

I must say that this is quite addictive.  I am certain that I will need to engage a new build as soon as this one is done.  Maybe I'll just volunteer more hours at the co-op.

Anyhow, won't be long now before I have the finished product.