First Windmill:  While I haven't been able to get to actually test the mill's power output yet, there are a number of things I'm planning to change for the second one that I'll shortly be building.

• More windings on my coils.  I use 25 wraps of #16 AWG wire.  I'm going to try the same gauge again but go with 30 wraps this time.  More wire = more voltage.  Right now, at hand speed, I can get about .8 volts per coil at hand speed (~120 to 180 rpm) so I should have more options for voltage control at lower wind speeds if I have more windings which should hopefully get me around the 1 volt mark or higher.  I have a few options for controlling both rpm and voltage, like blade size, blade pitch, centrifugal pitch control and electronic switching from series wiring to parallel.
• More coils.  24 instead of 18, to be exact.  The wind average isn't likely going to be as high as I would like, so I'll try compensating for the lower wind speed with more coils, with slightly more windings (as mentioned above).  Along with more coils, comes the fact that the rotor diameter will be bigger.  The greater diameter will mean that the magnets will be travelling faster as they pass the coils, which is one small way to artificially increase the wind speed.  Also, looking into electronic switching, I can switch the 24 coils to two sets of 12 coils, which should still keep my voltage up with the higher number of windings per coil.
• Change the blade pitch from 25 degrees to 10 degrees.  I modified my blade jig, and made new blades with 10 degree pitch.  While they will no doubt be slower starting, I'm interested to see what kind of voltage increase they will give over the old 25 degree blades.

     Above is an end on view of my blades.  On the left is the new 10 degree pitch blade, and on the right is he first 25 degree blade.  Quite the difference.  I'm going to try to make a centrifugal pitch control for the blades that will change the pitch from the 10 degrees down to about 30 for high wind conditions.

• Change the coil orientation.  On the first stator, I put the coils on in such a way that the top wire coming off, sticks up above the coils' surface about 1/8" or more (as in the top picture).  While I give a sufficient air gap for this top wire, it leaves too much space, IMO, above the rest of the coil.  Because my stator is wood, I can use the tip of a flat screwdriver to puch a small trough that the top wire can sit in, which will make the coil sit flat against the stator (as in the bottom right picture).  

On the second mill, I'll flip the coils so that the top wire is facing down toward the wood which will leave the perfectly flat bottom, facing the magnets.  Another bonus to this is that the two loose wire ends coming off the coil will be fixed tightly in place by even the first coat of fiberglass resin, which is wht I use to "glue" the coils and laminates to the stator.  With the first mill, while I was adjusting the coils wires to hook them together, often it would break them free from the resin, and sometimes it broke more coils wires loose than I would have liked.

• Lastly, the slip rings.  I was planning to make slip rings to get power down the pole, and even made a set out of steel pipe and a piece of PVC pipe.  I didn't have any copper pipe that would do at the time, that's why I used steel.  In reading most of the posts in the forums in the last 4 months, I think I'll do it the easy way.  I drilled a hole, and deburred it at the top of the windmill mount.

I drilled it out to ½" and countersunk the hole for smoothness.  I had a small piece of ½" OD aluminum tube which I deburred and pounded into the hole. I'll run the wires through the smooth aluminum tube, then I'll run the power down the middle of my pivot mount pipe, down the middle of the tower.

Pivot mounting pipe insterted with wires running out the middle.

I'll install a 110/120 3 prong plug on the end of it at the ground and make sure I leave a few feet of slack in it.  I'll put a simple 110 outlet at the bottom and attach the power cable that runs to the house.  When it looks like the cable coming down from the tower might be getting twisted, I'll unplug it, let it untwist itself, then plug it back in.

More mods when I find them . .