Kitplanes New Photo Contest - Show Us Your Shop!

[Vlad]

I am waiting for Mike Tippin from FL to post his pictures. That would be a serious contender to win. His shop is very tight but extremely organized. And he even has an RV10 there.

[goatflieg]

I just submitted mine. I'm proud of my shop; I put a lot of work into building it, and like to keep it organized. It was hard to pick just one photo... I wanted you to see the whole thing!

[goatflieg]

Originally Posted by goatflieg

I just submitted mine. I'm proud of my shop; I put a lot of work into building it, and like to keep it organized. It was hard to pick just one photo... I wanted you to see the whole thing!

Dang... just realized I submitted the wrong photo, and resubmitted the correct one. Hope that doesn't disqualify me; please delete previous entry. I guess I'm living up to my signature quote again...

[BillL]

Originally Posted by maniago

Yeah I'm not tracking with this contest. Most every wants to see the fancy pantsy Good Housekeeping shop/man cave w/ big screen tv, wet bar and oh yeah a shiny solo project; my reality is every piece of lawn, garden, automotive, and machining what-not is sharing "aviation space" on the well stained concrete floors......hardly magazine material.

Yeahhhhh, my thoughts and situation exactly, but it gets the job(s) done, aviation and otherwise. Maybe one day. . . .

On the other hand, maybe people should see where planes do get built, it should encourage people to use what they have and build more planes. Lets send all the pictures in.

[YellowJacket RV9]

I'd like to see before and after photos. Photos of that nice organized shop when you start the empennage, and again near the end of the project... Some people can keep it going, but now that I am working on 10 jobs at once to finish up, if I put everything away between jobs, I'd never get any work done...

Chris

[Bill Boyd]

Best I can do right now. It'll be bangin' by Christmas, I hope.

[DaleB]

Originally Posted by goatflieg

I'm proud of my shop; I put a lot of work into building it, and like to keep it organized.

Yeah, me too... but the airplane shares the garage with a mower, three bikes, a motorcycle, a weed whacker, a lawn edger, a paint box, two walls full of various lawn implements, a large kite, fertilizer, weed killer, a garbage can, a recycle bin, car maintenance supplies and tools, a few yard games, a couple of car seats and a stroller for the grandkids, painting supplies, gardening stuff and generally 30 years worth of accumulated garage "stuff". Oh, and my wife's car.

I have nothing at all against the guys with fantastic work areas that look like Tony Stark's lab. I would say they are kind of edge cases, though, even among RV builders. That's why they get magazine articles written about them, right? You're not going to see a four-page spread about your local flight school's tattered '72 Cherokee rental bird - or my garage.

[Jrskygod]

Kitplanes should do an article about the real world workshops / garages to give the readers both sides of the story. I sure wouldn't want a future builder to shy away from starting a project because he thinks you have to have super organizational skills or a tidy work space. The reality is most builders workshops are not all that pretty and are an adaption of the family garage or some other space that can be adapted to facilitate a build.

I have a good friend that has built 4 YAK 3's (think Russian version of the P51) and a Potege bomber (twin engine radial like a Beech 18) in a 35 X 50 hanger. Most of the work is done by himself and his fabrication skills are amazing, but his shop is a disaster. The word organized is not in his vocabulary but he knows where everything is and is amazingly efficient and maticoulous in his work. I know there are some folks that have built in one car garages or in apartments. Heck if I recall there was a international airline pilot that stuffed parts and pieces into a suitcase so he could work on his layovers and there was the guy that was doing his panel build while on deployment in the middle east. These guys take the word dedication to a new level and I admire their tenacity.

[sbalmos]

I would agree, or at least a sidebar on one of the pages - "More realistic workshops of a homebuilder", with a few of our pics.

[Fearless]

Alright Randy you need to send your shop photos in. Your shop is operating room clean as well as your clean 12 and roadster.