To build a plane you have to have some idea of what you are trying to
accomplish in a hundred things that need doing in construction. Go find
a kit or buy mail-order a kit. Build some kits of planes you can
manage. Simple planes, then more complex ones. Build from plans when
you know you can handle it. There will be a dozen problems to solve
that you will have to figure out on your own. Experience from kits is
the only real way. If you cannot afford to buy decent plans you
certainly cannot afford this hobby. Subscribe to "Fly RC" and "Model
Airplane News." They are not expensive, they are full of information
and ideas and the advertisements are listings of the parts and
assemblies and plans and kits that exist and can be bought at a hobby
shop or by mail to solve problems you cannot even imagine until you
have to solve them.
Minimum building space is probably like the setup I use. I have been
building balsa airplanes for 60 years. Continuous low-key effort. I
have a table from Wal-Mart, fiberglass with folding legs; a storage
rack made with 1 x 2's from Home Depot, total space 3 ft by 8 ft and 8
ft tall. Cost about $200 total for table and rack. In building the
kitchen table will not work because it will take days or more likely
weeks and probably months. Continuous process. Foam kits and ARFs are
a lot faster.
Lots of big expensive power tools are very nice. Us ordinary mortals
get by with hand tools. You need a couple of Exacto handles and a
substantial supply of (#11) blades. A large flat file (shaper); a
supply of sandpaper and some wood blocks to serve to hold the sandpaper.
Hand tools- 6 and 8 inch needle nose pliers, a couple of hemostats in
different sizes, a medium size ball peen hammer, a razor saw and two or
three screw drivers of phillips and flat tips, an allen set in inch and
one in metric, water pump and channel lock pliers, about a 100 T-pins
from hobby or fabric stores, Saran Wrap, blue painting tape, a kit
pack for electrical work that includes a crimper tool and a decent small
soldering iron. Make sure any solder you buy is 60% Tin and 40% Lead
and not the other way around and it has a rosin core. You will need a
propane torch and buy silver solder as a small kit from a model airplane
hobby supplier. Find propane cheap in a camping supply place. Buy a
Coleman propane lantern while you are there for emergency lighting. I
bought a bottle of Propane last week at Wal-Mart for $2. Another brand
of the same stuff on the same shelf was $7. For tools and a box for
them check Harbor Freight. A Dremel or similar rotary tool will help.
An electric drill is required. Razor plane from the hobby supplier. You
really do not have to buy expensive pretty things like a $150 Flight Box
to build good airplanes. Just buy decent plans, good balsa and
parts, and use decent tools made to do what needs to be done. A couple
hundred dollars worth of tools and supplies will get you to where you
can reasonably start to begin to build from scratch. Kits are actually
a little cheaper but the same tools are pretty much still needed. Foam
ARFs can be done (sometimes and according to the manufacturers) with
bare hands and maybe some special tools included in the kit. Ultimately
there is no end to the list of tools or supplies and the ones mentioned
above are only an idea of the minimum to get by.