A mish mash of things

Today was one of those odd days of doing little bits of things that in themselves are entirely inconsequential. I'd been to work and work in itself is rather odd these days.

For those not entirely in touch with how 2021 has progressed, there's still a Covid-19 pandemic raging. The medical people and anybody with half a brain are wearing masks and trying hard not to catch the virus which has so far killed 0.035% of the world's population, 0.15% of all Americans and 1.78% of those infected.

In view of this, I've been working shorter hours than normal for the last year and only nominal hours on a Friday. Today is Friday so after work I got the opportunity since the rain petered out to do some work.

Among the things I did was to change the air hose on the compressor. The old hose had a couple of nasty leaks. If that hose had broken, it would have left a nasty welt as it whipped around. There was an identical hose to the one that broke, at Walmart at a low price. Passing up that delightful "bargain" I got a real compressor hose from Lowes (hiss, spit). I cannot wait for Tractor Supply to open a store close by.

Having fixed the compressor I went over half of the side of the bus with some detergent and a foam brush that I'd bought in Lowes (hiss, spit). That brush has to be the most awkward thing ever as it has a tendancy to rotate weirdly. It does, however, do the job. 

Having washed the part of the bus I wanted to work on, I let it dry then went over it with a cupped steel brush in the angle grinder. That removed a lot of flaked paint. Rather than scraping every bit of paint off, I'm just scraping the loose and not too well attached paint off. The next step was to wipe down with mineral spirits. Then I used the last of my spray primers. The next primer will be out of a can and done with a roller.

After that I had to hunt to find various tools and light bulbs since the postman arrived with some lighting fixtures that I'd ordered. My two reading light fixtures are phenomenal. Those will really do the job!

The plan had been to replace this DIY lighting fixture with a different DIY lighting fixture that could take a halogen bulb and protect the woodwork from direct heat. To that end I had bought a $20 sheet of aluminium from Tractor Supply with the intention of making a heat reflector to go behind the bulb and a light reflector to go in front of the bulb so it would give illumination without dazzle.

Plans usually fall apart and this one did when the aluminium was needed for somebody else's project. Scratch that idea so I'd ordered some lighting units. I ordered a second circular light for use at the back of the bus, two porch lights to light the living and dining area and two reading lights for the desk areas.

I didn't paint the inside of the light intended for the bedroom area white inside. I probably will paint the inside of the reading lights and the light for the galley, white inside in order to reflect more light.

All of the lighting units have BA15 bulb mounts so they will share the same bulbs that are used in my turn signals and tail lights. In hope I put LED bulbs in them. Time will tell whether that was a good or a bad idea. The LED bulbs bought from eBay have a yellowish tinge to them which shouldn't adversely affect the circadian rhythms. Two bulbs from one of the car parts stores look a lot heavier duty but are on the bluish side which isn't so good for circadian rhythms. 

It took rather longer than wanted to install the new light due to unforeseen complications. For something meant to mount flat on a wall, there was an awfully large protrusion at the back that necessitated a hole being drilled to accommodate it and the wires. 

Nevertheless, having installed the new light I find it consumes rather more power than the previous unit while providing the same level of illumination. I did frost the inside of the lens just for effect.

This weekend I'd like to get the other lighting units installed and the whole of the one side of the bus washed, wire brushed, primed and topcoated. I won't go higher than the tops of the windows with the painting. The gutters and roof can wait a while.

Inside the bus I did notice something concerning. There was a single dribble of rusty water above the bathroom door. I really will have to get to replacing that roof vent. Indeed, it might be an idea just to tape something over it for the moment. 

One of my corner marker lights seems, somehow, to have come to grief. I don't know what has happened to it but it doesn't look pretty.

For the moment I have it taped over. I have some new corner lights on order. The new ones are LED. I am hoping they will fit. The last lot of LED side markers didn't fit so they're just sitting on my desk. It might be possible to use them - I might have to make a plate that they can sit on. They're about an inch too short.

 

Things that worked and experiments underway

After the dismal failures, yesterday I sprayed some more paint remover on a section under the aluminium panel.  It didn't work too well overnight but it did remove some paint.

Having scraped away the last of the loose paint and having plenty left, I remembered my angle grinder and that I had bought a cupped wire wheel for it in Harbor Freight. That, I put onto the grinder and had a go at the freshly stripped paint. The loosest paint seemed to be on the rub rails which is coincidentally where the worst peeling occurs.

Next, I wiped the area down with mineral spirits because I'd read that was a good thing to do. Finally, the first area, I sprayed with undercoat.

Finally I sprayed the whole lot that I'd just got done treating with white paint. Then I had an experiment - I'd just painted the area that had been stripped, brushed and wiped down. 

To the left, I just wiped the existing paint with spirits and painted. Below I already had stripped the area so without wire brushing, I wiped it down and painted. I'll see what it all looks like not next weekend but the one after. Next weekend will allegedly be rain all weekend.

Looking at the way the vast majority of the grey paint is not coming off with the wire brush, it looks like most of it is stuck on really well. I shall therefore be concentrating with the wire brush on the rub rails and areas where the grey paint is or has been peeling. The whole bus over time will all be wiped down with mineral spirits before painting.

Over this process I found the little cans of spray paint just produce blotchy, unacceptable results. My next time on the bus paintwork, I will probably brush the entire rest of the rub rails and peeling areas on the one side then brush the dust off and finally wipe down with mineral spirits before priming and painting with a roller. This will involve temporarily removing the two reflectors on the side. Finally I'll put a clear coat. 

The hood will probably take an entire weekend by itself and will need me to use the sandblaster in a couple of places. The coal slag dust I have is not great so I might end up having to get something better. I'm thinking that my respirator should help out if I use sand from Lowes. At least it'll stop me breathing silicates and getting silicosis. 

 

My control area here has just been gone over lightly with the wire brush, wiped down with mineral spirits and painted. No paint stripper has been used and no primer.

If I do anything more with the coal slag media then I have to replace the air hose on the compressor. I found a pretty big leak yesterday. Where there's one leak, there'll be more. That could have reduced pressure. I don't know til I replace it an try again. 

Anyway, that's what I got up to today - pretty much a continuation of yesterday.

I did have a look at installing the new interior light at the back of the bus but didn't do anything. As next weekend is forecast for heavy rain, that could be something for next weekend. While I was thinking about it, though I have multiple bulb holders waiting to be built into light assemblies in my bus, I went ahead an ordered some ready made light units. Not because I wanted to spend the money on top of what I've already spent but because a workman yesterday made off with my sheet of aluminium that I was going to use as reflectors. It would cost me about as much to buy more aluminium as to buy the light units and frankly I want to get this bus completed. 

Next weekend will be 100% rain so installing 5 lighting units should keep me entertained all weekend. They're all going to be BA15 units so I can use turn signal bulbs. I also have a huge stack of LED turn signal bulbs and adapters so I can use up my existing supply of G4 mount bulbs - both LED and halogen.

Meanwhile I looked at the inside of the bedroom and noticed that though I have two windows usable over the bed, I never open those blinds. It occurred to me that when I sheet over the windows on the other side I could sheet over the same windows on that side, leaving just the window over the desk open. That would make sheeting much simpler.

Thinking about sheeting, using an aluminium alloy would be an interesting idea to pursue. It would be lighter than steel and probably just as strong. If I put up a 10 foot long sheet of 14 gauge steel then it would weigh something like 3lbs per square foot and 60lbs of steel is heavy!

Well, I feel like I'm progressing even though the brake lines need completing, the brake pistons need cleaning and lubing, the battery needs to be installed under the bus, I need to test my current sole battery for capacity - I have a relay and I have a clock. I have a whole host of other things that need doing but I'm getting somewhere. 

Once the bus is repainted and clear coated I'll be able to put the reflective stripes on that I want to put. While I'm working on it, I might as well paint the bumpers white and put reflective stripes as well as red letters to stay back 300 feet. The gutter above the windows could do with flouresent paint or something to give an extra visible vehicle outline.

Things that didn't work but soon, things will...

Out of interest I bought a different extraction fan. I wanted to see if I could use something with lower power consumption and when I saw one that used 12v and half an amp, I leapt at it. It looks like my existing fans but uses a lot less power. 

The confusing thing was that the air speed was not mentioned but air pressure instead. All the other fans I've had mention speed. That should, perhaps have been my alert that this wasn't quite the bargain it seemed.

Looking inside the fan housing it contained a mere CPU fan. That was quite a disappointment but it was e (scam) bay and for every few bargains one does get taken by a scammer now and again. It turned out that the fan had virtually no oomph and was unlikely to produce the 139 Pascals claimed. It certainly would not lift the flaps on my exhaust vents. It might work well with my stainless steel marine vent in combination with a small solar panel but I'm not going to try that at the moment.

One of my plans is to repaint the bus. The existing paint was slapped down over the old yellow paint and is coming off in places. There were two or three plans for this. The first was to jetwash the paint off where it was loose. To that end I bought a jetwasher from Home Depot. 

Well, the jetwasher got to my house in my car and then sat in the bus for a few days. So, yesterday I set to and tried to wash the loose paint. Well, that was the plan. After connecting the hoses, the pressure washing gun and the power I turned the water on full and let it run through the washer. Then I turned the power on and the water spray jumped a little. Checking the connections, there was a mysterious chunk of plastic shoved in the inlet port. With needle-nose pliers that was removed. The pressure washer re-primed and restarted. Again, no water pressure. At that point I remembered all the other Ryobi products I'd used that had sucked. I had to make a long journey to Home Depot to return it and the crazy thing is I'd already paid $20 more for this over the Harbor Freight version because I didn't want to drive the extra miles!

On the way back I stopped off in Walmart to see about a cheap little sander. I figured something with 400 - 600 grit should remove the grey paint and roughen the underlying yellow so that I could paint it. No dice - this particular Walmart is playing games. It seems there's a trick toward the end of the year that stores employ - keeping the shelves empty in order to make their end of year figures look great. Great for Walmart game players but not so great for customers. In fact this game is infuriating for customers.

It was the same story at the air tools stand. Almost empty. In fact most of the shelves were empty. There surely can't have been a rush on air tools and cheaper sanders because the local community around this particular store is composed almost entirely of homeless meth heads!

Not feeling like spraying stripper on the whole bus (though this is most likely my best option) I got out the blasting media I saw and bought on impulse in Tractor Supply.

Pouring it into a 5 gallon bucket bought just for this occasion, the bag 2/3rds filled the bucket. Thus I grabbed my sand blasting gun and the compressor. I have to say the result was very disappointing. The compressor is decent enough as is the gun. The media was so fine that it had a very negligible effect. All it did was to clean off loose flakes and make quite a mess with green coal dust powder lying thickly on everything. 

A few days ago I used a different variety (from the kind bought earlier) on one of my aluminium window replacement panels. That really worked and really removed the paint.  

I sprayed the bare aluminium with primer and a lighter coat of paint after. It looked pretty decent. For comparison I put a quick, light spray over the grey paint and I can certainly see where the paint needs sanding now!

I am very tempted to wash the bus with soap and water then wipe down with mineral spirits before painting over everything with the new color then going back to sanding and spraying where the paint falls off. It means more constant maintenance but at this stage in the game, I really can't say I much care. I will sand down more thoroughly where I want to put my self-adhesive safety reflectors though as I don't want them to come off on their own.

Had I known what an irritation the paint was going to be, I'd have bought a white bus and left it white. I can appreciate why people leave their busses yellow.

It's raining wet water.

As it's currently bucketing down and has been for days, there's not an awful lot I can get on with. I want to do stuff on the outside of the bus and need to do that before I can do any of the small stuff on the inside - mainly because I'm storing the stuff for the outside, inside so there's no space.

Meanwhile somebody asked about what kind of fridge I use. The answer is (aside from the tiny and elderly dorm fridge that I was given), I don't do fridges. None of my 120v stuff runs when I'm not plugged in so I just don't have much 120v stuff. In fact I'm even wondering whether I should keep the 120v stuff that I have.

Let's look at a fridge as an example. Taking a standard fridge that uses about 3A, that will use over a day, 72AH of power. Assuming you're using lead-acid batteries and an inverter (which eats up an extra 10%) then you're going to need 160AH of battery just to power the fridge. That means two 100AH batteries at $100 approx each.

Now let's look at power generation for that fridge. Assuming a perfectly sunny day for about 8 hours then that 72AH of power is going to be 864AH. That in turn will need at least one 100W solar panel and preferably two (at $100 each). I forgot that the inverter would cost about $100 too. Then for cloudy days a generator would be needed. Harbor Freight's $100 generator produces 800W or rather 600W continuous or about 5A. That's enough to power the fridge on a dark day but it would have to run for 36 hours continuously in order to recharge the batteries and power the fridge.

So, what would the cost of a fridge be. Well, assuming its a standard $100 dorm fridge, that's...
$100 for the fridge

$200 for solar panels

$200 for batteries

$100 for the inverter

$100 for the generator

plus gas for the generator.

Grand total less the gas is $700. If one bought a $20 cooler and a bag of ice, twice a week at $5 then over a year that would be $260 in ice plus a $20 cooler. It would thus be three years before the solar stuff even paid for itself.

A lot of people plan to live full-time in their busses. This is nonsense thinking. Certainly one might manage to full time for a few weeks, months or even years if there's nothing else available but most people like somewhere to call home. Living homeless in a bus is not living in a home. It's at best a mobile homeless shelter. It's not sustainable in the long term for most people. There are breakdowns, traffic accidents, medical emergencies etc.

So, most people, using their bus conversion sensibly as a holiday vehicle or emergency accommodation will not be using refrigeration constantly for 3 years non stop. Indeed, most campers and glampers will not use their expensive motorhomes or bus conversions for more than a few weeks or maybe months a year. Thus that fridge and the stuff to power it will never ever pay for itself.

A lot of people really do need a reality check with their purchases. I see this all the time. I have had my bus conversion for 7 years. I have been on one trip in it. I've been working on it for the rest of the time doing various upgrades and improvements. The current list of improvements to be completed...

1. Finish replacing the brake lines.

2. Redo the right-wiper mount.

3. Finish adjusting the battery mount and install the second lithium battery.

4. Test a new lower-power extraction fan to see whether I could replace my higher power fans with something lower power.

5. Redo the paintwork

6. Install a couple of 10W flexible solar panels on the roof, using glue, not rivets. If possible the same glue they use to glue vehicle windows in place.

7. Fix the upper reversing camera but include a power input for the roof solar panels.

8. Replace the clearance lights since they're failing one by one.

9. Experiment with LED bulbs for the turn and brake lights

10. switch over the internal lighting to BA15. I've already switched the bathroom over and have a unit on the way for the back closet.

11. Sheet over the unused windows and add bars over all the others.

Given the fact the wonderful elastometric paint seems to be flying off the roof and taking the white paint with it while leaving the grey that I put down originally, I'm just going to paint the whole bus white and ignore this elastometric stuff as it doesn't seem worth the time of day. Oh yes... and I'm not using Rustoleum paint any more either. It doesn't seem to want to stick to anything, even itself.

 

Yeah, well... Rustoleum is all we need to know...

Today was less than stellar. The temperature outside was cool but not bad. It was about 55 Fahrenheit or  roughly 13 centigrade. In Britain that would be a heatwave.

There was no actual plan for the day. I wanted to experiment. I've noticed the grey Rustoleum paint is flaking off the yellow paint on my bus and have also noticed that the grey is fading. Thus I thought I'd try a small experiment with the paint with a view of perhaps changing the color to white since white can't really fade.

In Walmart I'd picked up some 2 minute "advanced" remover. Selecting a cheap paintbrush that I won't be using again, I spread the gel liberally on an area of paintwork approximately one foot square. After 5 minutes I tried scraping with a plastic paint scraper. Sure - some came off but not very much and certainly not the multiple layers claimed on the tin. At that point I realised I'd been had and might just as well have spent the money on a bottle of Beaujolis. It would have had the same effect on the paint!

So, after much scraping I gave up on the funky chemical solution and dragged out the compressor and my Harbor Freight sand that apparently came from India. No wonder the Indian beaches are vanishing! I sand blasted for a good hour and didn't remove much paint which tells you right then and there that the peeling is not due to poor preparation but to poor paint. The paint that was peeling (and fading) is Rustoleum smoke grey.

Having finished with the sanding I pulled out a can of automotive primer and a can of Rustoleum white paint. I'm sorry folks - you know I hate this Rustoleum garbage but I just can't get any other brands locally. The spell checker wants to correct Rustoleum to "mausoleum" which is really quite apt. Anyway I sprayed with the primer and it did the common thing Rustoleum does and frothed out of the can, dribbling over my fingers and sprayed lumps onto the bus body. At that point I gave up on the primer and decided to try the "advanced formula" white paint. That came out of the can but looked absolutely horrible. It dribbled and ran and was more thinner than paint.

At that point I had had enough and pulled out a can of Rustoleum smoke grey. I know that color works. It did not take me long to spray the mess with grey paint. The result is a grey bus but that's better than before.

Fortunately I have a pot of white paint. My next step will be to wipe the bus down where I want to paint it, with thinner and then to roll white paint on using a roller. I want the bus to be white to reflect heat. 

I'm not worried about Harbor Freight's white sand on the ground. I will probably use my black pulverized coal slag in the grit blaster next but only on areas where the paint is peeling or where the yellow is showing through. 

This is probably why a lot of people do not bother painting their busses - the return on time and money invested just is not worth it. As I tell people - if you're going to hire somebody to build your bus or paint it, you'd be better buying an RV. School bus conversions are done solely for the converter's use. After the converter has finished with it they usually end up at the scrapyard as there are way too many converted busses out there and nobody wants somebody else's conversion - particularly since so many seem to be so half-assed and dangerous. It's all about return on investment.

The one takeaway from this is that anything claiming to be "advanced" is usually absolute garbage.