Windows 2 and 3

T'was another hot and sultry day 'neath the palmetto trees. The mangos and coconuts did not fall for there they didn't grow. Mosquitoes sucked the living blood out of any unfortunate enough to be within range and the redneck gunshots did ring out across the humid air, tainted only by the scent of a far distant meth lab.

Well, that's a pretty realistic impression of where I am working on my bus. I'm in the countryside and the very countryside that the Covid rioters threatened to attack but didn't seem to bother when they found that country boys have nothing better to do than to sit all day, 30 feet up in a tree with a rifle, waiting for something to come along that they can shoot.

After I'd riveted on the new panel, the caulk hadn't reached all the edges and where it did, it remained curiously soft. I went out and bought more caulk but paintable caulk a few days later - after I'd taped the edges against rain and sprayed the panel to match the bus.

It transpires that the caulk under the panel takes 14 days to cure while the caulk that I put around the edges and in the centers of the rivets takes 3 days to cure. Fortunately I'm in the midst of a dry few days. Had I known about the 14 days then I'd have used silicone caulk as I have everywhere else. This is why I bought silicone caulk as well as the paintable caulk. So I have another 48 hours approximately for the outer rim of caulk to cure, after which I can spray paint it too.

My batteries were quite low so today I put my three 10W solar panels out to gather some sun. Gather it, they did because by the end of the day I'd added apparently another 47 watt hours to my battery from just those panels.

When I took the 15W panel from above the windscreen, I seem to have lost more than I'd bargained for. That ties in nicely with a potentially hare-brained scheme. I like hair-brained schemes! Some while ago I purchased a 30W flexible solar panel for something ridiculous like $30 from eBay. It arrived with no labeling on it whatsoever. The most wattage I got from it on a cloudless day was 11 watts. I'm going to say it's likely a 10W panel.

Being a flexible panel, it's also light. The power port is perversely on the back of the panel where the flexibility value is totally lost. To be flexible it must be able to conform to the shape of whatever it's attached to. With a big block on the back, that's not happening. Having said that, with some closed cell bedroll foam underneath to pad it up a little on the edges, it could be usable stuck to a flat or slightly curved surface.

The idea is to do just that - to put some closed cell foam under the edges, attached with double-sided foam adhesive tape. That stuff is all weather! Then to attach it with more tape to the roof of the bus right at the back and put some white flex seal tape covering the non-photo voltaic edges of the panel, the foam padding and some of the roof. That way the panel will be as secure as these fancy adhesives can make it. If it blows off, it's small and light so it won't cause damage. The wiring can go in through the same hole that the backup camera uses but be cheap and easily disconnectable bullet connectors.  That's a project for when I work on the bus roof though.

With all my goings to and from the bus I have been using the door lock quite a bit. Suddenly it stopped working. After using one of my other 3 methods of getting in, it turned out that the AA NiMh batteries powering the door lock had run out. I slipped some alkalines in there for the moment and will recharge the NiMh at a later stage. The alkalines should be good for a couple of months. 

I got on with drilling the holes for the steel for the windows on each side of the door. As they were the same size I'd intended to drill a couple of holes then use aluminium rivets to fasten them together. As per normal, my hand riveter was jammed by a broken mandel. The tools to fix that were probably there - I just couldn't be bothered to look. Instead I grabbed 4 number 10 bolts and bolted the panels together to hold them while I drilled all the other holes. I didn't count the holes but I'd estimate there were 45-50 per panel. Doing the panels held together meant both were drilled for the price of one.

The next thing was having separated the sheets, they were wiped down with paint thinner and a paper towel. That got all the muck off them - grease and marks from the steel place and my black sharpie lines. 

The last thing done today was to spray primer onto the panels. Really only one panel was coated and on one side only. I'd bought some universal primer and found all it does is tear up other paint it touches so I wanted to use it up. It coated one panel on one side. The other side I'll have to paint with my usual primer and both sides of the other panel. Then I can get on with painting the panels black, both sides. Once they're in place on the bus I can paint them grey.

A few days ago I ordered some replacement reflective strip. According to the tracking number, it's almost here. I have a couple of other things on the way from China but somehow I think the tracking is bogus as one was supposed to have been received by the Post Office in May and another in June but neither has made its way to my door yet. I do wish eBay would just kick the scammers like that off their platform.

I'll have to remove the reflective strips where the panels will go. That's just time consuming but not a hard job. The new strips will replace the old, when the new panels are in place.

The panel for the back door will be the challenge. I'll have to measure the angle of the bend in the door and mark where it bends. Then I have all the fun of bending the steel.

I should imagine that if I get decent weather this weekend, the painting will be completed. Monday, if it's fine, I'll put the first panel in place and Tuesday likely the second. That's not cast iron though. As this is real life, anything can and probably will happen. Nothing is certain in this world - aside from the inexorable spread of Covid-19 due to the selfishness and arrogance of the majority of the population who coincidentally make up every reason under the sun not to wear a mask.