Let's say one hour per wheel. That makes 60,000 hours of wheel building. At around 2,000 hours per work year (8hrs/day, 5d/wk), that's 30 years of nothing but wheel building. That's a lot of wheel building.

---

----------------------------------
"Go yell at an M&M"

You've gotten a lot of advice... most of it bad.

Three things are desirable... a good spoke wrench, and a way to hold the aero spoke without damaging it, and a wire, pipe cleaner, or zip tie to act as a lateral guide. You don't need a tensiometer or truing stand.

Since you are just truing a wheel and not building from scratch, here is a very important tip: Spokes don't get tighter through use... only looser. If the wheel was built well to begin with, and if you catch it early, usually only one spoke is loose. Find that spoke, tighten until the rim is straight, and you should be good. Pluck spokes to check that tension is even (each side).

If the rim is aluminum and bent, then you can only true it by making the tension uneven, which will be a weak wheel.

This guy. ^^
read his last sentence twice.

---

Andy Tetmeyer (I work at HED)

the folks saying it's easy, have forgotten how long it took them to learn.. it's a skilled craft and takes time to become competent.

I've trued my own wheels, so far mostly successfully. It does take time and iterations. Mark the spokes that are adjusted, and count turns. This lets me put it back the way it was and start again if things go bad. Some days I have to put the spoke wrench down and walk away, try again tomorrow..

one failure, on a secondhand wheel which I think was not well built to start, or got crashed. A spoke broke and the wheel went way out of true. Upon checking the tensions were all over the place, and I couldn't get it straight with reasonable tensions. Gave up and ebay'd a new wheel..

The first wheel I built was excellent. Yes, it absolutely took a long time - perhaps 8 hours total. I was skilled enough to build good wheels in 8 hours (spread over a week)!

I eventually become able to build a wheel in two hours - and haven't done any in 15 years since it's no longer worth my time. But the learning to build helped give me capacity to understand truing. Frankly, after that first wheel I could true wheels - and also understand when a wheel had deeper problems.

I used the book "The Bicycle Wheel" by the late Jobst Brandt and had a good wheel someone else had built to compare too. It's not that complicated.

---

http://www.jt10000.com/

That's the book i learned from as well.

Just remember a few things and a quick touch up is easy.
Have a spoke wrench that fits well and a blade holder if aero.
After tightening the nipple turn it backwards to take any twist you may have introduced, you can feel the balance point where the spoke is not wound up.
Lube the spokes a day before you try to true it if they have not been lubed regularly as part of normal maintenance.
Spokes will never tighten themselves.

Pluck the spokes, always tighten the lowest tension spoke you find to the same as it's neighbours on that side as tightening the lowest tension one will build tension in other spokes and the loosest one is usually the cause of your problem.
Repeat.
Even without a stand or indicator the wheel will come true unless it was a dogs breakfast build.
If it is a dogs breakfast, first tighten the loosest until there are no loose ones.
Then loosen the tightest if significantly tighter than the rest. The build was shit or the rim damaged if you have to do this.

Never tighten a tight spoke to bring the rim to centre.
Never loosen a loose spoke to bring the rim to centre.
The problem lies not with that spoke but elsewhere.
If a loose spoke seems to need loosening, tighten it.
If a tight spoke seems to need tightening, loosen it.
Once you get rid of the rogue tension spokes the wheel will begin to make more sense and true easily.

You can true a wheel without any indicators just by plucking and balancing the spoke tensions.
If the spokes tensions are even the wheel is true.