How much money can be saved by scratch-building instead of building from a kit?
In the very roughest of numbers, a scratch-built Sonex Airframe will cost you about $7,000* in materials IF you do all your welding, metal forming, layouts, etc. That compares directly to the $13,500* airframe kit. The reality is that once they do the analysis, most builders are going with the Complete Airframe Kit. In our opinion, you’ll have well less than 1/2 the build time along with some other great benefits…laser-cut skins and factory welded parts make for an extremely accurate build experience. Many scratch builders decide to pick-and-choose certain kit components to purchase from Sonex for portions of the project they do not wish to tackle. A list of all of the individual items available for purchase for the scratch builder can be found on our Scratch Building page. The “essential” items, that most scratch builders usually purchase total about $4,500 with the rest of the $7K being in Aluminum material, hardware, and steel tubing for welding. If you are considering scratch bui
