Thinking Out Loud - What do you do when you’re not where you thought you’d be?

The Big Show was going on without me so I jumped on some stuff that needed doing

To be totally honest about it, I’m a little embarrassed by all of the “me” that has crepted into Thinking Out Loud. I want it to be more generic in nature but sometimes things happen that can only be described from the inside. Missing AV/Oshkosh and how that time filled itself in the Davisson household figures into that.

Right up front I want everyone to know that his one will only appeal to nuts and bolts types. It’s focused on workshop “stuff” that the rest of the world won’t truly understand. However, due to being stuck here, I solved a lot of workshop problems and am pleased with the results, some of which may be of value to others.

We’ll start with fly-in withdrawals.

All this week one window of my mind was performing a phantom image of my usual, very-personal, almost-ritualistic performance at AirVenture/Oshkosh; Pick up credentials, check out golf cart, hug the EAA family I e-coordinate with every day of my life, hug those I haven’t seen since last year, go to house to claim bedroom, roll out early the next day and start golf cart prospecting for articles. Not this week. This time around I was stuck in my office/workshop and, although the foregoing piece of my mind was imagining the running of the hurtles at Oshkosh, the rest of my brain had decided it was going to do what it had been trying to do for years but had not even made a dent in: This was a major project…I was going to reorganize and clean up the workshop so I could finally get back to work on The Roadster. I hadn’t really touched it in well over a year and needed to paint the firewall so I could put the engine back in.

Amazingly enough, after days of frenzied activity amidst local temps as high as 115, this morning I did something I haven’t been able to do in many years and which I found to be really exciting!! I actually walked around the roadster and didn’t have to step over or around anything! Even wilder, I could see a freshly swept floor all the way around it!! Oh, holy sh*t!!! That may not mean much to most readers, but that moment was topped only by seeing my kids as they came into the world for the first time.

As I’ve said in the past, this has to be put into perspective. A normal two-car garage is 24 x 24. Mine is theoretically a four-car garage but is only 20 feet wide because of side yard clearance requirements. It is theoretically two cars long but only 40, not 48 feet. So, my half of it is really crunched up. This is a major departure from the 72 x 64 foot shop my last house, which I custom built, was sitting on. That actually had a two-story basement, each floor of which had those dimensions. I had more space than I knew what to do with. Long story! Divorces have negative impacts on things like that.

I do a monthly four-page column in EAA’s Sport Aviation magazine (Shop Talk) and the last time around I was pontificating on designing the perfect workshop in a two-car garage. For the record: As many homebuilt airplanes come out of two-car garages as come out of actual airplane factories. About 1,200/year for each source. In that article I preached the importance of floor space. Every single square foot of which is sacred. Wall and ceiling space has to be utilized to the max. So, I developed a computerized floor plan that readers could use in moving tools and airplane parts around for maximum efficiency. Of course, as I was writing that, I knew I was typing personal fiction. My shop was a helluva long way from being perfect. In truth, it was basically unsurvivable. Stuff was stacked everywhere. Efforts to organize/clean it had repeatedly failed. I was just moving piles from one location to another and making each one deeper in the process.

Also, truth is, I no longer build airplanes. That was part of the big shop experience back east. Phoenix is a sport aviation hot bed but not easy for folks who are financially and time challenged to be airplane owner. We have very few inexpensive, uncontrolled, rural airports in the area because, as opposed to most large cities, we have very few of the common rural communities that usually encircle population centers. This is because, as I’m constantly pointing out, only 15% of this entire state (5th largest, 20% bigger than England) is eligible for private title. 85% of the state is reservation or governmental. So, there is no place small communities and their usually friendly, airports can pop up. It’s all concentrated around the population center. The result is impossible-to-find hangars and high price everything.

The only reason I flew at least once, usually twice, almost every day for the 34 years I’ve lived here is that my airplane was part of my Pitts training business. I lost my hangar (escalated to $4,200/mo and lost two renters) and my mechanic at the same time so had to shut down the business. That’s when my shop officially ceased being a side-gig and became a focal point on possible money-making enterprises.

What follows are what I did to squeeze as much working space as I could out of a smallish two-car garage (the other half has our cars in it). Some of what I did might work for others. The captions tell the story.

These two images pretty much explain why I don’t get much done. Too many projects and a serious inability to focus. That temp is the best a 18,000 BTU AC unit could do on a 115 degree day. Also, study the other image. A chopped ‘32 Ford grill shell for the roadster, a bunch of muzzleloading Kentucky rifle projects I’ve whittled out of boards and gotten the hard work (barrels, locks, buttplates inletted) all done. They’re waiting for me to do the fun work. The shaping. The plywood looking stuff is part of a very complex plywood dummy I made for the gas tank in The Banger. More on that later.

Things of note: Clear walk area was around The Roadster for the first time ever. Race car (Banger) in background, tail on shelf to right. Note how all tools, etc. are grouped to left. Big walking clearance on both sides. I started The Roadster when I was 16. As I’m always saying “I never claimed to be fast”. It is licensed and drivable but had to remove engine to paint firewall. That was two years ago.

Study the tools here. I’m working all sorts of metal, wood, etc. The name of the game was to minimize their foot print. The drill press is the only tool in shop I bought new and that was 30 years ago.

On the left, it’s easy to see many of my projects creat a lot of heavy metal scrap You don’t throw that kind of thing away but storing it is a problem. It’s heavy, sharp and destroys containers. 5-gallon paint thinner cans were, and maybe still are, steel. One here is now a stool, but cut the top out and you have a steel pail, which are hard to come by. The right is an example of going vertical with space. It’s built around one of the cabinets from the hangar with the doors removed. 16” wide, 3/4” plywood slabs run up the sides to hang stuff from. They go to the ceiling. The catch-can seen is a big ammo can. I use ammo cans a lot!

These plywood slabs touch the ceiling but aren’t attached to it. They’re screwed to the metal hangar cabinet. The little sander sits on L-shaped brackets welded up from scrap. A power hacksaw sits in front of the stationary sander.

Back garage door. The Banger is called that because the engine is a 1930’s Ford four-banger wildly modified as they did for racing. Original car was a combination of several different cars and a real mess. Had to build new frame. Note kick up at rear, I’m proud of that. It was all built from 10 gauge (.134”) flat stock, not tube. Very little of original anything survived (wheels, steering, differential, cockpit framing) but, when The Roadster is back on the road (a year or so) and I jump on this, it’ll progress quickly because I’ve done all the fabrication work and have all the requisite parts. It’ll be easier because all systems are external. Everything on The Roadster (a 1929 by the way) was crammed inside. It’s hyper tight under neath. I did not do the aluminum work here but did make the wooden buck for it. It is sitting on a wheeled frame work I made to sit the roadster body on and be able to work on the bottom. Engines are stored underneath. Flat, formed panels behind it on the wall are part of many that line the inside of The Roadster. It’s amazing what you can do with a $120 Harbor Freight beading roller.

What it looks like in one piece. A belly pan will increase the depth about 10 inches

Just to prove it’s real! This was a number of years back.

See you next week. I won’t be part of the subject this time. I promise. bd