Car appreciation... the aesthetics, the engineering, etc

Hah! Nice choice.

To be honest I'm probably dreaming unless I manage to fit a welding course into the next few months, along with everything else.

Having to pay someone else for that aspect of the fabrication will push the price beyond my limit.

Feck the course man, go and get yourself an arc welder, don't bother with a mig unless you've got dorrah for a good one but you'll get a good arc welder for reasonable money, then get a shitload of scrap bits of metal and practise hard, you'll get the hang of it pretty quickly, a lot of bodywork is never fully welded anyway, just spots... I was fairly competent at welding with an arc welder at about 7/ 8 years old through practising on scrap and a few pointers from my old man, moved onto mig by 9... haven't welded in years though, must be rusty as fuck now!