Achievements

I'm still feeling pretty shattered from my 2nd Covid shot. I did get down to some more bus work though. 

Thinking about the problem of welding aluminium I tried again using the 1/8th rods and beating the coating off them. The two plates that were separate at the end of yesterday are now joined. How well, I don't know. I do know that it helped to lay them flat on a brick. The joints were blobby from where I'd attempted before so I was not expecting perfection. This is a practice run.

Using another of the 1/8th rods I did appear to produce a reasonable join. The sheets are not entirely flush but that's because they were blobby to start with. The brick has helped a lot and I'm wondering about other bricks to hold the metal in place and reflect heat. 

I have yet to test the new weld. There is a small hole in it. It's not usable as it is but maybe with more practice I will be able to produce something useable. I do have some uncoated Tig rods on the way (bought in error) that should work just fine. 

After that I took a break. I'm still not feeling great after my 2nd Covid shot over a week ago. For some unknown reason the air filter for my car came to mind. I'd bought that some years ago but never felt like getting down under the dash to put it in. Today I did and I have to say that (the top is one of the 2 new filters) the new filter looks better. Having said that I could probably have gone on another 15 years on the old filter.

The next task was to install the last of the BA15 mount lights. I'd made a wooden disk to stand the light away from the wall so that when the toggle switches are finally replaced with pushbutton switches there should be nothing to cast a shadow on the desk.

It wasn't too hard to remove the old light assembly. There are three bolt holes that will have to be filled but that's a job for another day and possibly I'll use some plastic push-in hole fillers from Lowes (hiss, spit).

The end result was pretty good. I need to put pushbuttons in place of the toggle switches. I'll do that when the switches I ordered finally arrive. I want to replace the blue voltmeter with red but I didn't do that. It's lying on the desk on the other side of the bus waiting though.

The light fitting is installed and will take my more powerful lights. I can use halogen bulbs as well. 

Inside the bus all that's left to do is to screw down the panel over the one rear window, redo some of the failed wiring in the cockpit, install a solar charger for the driving battery and perhaps a second fuse panel inside the control panel. There's also the CB coax connection that severely needs attention. Other than that (and covering over windows in the bedroom that I'll be covering from the outside), the inside is pretty much done. The pollen is holding up exterior work - that and the fact I cannot currently locate one of my flare wrenches.