Welding looks easy. I've tried it many times, it's really hard. There's a very small line between not fusing the metal and burning a big hole in the work.
Welding is very rare in aircraft because of the difficulty in verifying a correct weld.
Welding is very rare in aircraft because of the difficulty in verifying a correct weld.
People also love to diminish the value of skilled trades and high quality craftspeople. If it takes thousands of hours to become a competent welder then it’s hard. It’s okay to say that things are hard.
I was doing pretty nice TiG welding after one class, which was probably around 2 hours per session times four sessions. Better than most of what I see with tradespeople in the area. That was true for most if not all of the students there.
A key was that the instructor was a master. He created amazing works of art by constructively adding metal. He was trained in all sorts of esoteric areas too, like underwater welding.
There's about a mile-wide gap between being able to fuse two pieces of metal without leaving a hole (which is fine for most professional work), and being able to make a tiny insect by building it out of little dots of metal. Learning to do what our instructor did would be like black magic.
However, what you're describing just consists of having proper technique and proper equipment. It's a very learnable skill.
I don't think you can get there by stumbling around yourself in a workshop, though.
(Unfortunately, it's also a forgettable skill if you don't practice, which I didn't)
The https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GTW_Generation_15 trains also rely on it, as the weight limit stems from the track (to passively bank in curves, the cabin is underneath the rail (and there's only one rail as this arrangement is stable and just acts like a pendulum), so the track needs to be a bridge).