How bloody frustrating is that?

Yup. It's a broken drill bit! Not a wussy little drill bit either. That's 3/16th! I'd been battling to install roller blinds where my existing stick-up blinds had fallen down. The problem was I had to drill through not just inner skin but body skeleton as well. That stuff is hard to drill through!

I'd installed two blinds and was working on the final hole for a third blind when - due to tiredness - I pressed the drill too hard and the bit snapped. Well, that put paid to what I intended to do today. I can probably put the third blind up but the end is secured by a single rivet not by two. Yes, today I was using rivets since I am now totally out of short self-drilling bolts. It makes no odds - the blinds will be pretty secure anyway.

My goal for the weekend had been to install all the blinds, finish installing the main breaker box, install the waste water tanks, fit a method of securing the boxes in the back closet and put a panel over the lower back window. Well, that schedule just got knocked for six! Drilling holes today was such a beastly task that even with a power drill it has taken several hours.

Then, of course, there are all the tools I cannot find since I tidied the bus up and put everything where it is supposed to be. I have to be ready for an inspection at any time to verify that I have a motorhome, not a bus. One of those things was the tool I need in order to change the grinding disk on my angle grinder. Thus the disk could not be changed and I could not use my angle grinder to cut the blinds as I have been doing. Instead I had to use a hacksaw. All stuff that just takes extra time!

Right now it's pollen season so everything outside is covered with pollen. Every footstep kicks up gret clouds of pollen - it's like walking on the moon!

The final window one one side put up the biggest fight imaginable. The drill was skidding all over the place. Talk about rock hard steel! Eventually I had one hole in situ. Then after a long hunt, I found just one solitary rivet. I ran out of rivets!

Still, the three blinds I put up look pretty good. There're two more to replace but oddly enough, those stick up blinds have not fallen down - yet. I expect they will if left up for very much longer.


So, tomorrow I definitely need to pick up more rivets. I don't think there's much danger of my proceeding further than putting up the other two blinds and installing the main breaker box.  I'd like to install the underbody waste water tanks and install something to control the boxes stored in the back closet. I have a vague idea that bungee cords might help there but anchor points will be the challenge.

Another thing I'd like to do is to replace the lower rear window or at the very least to cover it on the inside. I could simply bolt or rivet the cover over the window. Replacing the window would be the best option but also the most time consuming. There's an awful lot of welding involved there!

Tomorrow I could buy the stuff to mount my underbody tanks though I have a feeling it won't be needed or used for a while. I know I need to replace my CB aerial too.

Installing the hookers

Today though tired from work I went and spent half an hour installing my new Carebiner clips. Sadly there just weren't enough of any particular color. There were silver, pink, green and blue. I ran out of pink in the bedroom and had to use silver. I ran out of green in the bathroom and had to use blue. Still, they were installed. Now there should be no problem with anything vibrating off the screw eyes.

Meanwhile, it seems life became even worse for residents of South Carolina who can't find work. It seems the government lifeline of SNAP aka Food Stamps is going to be removed from the most vulnerable citizens. For some strange reason the rule has been introduced that those unable to find any work whatsoever will not receive any Food Stamps whatsoever. This will be the death knell for many of South Carolina's poorest areas. The problem is that Food Stamps come from the state budget and South Carolina is broke. That's why so many were on Food Stamps in the first place - there's  just no work. 

I am lucky in that I have a job. It's not great nor all that lucrative but it keeps the wolf from the door. It offers no benefits, no pension and not enough to afford more than the very basics but it's better than no job. It affords me money to buy gasoline and a little more. My goal is to get the bus operational as a motorhome so that I can work where there is work rather than simply work in no-hope jobs here. 

#Trump will not be pleased with me, even though #China will!

Currently the US election is proceeding through it tortuous progress. Daily over the course of about a year a slowly dwindling number of candidates out slang, out harang and out curse each other in a display of behavious fit only for a junior school playground. Donald Trump is currently leading the rat pack and though it looks to be a neck-and-neck fight between Trump and Clinton, I feal Trump has the edge. Needless to say, Trump hates everything to do with China and the Chinese - possibly about as much as he hates Moslems and Arabs in general.

With that background, I have clearly done something that will greatly upset Candidate Trump. By the time he becomes Führer Trump I trust he will have forgotten about my sinful transgression. Yes - I have been buying stuff from China on eBay. My latest purchase was 35 caribiner clips. These will replace the failed S hooks. 

Am I now to expect the knock on the door from Trump's secret police? Will I be dragged out into the street, tied backward on a horse, covered in pine tar and feathers then driven out of town? 

Were I not so tired tonight having been working like a dog at my day job, I'd have leapt onto the bus and installed my Chinese caribiners in place of my failed S hooks. Indeed, it might be possible to hang even my lantern using these caribiners.

In theory, 35 Caribiners should be sufficient for the bedroom closet chain, bathroom shower curtain and for my lantern hangers that are situated all around the bus. If not, I can buy more. I did give one a strength test, trying to pull it apart and it seemed to survive with impunity. I feel good about my cheap Chinese caribiners.

The shakedown!

A first run or a shakedown run is so called because you watch for things that fall off as the vehicle shakes. Today, what with fuel prices beginning to rise, I took the bus out to put some more fuel in the tank. I put about 20 gallons of diesel in and that almost filled the tank. Today was the first run the bus has had since probably January of last year. It showed - accelleration and gear changing was sluggish but improved as time went by. It clearly needs a 1000 mile run to get it back into running order.

The gaugues all looked healthy even though the hillbillies buggered around with the rev counter wiring so they could fit a reversing horn (badly). Often the rev counter and occasionally the speedometer don't work because of their bad wiring work. That's all on the list of things to get my mechanic to fix.

A few things fell down when I was driving - mostly things that had been poorly situated such as boxes placed on top of the bed and big boxes piled on top of small boxes in the closet area. My lamp standard toppled too. I'm not in the slightest worried about any of those things. Of more concern were by S hooks. A lot of my S hooks vibrated loose and fell off the screw eyes. Some have fallen into crevices and will be hard to locate. My closet chain was one such casualty of the S hooks. Clearly I need to replace all my S hooks with carabiner clips instead. That's well worth knowing.

On a more serious note, the allegedly flexible CB aerial snagged a low-hanging twig as I was driving off the property and snapped off just above the base. Clearly it wasn't as flexible as claimed. Obviously I need some kind of whip aerial.

Today I put up the shower curtains and found I need to get a 3rd curtain in order to surround the shower fully.  As with the S hooks elsewhere, the S hooks in the bathroom were problematic. I think I'm going to have to buy a lot of small caribiner clips. Evil Bay is probably my best bet there. Failing that, for the closet chain and the shower curtains I suppose I could get stainless steel split rings. That would definitely work but might not be strong enough for clothing.

Otherwise, I spent my time cleaning the inside of the bus and putting things in boxes ready for a series of photos to send to the DMV in the retitling process. The electrics work and aren't a problem unless the power supply has a higher amperage than my cable in which case it's remotely possible to burn out the cable.

These are exterior images.





Thinking about the top flashers, I might just remove them and replace them with aluminum plate riveted in place with silicone sealant. I don't strictly need extra lighting. Rewiring them would represent an interesting issue too. As I go along with this project I become more enamored of simplicity. It might be worth replacing the arrow indicators with the amber covers that have been used on the upper flashers.

The cockpit of the bus looks pretty nice. I do need to revive the original drivers fan though.
 

Moving back, the first compartment is the galley. As my microwave committed suicide, I have no microwave to display so I put a simple set up of a kettle with my $18 gas cooker and some tea bags.
 
 
Going further back, there is the bathroom with no handbasin but a jug and bowl. It's very reminiscent of the 18th century but works pretty well.
 
 
I couldn't step back far enough without falling out of the bus to photograph the shower. My jacket is indeed hnging from one of my S hooks but was heavy enough that the S hook didn't bounce out of place. Moving back is the bedroom with the bedroom table shown in the image. Look very carefully and you can see my camera that - it's a 3 megapixel Canon S1 IS from 2001. Oddly enough my phone takes far better photos so that camera is never used.
  

As can be seen, the bedroom is a bit of a dumping ground for clothes and general junk. I'll have to sift through and get rid of the stuff I don't actually need. For some strange reason I have a box filled with several years of rent receipts and another couple of boxes full of receipts and tax records for a business that I had many years ago that proved tp be a financial nightmare.

Beyond the white door is a simple closet area in which I have a pile of empty plastic totes.

Driving the bus was quite interesting. As I said, it hasn't been driven since January so it's not yet in its prime. The 10 miles or so I put on it today was nothing. I almost took it to a further filling station because the local one was advertised at $1.95 though was actually $1.89. The further filling station was $1.69. I'd probably have used a gallon to get there and a gallon back. 25 gallons would havebeen $5 cheaper but I'd have used half of it on the run so though I was $2 poorer for using the local filling station, I felt safer using the bus on a shorter run given the amount of time it has been standing idle.

On an earlier trip today (in my car), I picked up some supplies to complete the shower curtain (which was achieved) and some supplies to help me finish the plumbing. The most important thing, the heavy chain, I completely omitted to buy! Having said that, I can always use nylon cargo strap either initially or permanently.

More welding excitement

Reading about welding last night, I found the difference between 6011 and 6013 rods is that 6011 is a penetrating steel that will flow into crevices and 6013 is a rod that will just lie on the surface. As it happens, I'm out of 6013 rods so I went to work on welding two of the pieces of roller shutter assembley together. While doing so, I noted that the 1/16 rod was much easer to work with than the 3/32. I think 3/32 might be a bit much for my welder. It took quite a while to weld the two pieces of steel together which was fine. I must say though that the bitter cold outside was more challenging than the welding.

The biggest problems when welding today were that the two pieces of steel moved slightly in relation to each other. That meant that it was slightly skewed. No matter - it should work just fine as it is. In fact, if there's anything I've built that's geometrically perfect, I'd probably faint! The other problem was that one of the pieces of steel warped while I was welding it.
The warping wasn't expected. The movement of the parts was something I hoped wouldn't happen. I'd wondered whether I should drill and rivet the two pieces together first but decided to wedge it with a brick. Clearly I rocked the whole lot at some point and movement occured.

The next stage was to trim the excess steel off and straighten the bent steel. The angle grinder made quick work of trimming off most of the excess.  Straightening the warped steel was straightforward too - I just pulled out Mohammed's screwdriver and whacked it back into shape.
Having done that, I'd had enough of the bone-chilling wind howling around me and the daylight - such as it was - which wasn't that good due to low hanging and ominous clouds began to fade. Apparently sleet is forecast. I hurriedly sanded where the paint had come off the steel due to welding, brushed the slag off the welds and slapped rust-killing primer on the metalwork. Interestingly, I'd sprayed some clean steel with Rustoleum zinc paint a week ago and it's now rusty. Typical bloody Rustoleum. I really wish I could find paint locally that's not utter garbage. I did idly try some paint with a rather suspicious name of "Miracle" a few days ago. The only miracle was that it was cheaper than Rustoleum. Let's just say it achieved a surface peel in 5 days as opposed to several months for Rustoleum.

Inside the bus I put up the two blackout blinds in the bedroom. One went on crookedly but it works. The other went on quite well and looks pretty good. It's more a privacy thing than anything else.
Following that I put the final white blind up and then on a window that it wasn't possible to put a blind on, I cut a shower curtain and stuck that up with self-adhesive velcro. I'll have to see how all this self-adhesive stuff lasts. I suspect not very long but only time will tell.
Tomorrow I want to try to complete my breaker box compartment and to replace the old cable compartment totally. Before that though, I need to experiment welding thin steel. I really hate that thehillbillies put in that dreadful cable compartment. In fact, I don't think anything they did with the bus was worthwhile. I'm wondering if they simply gave up and sold it when they discovered how half-assed their workmanship had been. 

The big thing is that after I have put the shower curtains up, everything else I do will simply be upgrades. I'll have to order some more 8-24 rivnuts and some 8-24 screw eyes. I did think about self-adhesive stuff but I'm pretty sure all this self-adhesive stuff will fail in the summer heat. I will probably replace the blinds with roller blinds and the shower curtain over the one window with a section cut from a roller blind that's screwed to the framework. I"ll have to wait and see though. 

Even the cable compartment will be an upgrade. The existing compartment is rotted. The new compartment will not rot. Underneath the new compartment I can install the holder for the new power inlet. I bought that the other day. Despite the fact the bottom inch will be visible, it shouldn't be that noticeable. I really didn't want anything hanging below the skirt but I don't think anybody will really notice one or two small things.

Are rednecks my salvation?

Today the plan was to practice welding thin steel only that's not how the day unfolded. The day itself was fine - bright, cold and dry. Enthusiasm for welding was non-existent although I did trek into the bushes to find some suitable-looking steel. Hunting around the bushes here can be very fruitful when it comes to finding steel, plastic, old-style glass Coke bottles and abandoned household equipment. Thank the Lord for rednecks and their haphazard way of dumping stuff they no longer want.

Having scoured around the bushes, I realised I need to finish the inside - that's blinds and shower curtains. The existing hillbilly cable compartment does work - it just doesn't look pretty. The plumbing works though I do desperately need to put a hook to hang the bucket. That will have to wait until I can figure out a way of doing it well.

Thus, I headed inside and started putting up blinds. Cutting them with the angle-grinder requires a steady hand - which I developed as I cut more blinds. Needless to say, I'd forgotten where I'd put the brackets for one set of roller blinds and had to have a darned good hunt to find them. In the end, they were in a Walmart bag that contained a few bags of jelly-beans (my weakness).

The roller blinds take some getting used to as they very often need manual winding for the last few inches. Having said that, they're easily cleaned, easily removed and I prefer them to curtains for the bus. Curtains would, of course, have been cheaper. They could have been simply sets of bandanas. I'm sure that since the local football teams are the Gamecocks and Clemson that I could have got Clemson or Gamecocks bandanas for next to nothing in the charity stores.

Closed, the blinds do not look bad. These cost $4.95 in Walmart at the mounts were 97c a pair. Not too bad. The blinds in the galley are just privacy blinds - not light blocking. They can be seen through the window tint as lighter areas. I did get a room darkening roller blind but that was $6.95 so I got that purely for the bedroom.

I'm getting some light-pollution problems on my phone camera at the moment. I think it's because I"m including the light source in my photos - the LED hurricane lantern. Anyway, in the photo you see my cheapo tablet and a very elderly 3 megapixel zoom compact plus my clock. After my Nexus died I figured it just wasn't worth spending a lot on a tablet since they're pretty well disposable. Indeed, I asked somebody how much they would charge to fix it and they wanted as much as my cheapo tablet cost!

Having done the main windows with blinds, there are the bathroom windows that have no kind of privacy whatsoever aside from tint and the other two half bedroom windows. Those windows I will put paper blinds over. I couldn't use paper in the kitchen because of the cooking aparatus. I needed something less likely to flutter in a breeze. The bedroom will get black, room darkening paper blinds. The bathroom will just get white privacy blinds.

I took the International logo off the front of the bus today - the grey paint around it was peeling so I removed the logo and sanded it down. Then I sprayed with the cheap, lighter paint. I'll probably slap some Rustoleum grey on it at some time. That's not a priority right now though. The priority is to get the bus operable as a motorhome which it pretty much is now.

Having done the shower curtains, I'll put separaters in the drawers and put my china in the drawers as well as giving the bus a darned good cleaning. The solar stuff can wait. That's not a priority. The breaker compartment needs to be done soon though. As far as an underbody battery compartment is concerned, I'm not too sure it's really worth bothering with one. It might just be better to charge a dozen or so AA batteries using solar power. Those could be used to power or recharge USB devices. Another thing I'll do is to mount my whiteboard on one of the walls. I have had that whiteboard for a long time and it does come in handy for things occasionally.

The whiteboard has an interesting history. At one time I was going to do face-painting and photography with really good posed photography - not the kind facepainters do. I interviewed three facepainters. One decided she didn't want to spend $3.99 on facepaints from Walmart and lied and kept lying about her facepaint order always going to arrive. Total timewaster. The second facepainter called to arrange an interview then called five minutes before to reschedule and after the third call to request a reschedule, I realised she was a timewaster too and told her that if she found it that hard to attend an interview at a time that she suggested then it was highly unlikely that she would ever turn up to work. She argued and demanded I didn't tell the welfare people she didn't show. I should have told them but quite honestly it would have meant extra work. The final facepainter suddenly announced midway through the interview that she was a lesbian and went on to talk about her girlfriend. That really had no place in the discussion but I glossed over and we agreed to work together. Needless to say that involved buying a whiteboard to write prices etc on. Then she never showed to any sessions. Again a total waster which is pretty much my opinion now of all facepainters. The redundant $6.95 whiteboard has come in very handy in my kitchen though and I expect it will

I thought long and hard about the underbody battery compartment and for the amount of power I'm likely to use, it's not really justified. I was thinking of putting a solar-powered extraction fan in the bedroom. That seems to me to be worthwhile. That'll keep the bedroom cooler in summer. That can pump air out underneath the body.

The less complications I build in, the better to be honest. This is why I'm aiming at simple, cheaper solutions. I've been thinking long and hard over the extraction fan in the kitchen. I know it's needed. I'm not sure whether to have a straight chimney with a cap and no actual fan with the chimney going up through the roof on one of the sides where it won't add to the height of the bus. Another solution would be an actual fan, drawing the air from above the stove and blowing it out through a vent either under the bus or through a vent hole in the aluminum sheet that replaces one of the missing windows. On the whole, as heat rises, it might be better to blow cooking heat and steam down and out. Nobody will notice an extra vent on the side of a bus!

Still under the weather

For ages I've been looking for drawer locks. They're horribly expensive but these look like good candidates.

I did have a go at asking Lowe's since buying from Lowe's would cut out the postage element. Of that postage free $4, $2 will be packaging and postage. Thus the real cost is $2 and he's probably only paying 50c per bolt to the wholesaler! Indeed, if it comes from China, it coulkd be even less.

Thus far I've been unable to find a mate for my non-nema inlet socket. I have, however been looking at alternatives. I found some nema 5-15 inlets on eBay. A pair of those would equal 30A. It would also allow me to use a straightforward household electrical cord.

There are twist lock plugs and sockets for 30A available but I'm not sure they are such a great idea. I heard an argument that if somebody trips over an unlocked cord, the cord pops out and that is undesirable. I look at it the other way - if it pops out then it reduces their chance of getting contributory injuries and it reduces the chance of socket damage. On the whole I prefer the unlocked socket.

A pair of these look ideal. They take standard 15A female plugs as would be found on a standard 15A extension cord. This means a standard cord could be used - the kind of cord than can be bought anywhere! Use two plus a 30A Y adaptor and there's perfection!

Indeed, something like this but vastly cheaper. I'm all in favor of using commonly available parts. Commonly available and lower value cables are less likely to be stolen. The ideal would be no cable but since the money for a $3,000 solar panel and battery system does not exist, it'll have to be a cable. The alternative is a $300-$500 generator.

The problem with finding a generator is that eBay and Amazon don't want to sell generators. If they did, they'd fix their search engines. If I type "electric start generator" then everything except electric start generators turns up. Recoil start, pull start - everything except electric start. The idea is simple - push a button, the generator starts and I get 1500w of power - enough to run the microwave or electric kettle. Push a button after cooking is done and the generator stops. How simple is that? Such generators do exist but Amazon and eBay can't sell them to me because I can't find them via their broken search engines and I'm not going to waste time and bandwidth ploughing through 32,000,000 irrelevant listings under "generator" when it'll be found under something unexpected like "porcupines".

The whole idea of how generators work is faintly ludicrous. They're about as Heath Robinson as its possible to become without collapsing into a fit of giggles. It's translating the pumping motion of a piston via a cam shaft into a circular motion to spin an electric motor to generate power. If the generator was also a piston, none of this spinny nonsense would occur and the whole thing would be lighter, smaller, cheaper and vastly more efficient. Indeed a few weeks ago I recall reading that one of the car manufacturers had created such a generator for a concept car. If the generator ever gets produced then sign me up!

Before work, I visited Lowe's and came out with more 10-24 screw eyes - 6 to be precise and a single 2 inch S hook. I wanted to try just one s hook rather than buy a bunch and find they were the wrong size.

After work and after dinner, I got to work and put up 4 rivnuts. I cut down 4 screw hooks from 2" of thread to 1". Then I dipped the threads in silicone sealant and screwed them into the rivnuts. I will put up a further two, when I know where I want them. That is as yet undecided though.

By now you're probably wondering what it's all in aid of. The answer is simple. As I'm not bothering too much with lighting and extra circuitry, I need somewhere to hang my hurricane lamp and here we are!

I put one above the dinette, one above the kitchenette, one above the hand basin and one between the bed and bedroom table. I suspect I'll put one opposite the bed to illuminate the wardrobe and one in close proximity to the shower though as I have yet to decide precisely where the shower is going to stand, that'll have to wait some.

Tomorrow I need to get more S hooks. No point in getting more than 5 as I only have or had six 10-24 rivnuts left after doing the closet chain.

There's becoming ever less that needs doing. Next I have to work on the plumbing. I'll probably try to do it with two 15 gallon tanks, one for white and one for grey. 15 gallons doesn't sound like a whole lot but reading around I don't think I'll need more. I can always add more later though.

A nice side project for a rainy day would be blinds for the windows. That's not important right now though. The outside could do with more grey paint on the roof and inside the front two wheel arches. I think I'll also paint over the NSA 2011 logo. I think I want my grey bus to be as anonymous as possible. Aside from that, the stencilling is a bit raggedy.

Red letter day!

That's an old Chinese thing. In China, a red letter means good luck. Usually on a red letter day, children receive envelopes stuffed with money.

No money for me though. The nearest to a genuine red letter is that my electrics as installed, work. I tested each of the three sockets by plugging in a humble fan. The main breaker box is not yet secured due to my needing to rebuild the hillbilly battery compartment but this is how it looks.


The whole system is earthed and the white and black wires are in the correct places. This is a very simple system with 3 sockets only. There is room for future expansion on the breaker box and, replacing the inlet cable, the system can go to a maximum of 55A. If the cable between the breakers were to be replaced, 100A would be almost possible.

The ratings on my system as installed are:
1. Electrical sockets - 20A
2. Wire betwixt sockets and distribution panel - 30A
3. Distribution panel - 125A
4. Wire betwixt distribution panel and main breaker box - 55A
5. Main breaker box - 70A
6. Wire betwixt main breaker box and plug - 30A
7. Plug - 30A
8. Breakers in distribution panel - 15A (all six)
9. Breaker in main box - 30A - dual breaker.

So, my system can take much higher amperage assuming portions closer to the supply are changed. I regard this as being a safe system. Indeed, if anybody can see a problem, I'd like to know about it!

By the way, for anybody wanting to use 30A solid, 30A flexible and 55A solid wire, yes it is hard to work with! It took a good couple of hours to complete what I just have. Partly this is because I am still not 100% recovered from my virus but also because the wire was hard to work with and I was being very careful to get it right.

My bus electrics are now 100% complete on the 110v side. Next comes the plumbing. For that, I need a few things. As it is, it should pass inspection as a motorhome. And I'm only 8 months, 12 days behind schedule! Mind, my schedule was over ambitious.

What followed the electrics was little short of a miracle. I removed the large pieces of construction debris and stored the surplus materials in a nearby shed. Given that I'm not over my bug, that was a lot of work. I can almost reach the driving seat now.

The hillbilly underbody compartment wasn't quite as bad as it looked. Certainly its badly installed and for that reason alone, needs to be replaced. It is, however made of inch thick marine plywood. I found that out when I drilled a hole through it to allow me to plug my electrical cable in from underneath.

Where the hillbillies went wrong was in not painting their plywood on the inside of the compartment. Having seen that, I'm minded to use plywood for my compartments. Mine, however will be painted white on the inside but with oil based paints rather than latex. Unlike the hillbillies, my compartments will have angle iron on the corners, strengthening and supporting them.

Thinking ahead to a 12v battery system which will power future extraction fans, charging ports etc, I'll have to find how much weight plywood will support to see how much bracing to use to support a battery. I have a feeling that just a single 105ah 12v marine deep cycle battery will provide for most of my needs. Of course, if later I use batteries to power my fridge, I might have to raise that capacity.

Thinking further, until I have sufficient solar and battery capacity to power a microwave, I could perhaps use a cheap generator to provide 800w to run the microwave while taking 240w from batteries to gain the 1040w needed. That would take me squarely into boondocking territory!

Later, after dinner, I returned to the bus and cut the PVC planking to the right size to fit my shower base. In a few days I'll have the base put together and the bus fully cleaned.

My favorite place at the moment is my bathroom as I can sit on the toilet lid and think. There, I had the idea that since my LED lantern has a loop as a handle, I could put screw hooks in the ceiling to hold my lantern. I'll have to see if Lowe's sells 10-24 screw hooks or bigger s-hooks to use with their existing screw eyes.

Some people might see my minimal electricity lifestyle as somewhat quaint. I regard it as practical. I'm just not a great fan of electrical appliances in general. This is why my forthcoming water pump will be manual.

Thinking about night privacy, I looked at my windows and measured them. The bathroom windows I don't give a rip about. I'll put pieces of shower curtain over the windows but that's all. No need for more than that.

The galley windows are doubles measuring 54 wide by 28 high. I figure a wooden dowel with a plastic fabric fastened to it together with a string could act as a roller blind. The problem would be what to use as bearings.

The bedroom windows are 54 wide by 14 high and 26 wide by 28 high. That's just 4 blinds needed. I've had various thoughts but I really like the idea of a DIY roller blind.

Aside from that, there's just the pool noodle needed over the doorway from the cockpit to the cabin and some form of lock on the front door. Well, not really a lock but a way of unlocking the existing door lock from the outside.

As well as that, I have to put my white and grey tanks under the bus and rebuild the hillbilly battery compartment. There's plenty to do and since I'm doing it all on my own, its taking rather longer than I'd like. The big thing is that I'm learning a load of new skills.

It's pretty astonishing how much I've done since I started the project in November.

Closet chain - check!

Today before work the temperature was a bearable 88 Fahrenheit according to the app I have on my tablet. Thus, it was possible to erect more of the closet chain. The procedure is simple... Drill a small hole where the next screw eye is needed, insert a rivnut then put silicone sealant on the screw eye thread, screw it in, hang an s hook from the screw eye then hang the chain from the s hook. Of course it wasn't that simple. The threaded portion of the screw eyes were too long at 2 inches so a few minutes were spent cutting them down with the angle grinder. The right size drill bit isn't in the toolbox so a smaller hole was drilled and the holes individually enlarged with a reamer.

Having installed more eyes and hooks than before, it appears there's enough space at one end for more screw eyes. As there are three more remaining on the table, it makes sense to use them, which I will after work. That being the case, the closet rail could well be completed today. That leaves the shower base mount, plumbing and electrical. This weekend might see the whole lot completed (but probably won't). I'm a bit of a perfectionist even though many things aren't perfect.

Regarding electrical, the plan was to put a socket on the side of the bus. Then somebody pointed out that the pins on the plug would be exposed and live. That's not particularly desirable so I started hunting for a male socket. Wow! Ripoff! Male plugs can be had for $8 approximately. Female sockets for the same price. Male sockets are $80 - yes, ten times the cost. I'm currently hunting for solutions. Those could include a small hatch with cables that can be pulled out that have inline male plugs.

In order to drive costs down and versatility up, I'll have two inputs for electricity, both rated at 30A. 50A cable just seems impossibly expensive! Mind, for the amount of power I'm likely to use, a 20A supply should be adequate. Plans for the electrical system will be unveiled when its completed.

Meanwhile, the weather app is rather amusing. There I am, working on my bus is 88F that the app says feels like 92F and it suggests I wear this! Somehow, I don't think that'll be happening!

The weather part of the app is actually pretty good, however.

At the moment, the plan is still for a manual pump to pump water from underbody holding tanks. Had I realised what an annoyance it was going to be to put sufficient electrical power to run a microwave into the buys would be, I'd probably have used gas instead.

After work a trip to Lowe's happened. Let's just say it took several of Lowe's staff to pick me up off the floor and administer several doses if smelling salts after I saw some of their prices! Looking for cheaper ways around the $80 ripoff, I found all my potential alternatives were coming in at even higher prices!

Thinking around the situation, I'm going to trim my electrical system to just 3 sockets. One side of the breaker box is going to be individual 15A breakers going to sockets with the other side containing just one breaker going to the other side as a master breaker. That breaker is going to be 30A. Although I'd have liked higher amperage, I really can't see paying out the nose for all these electrics. Especially when the maximum I can envision using is going to be around 20 amps.

On eBay I saw a 30A male socket going for $15. That's doable. It probably means I'm going to have to fiddle around with my socket box but again, that's doable. I am getting very much a feeling that I screwed up when I bought my breaker box and RV outlet box. If I cut back further and used just two sockets then one could be the fridge while the other could be something else.

However I look at it, the main problem seems to be the breaker box with no master breaker position. I bought a waterproof box when I thought I would mount it under the bus. The next major problem is the electrical connector. There are so many to choose from and a vast number of prices!

This whole thing gives me such headaches! Wiring safety is not an issue - its all straightforward and a case of not putting more amps through a cable than it was designed to take. That's what breakers are for! In the end, for $19.02 I ordered from eBay a 30A twist lock socket. It has features I'm not keen on - namely the twist lock. I'd rather it popped out if somebody got their foot caught in it! I'm also not keen on the close proximity of screws that go through the plug to the pins on the plug. I'll figure it out though even if I end up using a load of epoxy putty!

Lastly, I completed my closet chain. The angle grinder gave an absolutely spectacular shower of sparks as I trimmed the last two screw eyes to length. The usual performance of drilling then reaming continued. All this was done after the sun had set. I absolutely love my LED lantern.

The end result was this and I can now consider the bedroom complete save for blinds.

Bah... Pesky drill!

Today was a very brief session working in the bus. Earlier I'd been to Lowe's and bought the screw eyes and s hooks I needed in order to complete my closet rail. I also bought an RV style 30A plug.

Reading around, it seems 50A is not really practical and most camp sites have a 30A supply. In Lowe's I saw a 50A cable and a 30A cable. Quite honestly I cannot imagine using anything heavier than 30A. It was really thick and heavy.

It turns out also that my breaker box is a sub panel with no main breaker position. Had I known that, I would not have bought it. It looks like I'm going to have to make a few blunders before I get this crazy US electrical system down pat. It's completely alien to me, having been brought up around European electrical systems.

Actually, dropping from 50A to 30A doesn't make much difference. My heavy demand appliances are my microwave and kettle. I don't have a TV or anything like that. I never have been a real power hog even though I use far more electricity than Eric

It looks as though I need to put a main breaker elsewhere. I'm thinking alongside the fuse panel for my 12 supply. Somewhere I can access it easily in order to switch breakers around for times when I'll be on a 15A supply.

Inside the bus, I laid out my screw eyes and s hooks ready to install them but paused to install my new knob on the grit bucket side of the toilet. The power drill got a third of the way through the wood before slowing. Fortunately it got all the way through before it died completely. Clearly I should have put iut on charge last night. The knob went on fine though. It doesn't match my plastic handle though. It seems Lowe's no longer carries the handles I bought several months ago. It doesn't look too bad.

While I was sitting at the toilet, I worked and oiled the door lock. It's really not very happy about looking and unlocking. Today I had to abandon my attempt to unlock it from outside and had to go in through the back door. I'll keep playing with the lock but I think I'll have to replace it. The lock company whose name shall not be mentioned charged me $20 and claimed it was a special order. I saw the same lock in Ace hardware for $15 last week!

Remaining to be done inside the bus are just the shower base mount and the rest of the closet chain. Everything else has been done. Certainly there's cleaning to be done, some floor painting and a touch of touch up but that's all aside from plumbing and electrical. Things are progressing well.

Another rainy day!

Today being a total washout as far as cutting plastic planks went, I worked on other things inside the bus. The little lantern I bought is a real godsend. Without it I'd have been unable to see to do anything. It really was that dark, what with all the rain.

After putzing around a bit, I started on the closet chain. It was a lot easier than I'd imagined though I had to tip my tool box contents and my supplies box contents into the shower pan in order to find the things I needed. That took some time too.

The closet chain is unfinished because I ran out of screw hooks. I had six and I have 20 rivnuts. Thus, I installed six rivnuts and six screw eyes with s hooks. Then the chain was hung from the s hooks. It's an elegant, lightweight solution. Each hook is 7 inches from the next. I figure that should hold the weight of clothing.

After installing the closet chain, my next project was to fit a handle on the toilet lid so that it can be opened and closed as needed. That was the work of a very few minutes.

The door lock had started being a bit odd in operation and certainly didn't look right as the tongues were hanging at a sloppy angle. I dismantled it and was amazed at how cheap and nasty it looked. Clearly the lock company whose name shall not be mentioned has just sold me any old junk rather than a decent quality lock. Needless to say, I reassembled it as it should have been and remounted it. This time, it worked properly. That's something that it has never done before. My guess is that it was bad from the start!

The hanbdbasin mount was fastened down. That took all of four screws and a few minutes. The hand basin itself is just held into place by gravity. There never were any mounts as such in the original installation. This hanbdbasin came from the hillbilly bus build.

In the background is my thermometer/hygrometer gizmo. Today it was 75F (24C) and 76% humidity. That was very pleasant for working inside the bus. I can see a dehumidifier will be needed.

I tried my breaker box in place. I couldn't fasten it as I'm lacking a main cable and its conduit just as I'm lacking sockets and other cables. Today was a day for visualising the electrical system.

Next, I fished my microwave out of storage and placed it on the countertop. It's a cheap Walmart microwave that I used from November of 2011 until April of 2015 when I moved house. Looking at the setup, it just seems that four surface mount electrical sockets would go very nicely on the front of the beam under the microwave.

As I'm limiting the power input to 50A, I figure two sockets can be 15A and two can be 10A. There will be a main breaker at 30A with a spare breaker at 50A for times when I'll be able to access 50A. For safety, when I'm on a 15A supply as when parked at home, I'll use a 15A main breaker.

Looking inside my microwave showed how horribly rusty it is. M'lady wants me to throw it away but I want to do what my dad did with his rusty microwave. He cleaned it out with steel wool and painted it with anti rust paint. It worked for years after that.

It does show why enameled paint inside a microwave is a sign of a cheapass microwave. The better microwaves are stainless inside. When it dies, I have plans for the components inside.

Mounted on the skirt of the bus, behind the hillbilly compartment (which will house a pair of batteries once I've rebuilt the compartment) will be this socket. The door goes outside the bus skirt. The box goes inside. The cable will be a dryer cable in a conduit from the 50A socket to the breaker box. I'd like to use flexible conduit but I think standard conduit might be cheaper and more practical to install.

On top of the breaker box I'd like to install sockets so that I can just plug my other cables in. It's more expensive but I feel a better solution.

If I can get my closet chain completed this week and the shower base mount then the electrics really won't take long. I'm annoyingly close to being able to apply for the bus to be registered as a motorhome.

My final act was to install a fire extinguisher. This was installed directly opposite the electrical system. This extinguisher is specifically for electrical fires and burning liquids. Ideal for kitchens! Let's just say that First Alert's wall mount for the extinguisher was very troublesome to install. It would be so much better if instead of a nasty plastic strap, a Velcro strap or a solid loop was used. I have no idea whether I'll be able to remove the extinguisher from the nasty strap or whether I'll just have to rip it off the wall if it's ever needed. This is why I'll be installing more extinguishers.

Put out an all points bulletin. Missing...

One screwdriver, Phillips head, six inches long, black plastic handle. Missing. Last seen in the vicinity of a large grey bus. Presumed dangerous. No massive reward for recapture.

After having painted the lower portion of the bathroom white and not being ready to put purple paint anywhere, most of the drawers in the kitchen were painted white. All need purple paint on the fronts but with the bathroom with wet walls and wet drawers there really wasn't room to put the toilet in order to paint it. Nor, with the toilet in the bedroom was there room to paint the table top.

As the white paint would likely take a while to dry, the next task was to look at the upper rear light clusters. The plan is to switch the red and amber lenses so they mirror the arrangement on the lower cluster, prior to wiring the uppers in to repeat the lowers. By reusing the lights and repurposing them, it gives traffic further behind more of an indication of turning and braking which, given the appalling driving in South Carolina, the drivers badly need.

I put the stepladder in place and sent up the ladder. Darn it! My interchangeable bit screwdriver wouldn't fit. Time to find my standard screwdriver. Of course, after an hours hunting, it could not be located. It wasn't in my bus nor my car. While hunting in my car, I found my LED sign had been broken - probably by shifting lumber on one of my lumber trips. Not welcome but since it paid for itself and isn't likely to be used again, probably best to pitch it or switch out the display with my old original LED display if that's still findable.

One of the most onerous tasks is washing out brushes and rollers. I tend to automate the process but do wonder whether washing out rollers is ever worth the effort.

After a suitable or even a wholly unsuitable break, I headed out and looked at the paintwork. The drawers and walls were dry enough to continue work so the ready painted drawers were replaced in their respective homes. The three remaining drawers were pulled out and painted. The emergency door which could not be fully painted earlier due to rain had a coat of white on the lower half. The corners of the bathroom that could not be reached with the roller had white paint applied.

Then it was time to paint the bedroom table. The toilet still being in the bedroom was moved to a more suitable location where upon a few minutes were spent sitting on the toilet while painting the tabletop. After that, two sides of the toilet had a coat of white paint. Judging by the way the white paint is now down to quarter of a can, I might have to buy more.

Tomorrow and Wednesday being work days, little is likely to be done though Wednesday being a very short morning means a trip to Lowe's is likely.

As of now, the bathroom countertop needs paint, the toilet needs a lot more paint, the galley needs a second coat of purple paint and the white areas of the galley need another coat. The drawer handles need to be installed, countertops screwed down and a layer of vinyl tiles applied to the countertops. If course the shower base still needs to be installed. Other than that and the few hundred things I have temporarily forgotten, its just electrics and water that need installing. I'm quite pleased with progress!