I'll be honest, after working as a welder fabricator for 6 years I can do just about anything there is with metal. Wood on the other hand, is not my medium of choice.... Since the form blocks require some woodworking skills it is certainly an opportunity to learn but as part of that I need to get the necessary tools. I've been pricing routers and router tables for a while but haven't pulled the trigger.
Last weekend I spotted a router and router table on craigslist for $50. When I contacted the seller I'd mentioned that I had a project I was planning on working on that required a router table, when he asked me what it was I said "well I need it to build an airplane!" (which in retrospect was probably was not the answer he was expecting) Turns out, he was a pilot that got his license back in 1974 and had acted as a navigator in the air-force.
I went to inspect the router table and ended up showing up a little bit early since the roads have been pretty poor due to snow and having been on the receiving end of it, I didn't want to be the usual craigslist deadbeat and show up an hour late; however, I was about half hour early so I parked on the street and sat there for a while. After a little bit he walked out, kind of looked at me, and then just walked right over to the car. He said "you must be the guy to look at the router table." I was wearing my AOPA hat and it had tipped him off.
There was another gentleman that had gotten there a little ahead of me and was looking at a dust collector that was also advertised for sale. He had wanted to look at the routers but since I'd asked about it first and driven 2 hours, I got first option. It turns out there was two of them for sale, one was a 1.5 horse Black & Decker the other was a 1.5 horse Craftsman with a much nicer table. I ended up deciding on the Craftsman since it had a better table and looked to be in better shape.
As I was getting ready to load it up he asked me if I had a moment for a story. Of course! He said "Well when I was much younger I used to get a couple of different aviation publications and one of those had an advertisement for plans for a midget mustang. I went and showed the article to my dad, the kit was $1,000 (this was 1968 so was quite a bit at that time) so after showing it to him and talking about it I asked him if I could order the kit. His answer was an immediate "NO!" So there went my plans of building an airplane." "About a year later, I was looking through another magazine and ran across a set of plans for a sailboat, well, I knew my dad had soft spot for sailboats so I went and showed him the plans. After showing it to him and talking about the design for a while I asked him if he would let me buy the plans, he hesitated a second or two and said "Sure go ahead!. I turned around and started walking back to my room to write the letter (you had to send a letter and a check in those days), once I had walked about halfway to my room I then stopped, turned back to him, and asked "Dad, why are you letting me order plans for a sailboat today, but you wouldn't let me order an airplane kit last year?" His response was immediate and completely deadpan "BECAUSE I KNOW YOU CAN SWIM!!!!". "I ordered the plans but I just turned 71 this year, I still have those plans to this day but I haven't built the sailboat.."

In some ways his story was saddening, his dad had owned a service station and he had grown up working on vehicles yet his dreams to build an airplane when he was younger had been quashed. Now, there is still the possibility that even if he had gotten the kit at that time it would have never been finished (or even started) much like the sailboat plans he bought. And while he had not started to build his own aircraft later in life, at least he had the opportunity to acquire his pilots license and experience flight even if it was not in a machine he had built.

I still have reservations about myself as to whether I will be able to keep my focus long enough to be able to stick it out. I think I can, but it will be hard to keep that focus and still make sure to to have time for my family. I am great about focusing on one thing for a short to moderate time-frame but this will end up being a longer period of time and that in itself will be a challenge.