"I also have what is likely a foolish notion of building my own panels from the factory second cells that are available on ebay and from various vendors. I am quite good at soldering and small scale fabrication so I don't think the actual assembly would be beyond me but if anybody has some details on frame designs and materials I would appreciate it. The Arizona sun will destroy just about anything given time so I hesitate to use plywood."
Foolish? probably...... but here's mine
http://fieldlines.com/board/index.php/topic,145004.144.html Now with the second 1000w inverter it seems to do 18kwh/day in spring without any problems if it is not very cloudy (some cloud helps, too much does not).
In your country I would buy factory ones. Also your inverter will need to have galvanic isolation as there is no cert for the panels, so they need to be completely isolated from the grid, and it will still need to be within your local rulings. (once galvanically isolated they could probably be any power source eg windmill, hydro etc)
I still see evergreen panels in the states from Fred480v now and again for not much more than a dollar per watt. Makes it hard to justify building them at those prices.
Stick to materials the manufacturers use..... no wood, just aluminium (even if it is only angle and not fancy extrusions). In your area powder coated steel may be good enough, but over here (marine environment) thats just plain silly. Your mounting system will dictate how stiff the frame need to be and how to support them.
.............oztules