Do all the welding yourself. Never farm out the fun. You can come visit me and sleep in my shop for a couple days and I’ll teach you to weld.
I’m gonna stray a bit if that’s ok?
I have a sign I made in my shop with a quote from the Shakespeare play Julius Caesar by Brutus. I’m not a quote type of guy by this quote is quite frankly the only quote that ever did a dam thing for me and it applies to everyone because Shakespeare just nailed it. He understood human emotion like nobody else. Here’s the quote and I read it daily because it’s in my shop right when I walk in as a reminder of my life. My entire life story and my business was built around this quote.
“Between the acting of a dreadful thing and the first motion all the interim is like a phantasma or a hideous dream” - Brutus
Let’s break that down and apply it to that biplane so we can get you to build.
Thoughts cause feelings/emotions. Period. No exception.
Shakespeare understood human emotion and he knew what we all suffer from. The unknown. “Between the acting of a dreadful thing” is about the initial moment of wanting to do something or knowing you should do something, it’s the first thought. This immediately causes a feeling which causes another thought of “doing”. Well, there’s a massive gap between the initial thought and the doing and that’s the war, that gap is the battle. (All the interim) can be painful if you lack experience right? Modern day words call this gap “anxiety”. That gap is the hesitation, that gap is the procrastination but it’s also the only real battle that exists. This gap is your mission.
Education or knowledge is never really a battle, especially with the internet where learning facts is so easy.
Is “doing it” the battle? No. You’re definitely capable.
The battle is the moment in between just like Shakespeare said. So you want to build a airplane. And you know you can do it. Yup, that gap in between the thought of building and the actual doing is like a hideous dream. Brutus was on point.
So work on that gap. That’s your war.
Have amateurs who have never built anything out of metal done this and had fun?
Yes
Can you cut a tube?
Yes
Can you shape a single tube with cheap tools? Yes
Can you learn how to tack weld a tube? Yes
Can you learn to weld a bead 1/2” long?
Yes
Can you learn to weld a bead 1” long?
Yes
Don’t look at the entire project. Most welds are done 1” at time or less before you need to reposition yourself.
I’m not exaggerating with that Shakespeare quote by Brutus. Everyone since the beginning of time has fought the gap between a thought and the actual doing of it. It has put people in therapy it can be so daunting. Right? Think of all your life struggles so far and prove it. Maybe you thought of landscaping your lawn? Big ideas and dreams. People can spend weeks or months avoiding the actual work, but when they do the work it turns out it wasn’t hard at all. So what was hard? The gap, the interim, the waiting and over thinking of it is like a sorta hell. We suffer more in imagination than we do in reality. Some Stoic said that I think. It’s true.
So get plans. Find the smallest most simple flat fitting you can find on it and order some steel. Make that part and don’t think, just do it. You’ll learn as you go. The process is the fun. Learning is the fun. That’s why everyone who does this is a sort of addict.
Peace