I need a cleaning woman!

Sadly I don’t have a cleaning woman. I have to do it all myself! Fortunately I went shopping yesterday. I needed some small grinding stones to clean up the excess welds on my battery holder. Thus I went to the usual places. Mann Tools didn’t have a small grinding stone that fits a pistol drill and couldn’t imagine one that small nor a drill that could go at 5,000RPM. I think they’re used to those battery powered toy drills. They’re good for woodwork but that’s about it!

Next I went to Dillans but again, they didn’t have any small grinding stone nor could they imagine any. I did buy some at Harbor Freight last time but I’ll be blessed if I can find them! Then Habitat For Humanity but their tool selection was dismal this time. After that, Lowes (hiss, spit) was across the road. They had some but today I just couldn’t get them to perform all that well. Just in case, I also visited Ace Hardware where they had a multi pack of different sizes and shapes of pistol drill grindstone. I bought a pack.

Putting the Ace Hardware grinding bits to work achieved the aim of trimming down my oversized welds. Those would allow the battery to sit flat on the base I made. Sadly my side welds were too bulbous but as my angle-grinder fitted nicely, I ground them down much faster. Trying the battery found that it was a perfect fit.

I took a quick break. The bathroom called! It seems that I still have some kiddie germs and it’ll probably take a kiddie free week to be rid of them. This is the problem when you drive schoolbusses or work with children. Half of it is my fault because I’ve been lax on spraying the work bus down with disinfectant before each journey. I just plain forget.

So the next stage would have been installing my new breaker but for some reason I decided that painting was the order of the day. Out came a can of white spray paint purchased in Ace Hardware. It’s their own brand but paint is paint when it comes to enamel topcoat.

Meanwhile, as I walked by my bus the other day, I saw a stone that looked a bit too regular in shape. Picking it up proved it to be rusty metal. Tapping it on my outdoor workbench got the sand and grit out of it. It turned out to be a socket from a socket set. Not having any actual derusting solution, I popped it into the bottom of a coke can that I cut in half for the task and covered it with vinegar (ordinary white distilled malt vinegar). Three days later, the rust is literally falling off that socket, forming a sediment in the bottom of my container. It’s possible even to see the engraving on the socket. A few more days and I’ll whip it out of the vinegar, rinse and dry it then sray it with some protective paint. Sockets are always worth having - especially when they’re free! The vinegar trick saved me from dragging out a compressor and sugar (I sugar blast) just to clean one small item.

Some while ago, I ordered (without thinking of the replacement issue) three LED light panels. They arrived today. In a word, they’re bright. Unpleasant to view, in fact. I can see many uses for them but won’t be employing them in the bus anytime soon. I might, however, put them into a DIY LED lantern. It’d have to run off 12v however, which means it’s unlikely to be constructed this millennium but never say never!

At night, trying the light panels again, one single panel lit the bedroom very brightly. Though I said “never” - purely because replacement will be so uncertain - I really do feel I want to employ them somehow. A minor advantage of the G4 lights is that different power lights can be used. The biggest advantage is that as LED bulbs seem to do nothing but fail, they can be replaced with halogen or something else worthwhile.

I had planned to do more today but after part-welding a top bracket to put on top of my battery to secure it to the bottom, I was called away on a mission.

You are looking at the top bracket upside down. The two pieces that sit toward opposite ends rest on top of the battery with the vertical portions on the outsides of the battery. Thus, the bracket cannot slip. A second factor is that as the horizontal portion of the two pieces sit on top of the battery there is - if you will - a bridge or an air gap between them. This allows the battery to vent through the pressure strip that runs the length of the battery.

The plan tomorrow is to complete what I started today. To put a final topcoat on my white battery hanger and to complete and paint my top bracket - including drilling the holes. I also have to mount my self-resetting breaker on the side of the battery cage. That will ensure that in the event of a short circuit the battery is protected. A solid-state self-resetting circuit breaker would be more advantageous but thus far I’ve not seen one.

The G4 bulb mounts are easily mountable on a standard L bracket. That means I can attach them easily to my partitions. I’ve had my eye out looking idly for lamp shades for them. Having said that with something that produces next to no heat, a simple clear plastic tube could be used - the kind posters often come in. Spray it with frosting spray and trim it to length and there’s a lampshade.

If tomorrow goes as planned, I might even be able to complete fastening my underbus cables and even bolt the battery holder in place. I’m not going to rush that though - I want the paint fully cured. That can take a couple of weeks. I’d like to make a good start on the 12v battery cable though. By the end of December I want my solar 12v system done and I’d like to start thinking about a water inlet.