You have to use quality tubing. Not that Chinese crap that's coming over here. I have always used Condition N, Mil Spec Plymouth tubing, even back when I built my own sprint car chassis. I've never had any problems with it(other than being expensive now!) I did get some tubing one time from a shop that didn't handle Plymouth tube,. I had a job to do and bought Brand X tubing. When I got it back to the shop, and looked it over, the wall thickness wasn't the same all around the tube. I took it back. I've built a lot of stuff thru my years in auto racing, but like you say, it's not like that anymore. It's all "Buy & Bolt". I got to meet and work with a lot of people in the sport that I learned a lot from. One of my best friends taught me a lot, you probably know him. He used to build all the Sprint car wings for most of the WoO boys and the All Stars. Butch Evans of Speedway Airflow out of Parkersburg W.VA. My shop space is limited also. I recently downsized to a smaller shop, and down sizing my work load also. Sorry to get off track here, but, yeah, you're right...no one builds anything themselves any more.