bike wrench

I would highly recommend you give Sheldon Brown's wheel lacing guide a read.

I just followed it and it was relatively painless

I am a former Buyer and back office manager for a chain of shops.

The reason wheel building is not common is because it simply is not profitable for bike shops. Spokes only come in boxes of a certain quantity and the extra inventory is never possible to sell. Everyone wants their own custom style spokes for their wheel builds, so even when the shop has a high end thread rolling machine to make proper custom spokes, they still end up with overburden junk inventory.

The wholesale price of spokes from all major wholesale distributors is basically retail now because shop employees are the only ones building wheels for themselves in most instances.

There are new wheels available at every price point that are cheaper than what it costs in labor and parts to build a wheel.

Lastly, the high end market is mostly carbon wheels now. The lack of metal connection at the rim reduces the electrolysis from the tiny currents that form from static as the spokes pass through the air and particles make contact. The carbon forks on bikes also avoid the potential minor magnetic fields between forks, spokes, and rim. This reduces the potential corrosion issues between the spoke and nipple and greatly extends the life of the wheels. Like, I've rebuilt my 2011 Reynolds wheels around 5-6 times. As a Clydesdale, most aluminum wheels are toast after somewhere between a season and a year of hardcore all weather daily riding.

Actually building wheels is not hard or anything. You don't even need a stand. Just get a portable stand for the bike, use the brakes with a clamp or zip tie to hold them close to the rim, or tape a bent solid core wire or coat hanger to the frame or fork to indicate the wobble. Building on the frame also lets you dish it correctly. If you happen to play guitar or have access to a quality guitar tuner that is reliable at low pitches, use this to get an average of the spokes before you remove the old. Just pluck them and note what the reading is on the tuner. Then use the tuner to get the tension even on the new build before attempting to tweak the final true. You will be surprised at how close this technique will get the wheel from the beginning. The tension and note are directly correlated. GL

It really isn't hard, and for me it's quite meditative. Truing old wheels can be frustrating if the rim is in bad shape, but with new components it normally goes very smoothly.

Something I figured out way too late: get a good spoke key in the right size, not one of the universal ones. It makes truing so much more enjoyable if don't have to grab onto the extra slots in the spoke key all the time.

You should absolutely try it. Go to one of the open shop times, learn from the people there, and use the shop's truing stand. It's not that hard. Mostly it's just time-consuming, especially getting everything tensioned and trued at the end.