Advances and a disappointment

I bought some nifty stuff called plumber’s putty. Only after I’d used it I found it was not supposed to set hard. Well, time should take care of that. I’ll just have to be careful with my water inlet until then. Given South Carolina’s hot summers I should imagine a single day would have that cured pretty hard.

Meanwhile I had a look at my exhaust vents, thinking I could fit a flapper valve inside them. While the flapper valve I have would fit as long as it was modified by removing the flange, it really isn’t suitable. There would be a lot of work and no guarantee of a fit. I’m too keen to get this done to be spending forever on fiddling around. Instead I’ll just get some exterior flapper vents that I can use to replace my mushroom vents. My mushroom air intakes are a pestilential nuisance to make so I might go over to a similar intake to the one I used originally - a barrel shaped intake. Though having one almost completed and having the supplies, it might be better just to go ahead and complete the one that’s giving me problems and then build its partner.

The mushroom design eventaully turned out to be a non-starter. Or rather it’s a starter but not really a finisher. The concept is beautifully simple. The execution however isn’t so much fun. Still, I have time. The goal is to stop critters from getting into the bus from the outside. I have a filter on the outside under my mushroom vents but the reality is that I need that to disappear as it’s reducing air outflow rather much. Hence my interest in an external flapper vent. Replacing the mushroom vent with a flapper and removing the insect mesh might reduce noise and increase airflow. It’s going to be a good idea though to have a mesh on the inside that does not reduce airflow but which prevents critters from getting all the way into the bus.

I ended up straightening the drawer handle I bent earlier. I’d been trying to screw a drawer handle to the wall so that I could use it as a rope attachment for my luggage bay. The self drilling screw bit into it and twisted it around a little but with some muscle power and a vice it was possible to straighten it to reuse. That, together with the cleats purchased yesterday and the things installed before now give me the possibility to tie things down so they don’t slop around in motion.

Eventually I’ll have to put some method of keeping the microwave tied down and the fridge tied in place but those aren’t urgent yet. I’m more concerned with getting essentials done though the luggage bay is a distraction.

The water inlet is looking pretty good. I might have to change the putty out later but for the moment everything is looking pretty good.

Now my original plan had been to mount the spray nozzle on a bracket just above the inlet valve. As that would have involved work and there was a perfectly good hole in the handbasin already, I ended up using the already present hole. It kinda spoils the sleek flatness of the countertop but at this point I’m tired and just want an easy life.

It doesn’t look too bad. At least it’s whiteness matches the countertops. Ideally I’d like the hose to be a foot or two longer so that it will reach a jerrycan placed on the floor or on the sink top. I suppose I could always move a chair and put the can on a chair and fill it on the chair.

The problem with using plumbing adhesive is that it gets all over one’s fingers. It takes an age to dry and peel off too. The plumbing primer is even worse. That’s a deep purple color and it stains anything it touches including my fingers. Now it looks like I’ve put on nail polish (heaven forbid) and not been too careful about removing it after! Still, I’m coming to the end of the plumbing (I hope - probably vainly).

All I can say is I hope that if it doesn’t come off in the shower tonight, that it sweats off overnight. To quote Dr Seuss... Purple fingers I do not like.

As can be seen - there’s plenty junk to clean up on the floor - short pieces of electrical cable etc. Not one of those cables is long enough actually to do anything with that doesn’t involve a join of some kind. I had hoped to use one of the twin cable lengths for my supplementary solar input.

As can be seen - there are ropes going around my boxes. Those boxes contain nothing more exciting than clothing - most of which hasn’t seen daylight in 8 years. I’ll have to settle down and go through all my clothes because I’m pretty sure there are plenty that I really want to wear but can’t and plenty that I now can’t stand but best to go through it all.

As can be seen from my attempts to make a mushroom dome for my ventilation unit, flat rolls of material do not curve very easily. I thought by cutting four pieces that it might have worked better. As it is there are sufficient gaps for me to spend forever trying to fix them. Better at this point to start afresh! Perhaps with a decent flapper vent cover a mosquito mesh won’t be necessary. I’ll just have to order a couple of flapper vent covers and see what happens.

Finally, I bought some more 12 gauge wire the other day. Today I soldered it onto the end of the 12 gauge wire in my final cable bundle and though I couldn’t find the right solder, it all soldered together very nicely. I had to use vinyl tape wrap as the shrink cable insulation objected to one of the sharp protrusions (I said it wasn’t the proper kind of solder). Now that cable is complete with one 12 gauge and three 14 gauge cables running from end to end. That cable will power the light and USB socket on the other end of the galley and the shower. Now that’s three circuits and I mentioned 4 cables. Well, as experience has proven time over - I’ll usually want an extra cable for something down the road so there it is, ready and waiting.

And thus ends another day in which I spent most of my time either working on household plumbing, caring for the infirm or working on the bus. The plumbing inlet still needs a few things done. The cable wrap still needs to be installed. There are a few small projects that haven’t been commenced and some that are nearer to conclusion.