I feel pretty good about a lot of the stuff I've been fabbing especially given that I"m entirely "internet" taught and have crappy Harbor Freight levels of tooling and a tiny shop. Nothing to compare to the pro's not to mention the people on this thread. But what always blows me away isn't so much the thought and ability that goes into making these pieces - I'd like to think my mind works in some of the same ways.
What always makes me laugh at my own crap is the level of perfection in all the pieces. I can do some metal shaping and TIG it together nicely enough, but everything I do has a home made quality to it. THere is always some slight asymmetry, big scratches in the surface, messed up corners or places where I have to put things into tension to keep them aligned.
And the grinder and some bondo can cover up a lot of problems.
But when I look at things like that submarine car and it looks like it came straight out of a hot rod extrusion machine.....I still can't manage to completely planish all the hammer bumps out of a small piece of metal.
That is what is depressing about looking at incredible work like this !
Of course I only spend 20 hours a week hot rodding, always under a lot of time pressure, and only for the last 10 years. I guess I could imagine a world where 50 hours of fabbing a week for the last 40 years might get you pretty good at stuff.
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