Completed the welding!

Today I worked more on the welding for the door panel. That was such a nightmare that I'm telling y'all now: If I ever say I'm going to weld bodywork panels again, book me into the nut farm as I've clearly lost my marbles.

I went around the outside of the panel with my welder and filled in all the gaps, holes and spaces. Then I looked from the inside and saw a lot of daylight. I fixed all that by welding from the inside. Then I went back to the outside and ground some of the welds flat. 

Grinding those welds flat wasn't as good an idea as it sounds. It seems that the welds had bridged the steel but not filled in the gap. That meant I had a whole load of new gaps to fill. I filled them, turning the amperage right down to 20A on my welder and using 1/16th rods. 

Realising I wasn't going to get much better than I have from the welding I decided to try to pretty the welds by going over them with 3/32 rod. That worked so far then suddenly I found I'd burnt a hole in the actual door with the welding rod. That wasn't welcome so I switched to low amperage and the 1/16th rods and slowly repaired the hole. Then I remembered I had a pot of Bondo in one of my storage totes. There was the solution - to apply Bondo all around and make the weld into a hidden feature.

Of course, when I got to the tote with the Bondo in it, the tote was open and half full of water. That was very strange. The tote is under a tarp in the yard. The tarp was over the tote so it looks like somebody might have browsed the totes when I wasn't looking. There's nothing of value in them so I'm a bit baffled. Still, now there's a storage shed, they can go in there.

Mixing the Bondo was easy enough. A spare Lowes (hiss, spit) spatula worked a treat. I slapped the Bondo on and then had to make a second batch since I'd not made enough. I didn't have anything really good to form the Bondo with so I ended up with a pair of disposable rubber gloves. That worked though there are gaps in the bondo that I want to deal with tomorrow. I'll also have to sand the Bondo tomorrow to get it to look half decent.

By this time the light had failed. I waited half an hour longer than the recommended 30 minute curing time, noting that it was warm enough for the Bondo to cure. Then, as there was bare steel visible, I sprayed it all with grey paint.

And that's the best night photo I could get from my iPhone. Tomorrow I'll sand the Bondo down to a reasonable looking mound and fill any gaps before repainting. The next step will be to sand blast inside, fill the gap immediately behind the edges of the panel and then paint the inside. After that I'll rivet the panel that's been screwed to the back of the door for years, to the back of the door.

This is what I'd call a bodged job. I'm not proud of it. I want to do way better than that but it seems the steel I cut from an old fridge just isn't thick enough to weld successfully. I would probably have been better off cutting it to fit the inside lip of the window aperture then riveting to that lip then putting Bondo.

They say Mig welders are better for thin stuff. I bought a stick welder and I have to say it's a ton better than my old stick welder in that I can actually use thicker rods now. I'll go with what I have now. I'll stick with the bottom glass replaced like that. I won't proceed immediately with replacing the upper glass. For that, I think I might want to get some thicker steel.

Ouch! Shopping is deadly.

I went to pick up the groceries yesterday. They had been ordered online and all I had to do was to drive to Walmart to pick them up or rather supervise the minimum wage meth-heads that Walmart employs to carry stuff from the store to the car. With the amount of stuff that goes missing from the orders, minimum wage is way too high for those people! Yesterday was a bit of a surprise - only the bread was missing from the order. Interestingly the meth-heads weren't as slow as last month when I waited 90 minutes.

So, having got the groceries loaded, I headed home. I was fortunate in not seeing the meth-heads smile with their wonderful demonstration of meth-mouth. I'm sure a no-questions, low-fee denture clinic will be Walmart's next offering. In fact the local joke is about Walmart opening a dental clinic with a speedy checkout for those with 12 teeth or less.

At home is where disaster struck. It wasn't so much that I dropped anything. I'd carried all the heavy stuff into the house and was bringing in a lighter weight bag. I bent to put it on the floor and felt something above my left hip go rigid then felt a searing pain. I didn't realise that I could curse in 15 different languages before then! So, the frozen and chilled stuff being already put away, the rest stayed where it was.

Fast forward to today. Most of the pain has gone though putting shoes on etc was somewhat of a painful challenge as was getting out of bed to pee in the night. Thus since I'm still in recovery mode although the weather is gorgeous with a blue sky, I could not continue with the welding. Instead I picked up the mail and found the battery holder I'd ordered for use with my 12v screen had arrived. Then I did get to the bus to do stuff.

Before I got hurt I'd seen some grey paint that was peeling up. I pulled on it and great big sheets of Rustoleum flaked off. 

That's ridiculous but was helpful today when I wanted to remove the house number I'd stuck onto the back of the bus. I've decided to go simpler and have the house number printed on paper and left inside the windshield. None of the delivery people could see the back number and were blind to the number I had stuck to the front bumper that I had tried to remove the other day but had ended up painting over. If they're not going to see it, what's the point?

The other day I'd painted one of the rub rails black. I like the new look so I decided to paint all the rub rails black again. This entailed going up and down the bus with my battery drill and a paint-removing bristle brush. That worked really well on the loose flakes of the paint on the rub rails. I also went over the areas where the grey had flaked off revealing yellow.

From yesterday it seemed easier to spray black then touch up the grey which is what I had a go at today. I had one super-sized spray can of black paint and rapidly used it up. It did two rub rails only. With that in mind I'll probably get a pot of paint to do the rest as that works out way cheaper than spray and will also mean I won't have the overspray and touchup I do with spray paint.

For fun I sprayed the steel panel I'm welding in, grey like the bus. It looks really good. I'll have to finish the welding, of course. With luck my back might let me grab the air tank and the welder tomorrow since tomorrow is forecast to be good weather. Indeed, if I can get the outside welding done then I should be able to zip around the inside of the panel with very few welding rods, securing the panel fully. Then I can grind the outside welds to turn them from blobby Farmer Joe to professional welder style welds. As a friend once said - "The difference between an amateur welder and a professional welder is an angle grinder".

Once the panel is completely welded, I will probably after sand-blasting the inside faces of the welds and spraying them with rust-killing paint, fill in all around with Bondo then rivet the original security panel back inside the door. I can't imagine too many people wanting to climb up to the back windows to try to get in. Having said that, the three remaining back windows are destined for replacement. I won't be welding flush though unless I can find an easier way of doing it!

Mr Blobby has been here.

No - not this Mr Blobby. I'm talking about my blobby welds. The new welder has been absolutely ace. I've been able to weld at amperages as low as the welder can provide. I've also been able to weld with 3/32 rods and my old AC welder really didn't like them.

This is what the welding looked like after I'd sandblasted the work and worked my way along the top a little. When I broke off I'd welded along the top and most of both sides and a bit of the bottom. As the welds are very blobby I'll have to get my angle grinder out to tidy them up but that's a job for another day.

Speaking of sand blasting I had bought a new hopper blaster from Harbor Freight yesterday. In fact I bought my welder and some welding rods yesterday too. I didn't get out of Harbor Freight for much  less than $250. The hopper didn't come with a funnel but the instruction book (why in tarnation does this actually merit an instruction book) came in very handy combined with a little piece of duct tape as a funnel.

I bought some glass media for my blasting and it has done an excellent job. It removed all my Rustoleum Smoke Grey paint and with effort the yellow paint from the bus. I'm not so sure about the galvanizing though. It looked like that had gone too but I'm not certain. I bought a big box of media and probably have enough for this and more.

That's the DC welder. I bought an AC welder when I started because I really didn't know how well I'd get on with welding. Thus I bought a cheap one. I've clearly outgrown it! The DC welder is lighter, smaller and much better for what I'm doing. Having said that, even at low amperages the fridge steel I'm welding had a tendency to combust and turn into a sparkler. That's where the blobby welds come in...

I had a little practice with some 6011 and 6013 rods on my workbench, attaching an old breaker box to my workbench as a handy storage cupboard. It turned out that DCEN (DC Electrode Negative) seemed to work better than anything else. I gather it should have been DCEP (DC Electrode Positive) but I'm into making it work rather than turning theory into practice.

The method of welding given the spontaneous combustion issue was to work the electrode quickly back and fro over about 5 inches of the work. That way steel got deposited without the fridge door burning up too badly. I had the amparage as low as possible. I think I was on 30 amps with 3/32 6013 welding rod.  

As you can see the welds aren't smooth and perfect. The holes I can fill in easily enough with the welding rod. That was as far as I got today though. Today is my 2nd day of welding. The first day, my AC welder was just burning up the work without attaching it. It looks well attached. The sheet of steel I've been putting in has warped and not gone in as perfectly as I would have liked but it's going to work. I'm planning on going to the back of the panel when the outside has been welded and adding more filler behind in order to try to fill any spaces. Then I'll angle grind the front to be as smooth as possible

The old tape from yesterday landed on the ground. You can also see some evidence of my sandblasting. The reason for this picture is that you can see the tape is on fire. This is because the very end of some welding rods landed on the discarded tape. Being still hot, the tape caught fire. This is exactly why I like to weld over sand rather than grass or leaves.

After stopping welding for the day I sprayed everything with the first can of spray paint I could lay my hands on.  The sky had turned grey and it looked awfully like rain was going to head my way. Thus, rather than continuing on to complete the welding I stopped, in order to prepare the work for rain.

Fairly quickly the paint was dry so I slapped some duct tape on. Now the whole thing is protected against the weather. There's enough weld completed to make the back secure against break-ins. Mind, having said that, the interior steel panel will stop intruders.

If there's one thing I can take away from this, that is that the steel sheet from fridges is not at all easy to work with. I've used it before but never welded it before. Perhaps there are some tips and tricks that I need to discover.

Having pulled out the spray paint I taped off one of the rub rails and sprayed it black in order to see what it will look like. I think it looks really smart. Some of the grey came off when I removed the masking tape and I had to respray with grey but using some junkmail that had just arrived as a spray shield. I'll spray all the rub rails black because the grey seems to come off them the worst. Thus, if they're black and the black comes off, it'll take the grey with it, revealing the original black. 

That's the electrical box I have been working on attaching to my workbench. Eventually I'll put hinges on it so that it'll open like a real cupboard. I have no idea what I'll use it for. I just fancied the idea of having that box as a cupboard which is why I kept it.

Finally (almost but not quite yet), that's my workbench. I built that using my AC welder and angle iron that came from the hillbilly bus conversion. They'd built bunk beds from that stuff. Talk about heavy and over strong!

And finally, this is the overcast grey sky that drove me to clear up just in case of rain. In the last hour or two since I packed up for the day it has stayed it has not rained. The weather lied to me! Still, if it does then the work is better painted and protected.

Boy does the ground glass from media blasting get everywhere. I had safety glasses and a breathing mask but it's all in my hair. I need to get goggles too as the safety glasses don't stop everything.

In general, today has been an extreme success. I know various people were saying that I should have gone for a mig welder but honestly this little DC welder uses my existing rods. I have quite a stack of existing rods. I also gather spool type welders are not immune from their own issues such as kinked wire. With the amount of welding I do, I just don't see the need for a mig.

Where the Harbor Freight 70A AC arc welder failed

Though I've had a sheet of metal screwed to the inside of the bottom window of the back door for as long as I can remember, it was always the plan to replace the window with sheet metal. Thus yesterday I made a start. The weather forecast was for several days of dry weather.

The rubber gasket around the window had a cord pressed into a groove that kept the gasket and the window in place. Locating and levering up the end was pretty straightforward and it peeled out quite nicely.

The next stage was to remove the window and gasket. That was achieved by lifting the edge of the gasket all the way around then inserting drywall screws as wedges to keep the outer flap down. Once I'd worked all the way around the top of the window I could work on the tops of the sides.

After that it was a case of staring on one corner. I chose the top left and pressing gently while moving slowly to the top right and then going back and forth until the window finally began to push inward. I did have to go inside and lever the gasket on the inside a bit because time and paint are great adhesives.

Slowly I worked on it before finally the window and gasket came out all in one piece. Many people would have smashed the glass for speed of disassembly but then spent longer picking up shards of glass.

With the glass removed I'm able to put it back if everything goes belly up. I can also use the glass for something else.

Inside the window frame there was a trace of rust but nothing worth mentioning. There were some pencil marks from whoever installed the window. 

Next I put my carefully cut and shaped sheet of steel into the window frame. The plan is to make the bottom of the door just flat as though there was no window ever there. I did have reservations about that, thinking I could get moisture trapped. Then I realised that once the steel is welded in place I can just paint inside thickly with rust killing primer then fill with fibreglass body filler.

Unfortunately my only welder yesterday was a 70A Harbor Freight stick welder. That's AC and really did not get on well with the thin sheet metal from a fridge that I was using to fill the void. Sure - it's tacked into place but the welds are blobby and ugly. I'll have to grind that lot flat - that's of course where the welder hadn't burnt the fridge steel away.

Cue a modicum of research. It seems that DC welders not only weld aluminium but also put down steel as opposed to burning it off. They're better suited to thin steel. Thus today as I had to go to a dental appointment, I called into Harbor Freight and picked up some 6013 welding rod in both 1/16th and 3/32 sizes. While I was at it, I picked up a fresh air blasting head for the air compressor and some glass blasting medium. Sugar really did work well as a blasting medium but left the blasting head sticky. No matter how much rinsing I do, it remains sticky. Thus I needed a new head.

So today's haul was 4 packs of welding rods, one DC welder, some breathing masks, a blasting head and a box of media. I didn't get much change from $250! I did consider the wire welder but as I already have a ton of welding rods it made more sense to stay with stick.

As the weatherman clearly must have been born on the wrong side of the tracks, the weather is 100% different from the weather promised. Perhaps we should take out a contract on the weatherman. Maybe even tell him that if he doesn't send me sunshine I'll have his head impaled on the gatepost.  So yes, today it is indeed raining. Tomorrow the weatherman promises sunshine.  Thus my new toy will be unplayed with until tomorrow.

Looking at the blasting media in Harbor Freight, they has walnut media. I'm wondering if that would remove the paint from the rubber on the bus. That would be well worthwhile.

Meanwhile, more on the LCD backup screen saga. The screen I use works just fine. I've been trying to get another that I can move about and use to test other cameras etc. I ordered one from eBay and it was dead on arrival. It did not work. I secured a refund and ordered a different one from Walmart. That arrived dead. Today I used Walmart's return label to send that one back. In the time between sending it and initiating the return, Walmart sent me a replacement. That too does not work. That's three screens that are dead on arrival with two different models.

I have been getting a lot of DOA electronics lately. Different suppliers and different brands. It must just be the time of year. Speaking of electronics, I looked at the bus electrics yesterday. Internally the bus will be fine with a 30A supply. There really isn't much to run anyway. There's a fridge, a microwave and whatever else. There are just 3 sockets. Lighting, ventilation etc all run off 12v.

Both the master breaker and the breaker box will work fine with 50 or 100A. At the moment the inlet is a Nema 6-30I. That takes a 30A cable to the master breaker. Thus the maximum there would be a 30A supply. Given the things I run from my 3 sockets there just didn't seem to be much point in having a 30A breaker or a 30A outdoor cable so I have a 20A main breaker and a 20A outdoor cable.

When I was welding yesterday I had to switch the socket from a Nema 6-30R to a standard 5-20 socket in order to be able to use my welder closer to the bus. That set me thinking as the main breaker is currently a 20A breaker and I'd looked for a 6-30R plug in Lowes but not found one. Online such plugs were $10. Thus I asked the question why not replace the 6-30I with a standard 5-20 inlet. That would mean just about any extension cable from any hardware store would be able to supply power - as long as it could carry 20A.  Thus today I ordered one. I'll have to see when it arrives. It just doesn't make much sense having to have a short converter cord. Also the current inlet has a Hubble style locking plug. That means that if I drive off having forgotten to disconnect I could quite literally rip the inlet out of the bus. With a standard household cord, the cord would just unplug itself. The worst I'd get would be bent pins on the inlet.

More paint seems to be peeling from the rub rails on the bus. My lovely grey paint is continually peeling there. Thus I have decided that I'm going to scrape all the loose paint off all the rub rails and paint them black. That way if the black paint peels and takes the grey with it, I'm back to the original black. The yellow is going to stay grey though. This just makes my work easier.

Giving up on eBay

I used to use eBay for just about everything. Recently though it all seems to have gone to pot. The same can be said for Walmart online ordering. I have no idea why that should be but let me walk you through my latest online purchases.

Walmart

• 2 different screen protectors for a tablet. Both were supposed to fit. Neither did.
• A backup camera monitor. This arrived but was defective. Now I'm waiting for the replacement. I expect that will also be defective. I'll have to send the original back and fully expect to have to send both back.
• A batch of USB connectors - the first package was "lost" by Fedex. They claimed to have delivered but never came down the driveway.

eBay

• A plug for my bus power cable. Supposedly coming from "USA" with no indication as to where. I placed the order and it didn't go through. I immediately got a call from the bank asking if I'd ordered from Hong Kong. Well the answer to that was no. The price was the same but the origin was wrong. I flagged that as fraud.
• Two battery holders - these have yet to arrive - assuming they do. They've been "in the post" for a month. If they don't turn up soon I'll have to flag them as fraud.
• A backup camera monitor. This arrived but took a month and was defective. I did get a refund.
• A WiFi camera that I was going to use as a security camera. It arrived but the wireless is so weak in it that it can't talk to my router unless it's really close.
• A wireless receiving module that I could connect a standard webcam to in order to have a wireless security camera. This was partially functional - it would not connect to the camera.
• 4 x 18650 batteries that were supposed to have protection circuitry built in. They did not. Totally unsafe and unusable as was the charger that came with them.

Now I did have a few things from eBay that actually worked.

• A batch of micro USB connectors
• A batch of RCA connectors
• SAE quick connect mounts.
• A cover for my phone 
• A cover for my tablet

I didn't buy anything else from Walmart online. I think we can all agree that my online shopping experience has been mostly pretty miserable of late. I've not bought anything out of the ordinary either. Nothing particularly exotic.

It's not possible just to condemn eBay and Walmart without mentioning Amazon. The last time I purchased anything from Amazon I had a problem with them trying to shove Prime down my throat. I cancelled the order because of that. The time before I ordered a switch amongst other things and it took forever to arrive. It came from China and there I was thinking Amazon was an American company selling goods they actually had rather than drop shipping goods they don't actually have.

Given that the various assorted states have recently decided tax must be paid on all online purchases the advantage of eBay and Amazon has largely vanished.

Out of curiosity I pulled the screen apart that came from eBay. No chance at all of returning that. Postage to China would be more expensive than the actual item.

It pulled apart easily with no need for tools. That pretty much says it all - built very cheaply out of very cheap components. The "quality control" sticker must have been some kind of joke as this thing had never been tested.

Looking at the back of the LCD screen I saw the driving circuit. An electronics guru could probably tell you more about what's going on there but frankly it doesn't look as if it's all that well built or designed. It looks like something that's been designed by prison labor and built by prison labor. I was surprised not to find a note in it begging for help from a political dissident whose "crime" had been to burp as he passed by a portrait of Chairman Mao.

I've mentioned this before. It really does not matter where electronics are purchased. They are all made in China - from the computer/tablet/phone you're using to read this to the components that go into that device. Indeed I see the same things I can get for a few dollars on eBay in some of the stores for very much higher prices. That price difference since the origin is the same must be to cover the store actually testing the products before packaging for sale. They must have something like an 80% rejection rate.

Fortunately I don't need much in the way of electronics now. I need that monitor so I can test my camera recorder system. Aside from that I'm pretty good - assuming the two C-DVRs actually work. I have my doubts about one of them.

Yesterday I cut some more steel for the lower window on the back door, just in case. I had a thought that the way I was going to put the steel in, there would be a hollow in which water could collect. Silly me - I forgot about filling it with foam or fibreglass body filler.

In order to weld on the back door I have to move the bus. The existing cable for the welder is too short to reach. The alternative would be to use both my cables though the problem there is the wrong kind of connector on one cable. That was why I was on eBay looking for a quick delivery connector.

The cable I have is rated at 20A. The welder is 20A but the bus is set up for 30A. The 120v breaker in the bus is currently 20A but I do have a 30A breaker. What I might be best doing is to take the 30A connector off the 20A cable and put a 20A connector on so I can connect both cables together to enable welding then to buy a 30A cable and put a TT30 connector on one end and my existing 30A connector on the other end. I'll have to see.

Well bugger!

A few weeks ago I ordered a backup monitor screen from eBay. Needless to say, when it arrived it did not work. In desperation, suspecting it might be the plug-in cable I cut the cable off and replaced it with a known-working wire and wired it straight to a battery. It still didn't work. Needless to say, after a certain argy-bargy I did get a refund off the seller.

Still wanting a backup monitor screen I ordered the above from Walmart figuring they wouldn't be selling trash and I made sure it was an order, ordered from walmart dot com rather than from some fly-by-night that peddles their trash via the walmart website.

Well, I connected the monitor power cable to a 12v battery and nothing happened. I checked the cable for connectivity with my handy-dandy meter and it checked out fine. Then I put the meter across the positive/negative on the monitor and read the resistance as infinite. That means there's a broken connection inside the monitor.

Walmart was very good and offered a replacement. I'm waiting for that now. How long has it been since I first ordered a screen? Checking eBay it seems I ordered it on November 24th. That was DOA so I ordered one from Walmart (different brand) and that also arrived DOA. I am really not feeling very encouraged right now.

All the screen is for is so I can complete testing the camera system I installed in October/November. Once that's done I can get on with turning the road traffic recording system into a security system. That was prompted by some wanton vandalism. An individual walked around the bus, flipped down both kick steps, tried to pry the battery door open by pulling hard on the latch - so hard that it was jammed and I had to unlock the battery door to unjam it. There was also damage to a solar panel.

Meanwhile I find Harbor Freight has quit selling 1/16th welding rods and that they're now fairly hard to obtain economically. I cannot now get 7014 rods in 1/16th and I think 3/32 is just too thick for my 70A welder. I can have a go though.

Over the process of a few weeks I cut a sheet of steel to fit exactly the recess in the back door where the window is. Yesterday I was hit with the sudden realization that if I welded a sheet of steel flush with the outside of the door rather than flush with the window aperture then I would have a substantial place where water could gather and promote rust. That's not welcome so the plan now is to cut another piece of steel vaguely the right size that I can trim to size after removing the glass then weld into the actual window aperture. That welding will be a lot easier as I won't have to worry about burning through the thin steel of the door as the steel where the glass is mounted is thicker.

I'm still getting water ingress in the cockpit and I still believe the roof vent is to blame. I have a new roof vent. It just means I'll have to get up there, remove the old vent, put in a seal and then tighten the new vent down - assuming all the rivet holes are the same.

Since the solar panel itself isn't damaged but the plastic it's built into is badly cracked I can probably recycle the panel into a new mount. Should that not be possible then there's a possibility of doing away with the front panel. The back panel is 20W which should be sufficient for powering just the digital door lock. In theory I could put up a fun destination sign board up in front.  In reality though I'd rather just put a new 15W mono solar panel up. That seems much easier!

At the moment it seems like one step forward, five backward.