Wheel building question for ze experts.
A rear Onyx hub recently landed in my lap and since a couple of good friends who ride A LOT swear by it I am considering putting it to use. My thought would be to get another Chinese carbon rim and learn how to put the thing together myself since I'm not in a rush and am curious about the wheel building process. How much wizardry is involved? I have no experience outside of (poorly) truing banged up Alu wheels and replacing the occasional spoke (see below for more on that). Will I spent hundreds of hours banging my head on the wall only to end up with a donut-shaped mess or can I have a reasonable expectation than the finished product will be rideable? Seems like a wheel stand is a must but I have the rest of the tools so there wouldn't be any major investments.
To give you a better idea of my skills with wheels (or lack thereof), here's a question: I snapped a spoke on my rear wheel, DT350 straight pull hub (wanted J-bend but there was no stock). I was looking at it yesterday trying to understand how to replace the spoke and couldn't for the life of me figure it out. Here's the issue:
Attachment 379381
Let's say you break yellow. To get it out you need to push it out of the hub flange. The head of yellow hits the next spoke on the same side of the flange (red) and doesn't come out. Fine you say, cut the head off. Sure, but the replacement won't go in either as it hits the other side of red. I could bend it but that doesn't seem ideal for a brand new spoke. The only option I'm seeing is to loosen the shit out of red and probably green (possibly even more spokes) then push them out of the way and create enough space to slide the head of yellow out. Seems weird to have to loosen 3 spokes on one side of a tensioned wheel for a replacement. What am I missing here, and based on the mad skillz I'm displaying should I take my new rim and Onyx hub to a shop for the wheel build? If that's the case, any recommendations in the SLC area?