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@Wingedangel
My father started me and my sister off when we were kids, he used to build aircraft/race motorcycles/tinker so was quite accomplished himself. I learnt to braze/weld when I was 11 or so, he has oxy/acetylene at home, and I use a mig sometimes in the art stuff I build. Though I restored a mini with him as my first car(at 16), I then re-restored it 5 years ago as it had sat at a farm for 10 years after I crashed it into a lake at 50mph...hhmmm)
At the moment I have a crappy mig welder that my mate lent me, though at dad's I have a good one (very adjustable) I want to bring down, (will do when I take the bmx up for my nephew).
His breadth of talent when it comes to metal is quite astonishing (which is an understatement, he has a machine shop at my moms ) so when he did stuff as kids we would inevitably help him, and I have built on that base as I have grown up. I am trying to get a small compressor in my studio so I can start painting my own frames, they are so easy if you go from the sand blasting to paint route ( the most tiresome and boring bit is removing the paint ) flatting and prepping a bike frame is relatively easy. the surface area is tiny, when you compare them to a car, even a mini bonnet, the amount of viewable 'clean' paint is so small. all the tubes/angles are rounded so the flat panels that take time to prep/refinish/prep/refinish simply don't exist (I'm not saying it's easy, just different...;D...)