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The Online Construction Record of Russ Milham's Taylor Coot-A Amphibian

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A New Home with Room to for a Coot to Grow!

In September 2007, we pulled up stakes and moved about 3.5 miles north and, from a Cooting perspective, what a difference!

At the old house I fretted over the wellbeing of my wooden components; relegated to a poly tent out back.  Now, everything is indoors with 24/7 climate control!

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At the old house, getting from one end of my Coot to the other had involved vaulting the stub spars of the stations 127 and 96 frames because there wasn't enough room to squeeze around them in my one-car garage.  Now, the hull rests in a shop that has a larger footprint than that of the house from which we moved.  I can finally walk all the way around the entire hull without having climb over anything. 

Here's another view of the hull looking aft toward the storage closet, workbenches, obligatory beer fridge, and half-bath.

Here is a view of my one mostly build wing, stored aloft.

More stuff up high.  Wing main ribs and nose ribs on top of the cupboards.

At the old house, I had installed the cheesiest of all electric shop heaters.  It served to keep the icicle on my nose no longer than 3 inches.  This time, nothing doing!  My Big Maxx's 75,000 BTUs (upper right) combined with a programmable thermostat keeps the place toasty no matter what the outside temperature.  It also recovers in minutes following a door cycle.  Should provide a good environment for year-round composites work.

Rounding out the loft space: spars and sheetmetal components for the tail (background) A shy chord of foam core material of various thicknesses and composition and larger tail components (foreground).  Note the vertical stabilizer structure suspended underneath.

A dedicated bench for electrical, electronics, and other fine work.  Behind this is a decently sized table for layout tasks and heavier work. 

Note the Continental O-300-D's crankcase is currently occupying the middle of the bench.  Eventually, I'll build or buy an engine build-up stand and then the engine will start to take shape on that.

The place was originally constructed for boat building and there is an extensive wood drying rack on the East side of the structure.  This is now the home of construction-grade dimensional lumber and some of the molds that came with the haul from Fan's place in Cathlamet.

Previous owners has built a full-width pole barn-like space onto the back of the shop.  This is where some of the larger fiberglass components and tooling reside.

Off to the side is a decent-sized closet area with room for lots of storage.  The 12-foot ceilings offer a lot of utility in "going vertical."

Small hardware/parts and new 4hp 29 gallon compressor live in here.  When you finally have a compressor that can keep up with your bead blaster, is quite to begin with, and is in separate room... you know that life is truly good.