Chris,
I think it's counterproductive to discourage him more. He doesn't have the knowhow or experience to knock out the weekends worth of work that fast. Most of us needed some kind of guidance at some point.
Samy, keep plugging away. Take a break if you need to, but I think that if you can get someone to take care of the welding for you, you should be able to get the rest back together in a pretty reasonable amount of time. Keep going! Driving it again will be a nice reward!