·:[ Darryl's Coot Building Journal ]:·
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[3.0 hours] More work on the nosewheel box work. I did the final shaping of the sides of the wheel box, cleaned up the individual frames, and cut spacers for gluing the final box up.

[2.0 hours] I glued the last two vertical blocks on the rear of station 14 (215-4 rear) today. I also cut out the two sides (215-8) for the nosewheel box.

The next step for the nosewheel box will be to assemble stations 7, 14, and 22, sides and a couple small pieces of blocking into a box. A couple of 4″ wide pieces of 1/4″ marine ply wood (MPW) are required to finish the assembly. Rather than cutting up my beautiful, unmolested sheet of 1/4″ MPW for these small pieces, Russ Milham has offered to donate some of his stock.

[3.5 hours] Today I added blocking on the front of station 14 (215-4 front), and the vertical blocking (215-?) on station 22. I also cut the rear blocking (215-4 rear) for station 14.

Finally, I cut a pattern for the 215-8 sides. Here is a photo…

On the left is station 7 with blocking glued on. Center top is station 22 and center bottom is station 14. The template for the 218-5 siding which lines the sides of the compartment into which the nosewheel retracts can be seen on the far right (complete with holes for the #616 nosewheel axle bearing and the retraction arm bearing #618).

[1.5 hours] Cut and glued blocking (315-3) for station 7. This is part of the nosewheel box.

I went to my first EAA meeting (Chapter 26) a week ago last Thursday. Russ Milham showed up, too. We swapped a few things, and in the exchange, I got a completed station 127 and station 96.

I held off working on station 127 this summer after Russ and I picked up a trailer-load of parts. Russ indicated that he would give me his 127 and 96 if he decided to go with the wooden hull.

Here is the completed station 127 (along with my partially made 127)

Here is the completed station 96:

I now have all bulkheads required for a Coot.

The bulkheads were constructed by Bob A. of Torrance, CA. Russ picked them up earlier this year for his own project. We both agree that the construction quality is very high. The wood seems to be in good shape.

I believe the bulkheads were constructed for a wooden-hull Coot, as the bottom frames are present (the instructions say to leave out the bottom frames on the fiberglass-hull version). I will have to add the chine, batten and keelson cutouts, of course.