Tom's question has to be broken down into pieces of wheel-building. Jim Papadopoulos (underacknowledged co-author of Wilson's "Bicycling Science" and I watched machines simultaneously tighten and tension 36 spokes of steel-rim bikes at the Schwinn factory in Chicago, in 1974, and these machines did not seem new.
I suspect that these machines were "fed" with hubs that had been already laced to rims, since machine vision and such were not there yet. But, I suspect that these preliminary steps are still manual in the big Chinese factories, where labor is less expensive than capital.
I don't regularly track the patent literature, but Papadopoulos tells me it is very interesting (and probably more fun than tracking eBay). Not coincidently, he has a patent on a machine that is a real advance: using feedback to PROPERLY tension the spokes in a single pass.
Incidently, the most impressive lesson I learned at the Schwinn plant was not what I expected, and not what they emphasized: for production bikes, the hard part of bicycle design isn't choosing angles or picking components. The hard part is designing and constructing a productive manufacturing system.
harvey sachs mcLean va +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Tom Hayes asked,
<< In reading auction descriptions on Ebay and elsewhere phrasing such as "hand
built" or "custom-built" wheels is used repeatedly.>>
>>>>Are there such things as machine built wheels? On the one hand, I cannot
>>
>>
imagine companies such as those that sell complete bikes to K-Mart or
Wal-Mart hand building wheels. The cost to pay someone to lace the wheels
alone would preclude selling the bike for eighty dollars or whatever they
charge. On the other hand, however, I try to imagine the machine that would
lace, tighten, and true a wheel, and it escapes my imagination.>>
<<If such machines exist, are they capable of building a decent wheels? How
long have such machines been around? And are they used for "decent" wheels?
>>>>
>>
>>
Yes, there are such machines, and they have been around for several years. Anytime you find a bicycle with traditional wheels from one of the large manufacturers, those wheels were 'machine built'! They <the machines> are very interesting to watch (they can lace a wheel fast!!) but their big limitation seems to be an inability to adequately stress relieve the wheel during the building process.
Decent depends upon your definition as well as your exposure to truly 'well built' wheels. I would call them "decent" in many cases, but they have always (from my experience) needed "hands on finishing" to be worthy of serious use. Of course, I have found many of the boutique, and fairly expensive wheels, to be less than satisfactory as well!
As Mr. H. Sachs puts it; YMMV........
Best,
Chuck Brooks
Malta, NY