102F today and I went shopping

Today was a shopping day. Aside from needing things for work, I wanted some things for the bus. Oddly enough I could not find all the things I needed. 

One plan is to put 2 inch deep bars over the windows. Looking at the specifications of prisons, it is recommended that bars be 1 inch thick tool steel impervious to cutting and a maximum of 5 inches between the bars. Well, I'm using aluminium because it's lightweight and cheaper. Each window is 24.5 inches from top to bottom, approximately. I had originally planned on 3 bars but that's 6 inches away from 24.5 leaving 18.5 inches of free space. Divide that by 3 and that's a shade over 6 inches between the bars. That's too much! Thus it has to be four bars.

As bars come in 6 and 8 foot lengths locally and a longer length is needed the idea is to cut a diagonal on two sections then to use the Bernzomatic to weld the two pieces together. In order that the molten aluminium does not flow where it's not supposed to, the plan is to cast a mold using fireproof cement. Thereby is the problem. That was easily available in Lowes a few months ago. I saw it when I bought some concrete for a fence post. Now it's not there and the staff deny it ever was. I checked Home Depot as well with the same result. Plaster of Paris would have been an alternate solution but that couldn't be found either.

There was, however, no shortage of 2 inch aluminium. I have already got a short piece. Before going for my bold plan I wanted to cut it and weld it and get it perfect. No cement means that plan is on hold. Doubtless my bank account thanks me!

As the back of the bus is somewhat dark with the two half windows covered over, it was time to install another light. This one took quite a while to get installed that far. It has a switch built in and I'll probably wire it to the same fuse as the light the other side of the aisle. That way they can both be on or both be off. As I have a stack of LED bulbs I put one in though it's a halogen fixture. The only thing not done so far is to connect it to the power . It would probably be a good idea to frost the inside of the lens too.

It was pretty hot inside the bus. It was 102 when I went in there so after working for a while I ran the extraction fans and they made a huge difference. My sweat at one point was running down the bedroom wall as I worked. The wiring behind is not as yet connected. That's a quick job for tomorrow.  Originally the light switch for the other light would have been used to power on both lights but it just made more sense to have a light and switch each side of the door. This one can be reached from the bed.

Once the interior light is fixed I should work on the brake lines. I'm so enthusiastic about going under the bus to work on it that I'll probably fix the horn, remove the cockpit buzzer and all that good stuff instead.