RD's Art - the Shop and the Weasel

 

After RD's military service in the Sixties, a sailor in the Navy's Underwater Demolition Team ELEVEN, he lived in Houston a short while before returning to his folks' place just north of Wellington, Colorado. The transition from the UDT/SEAL Teams to civilian life in the 1960s where the mood of the country was anti-war and anti-warrior, took some time.

 

He and two friends, Larry Johnson and Bill West, built a 30'x50' wood-framed machine shop on RD’s parents' property, applied for a license to run a garage, and started a business. RD and Bill were business partners with Bill bringing to the table his expertise and skill in operating the flame cutter and metal lathe.

 

 

RD recalls a particularly challenging and fun project for Western Scientific Services. He located a WWII military amphibious track vehicle, a Weasel, in the scrap yard at the Air Force Base in Colorado Springs, and brought it back to the Russell Garage. No doubt, it was RD's UDT experience which prompted this solution to Western Scientific's need. Finding the Weasel in a place where WWII vehicles go to die is so 1960s UDT where funds were scarce and cumshaw a skill. UDT 11 Chief Gagliardi was a cumshaw pro.

 

The Weasel needed work as its Studebaker engine was undersized for the use planned for this vehicle in the deep snow of the Colorado Rockies. So RD and Bill replaced the engine with a more powerful Ford engine. I don't imagine that was a quick and simple job.

 

 

 

The Weasel is probably scrap again, up near Leadville, Colorado, a place that often has the reputation of being the coldest place in our nation.

That was over fifty years ago so Western Scientific's weather station has long since been replaced by modern technology. But as long as RD and Bill West are around to tell their stories, and people like me write about creative projects, the Weasel lives.