What happened to the Playboy Bunny-girl?

Today was a bit of a mish-mash day that actually ended quite successfully. The day dawned rather too early which was not welcome. In fact, I was probably awake before 5am after having hit the sack about 1am. At 7am the alarm clock kicked me out of bed. That was followed by a rather lengthy trip to Walmart and Lowes (hiss, spit).

The overall aim of the morning's trip was to do the month's grocery shopping. While there, I took advantage of the fact that Walmart's garage was open (on a Sunday) and had them give my car a much needed oil change. While that was going on, m'lady and her mother went to do the grocery shopping and I nipped across the parking lot on foot (shock, horror - somebody in America daring to walk somewhere) into Lowes (hiss, spit) where I managed to get the U bolts I wanted, a replacement drill bit and absolutely no rivets. Lowes (hiss, spit) was totally out of 3/16 rivets!

Returning to Walmart, I picked up my car and then rejoined m'lady and her mother to discover that one of the Walmart minimum wage serfs had been insanely rude to them. Given that both m'lady and her mother are inoffensive people, that was totally inexcusable. No point in complaining though. Walmart's solution would just be to fire the disposable minimum wage serf rather than to fix the demonstrable problem with their staff's attitudes.

While in Walmart, I noted the aisles were full of Easter merchandise. I think this is probably about the closest I'm going to get to a Playboy Bunny though!


Having completed the shopping and returned home, it was time to catch up with my missing kip. So, a couple of hours later I headed to the bus and checked the running lights. Initially one of the tail lights was out but the bulb was OK so after wigglimg the bulb, the light lit. One of the top red markers is out as is one of the right hand amber markers. I'll get to those in due course.

Entering the bus, I looked around and my eye alighted on a small packet in my tool box. Yesterday I had hunted through that tool box several times looking for rivets. Incredibly, there was the packet of 3/16 rivets that I needed. Thus, I set to work.

The last two of my cheap self-adhesive paper blinds were stuck up very well. They took quite some pulling to remove. Given that the other 3 had simply fallen down under their own weight, I don't for one instant believe that they would have withstood the test of time. Thus, the two blinds in the bathroom were replaced. 

The caribinas made moving the shower curtain very easy. It was just a case of unclip, reclip and done.Sadly the caribinas were too small to use with my lantern. That's not a problem though - I can always get a bigger caribina.

Slowly, things are coming together. I need to put the water tanks underneath, themain breaker box in, a method of securing items in the back closet, a method of opening the front door from outside and to secure the lower window of the back door. 

In the post

Today I did it - I posted the application to retitle my bus as a motorhome. As far as I know, that should get to the DMV in a few days. I'll doubtless have to reinsure my bus as a bus before they look at it and change the title since the insurance is up in about a week. The insurance company has been reminding me for the past six weeks to renew my insurance. They just don't realise that I don't ever give anybody free use of my money when it can stay in my own account earning interest until I really have to spend it. Thus, I normally get my insurance on the day before it's really due.

The socket cover I painted yesterday looks really good and matches the rest of the bus rather nicely. I meant to try scraping the paint to see if it comes off as I have little confidence in paint thinner making anything stick to my bus. It seems to reject just about every attempt to prepare the surface for fresh paint. Even stripping down to bare metal could be challenging as the steel is zinc plated. I did get brake fluid just for this but had forgotten about it until now.

In other news, the hour advanced on Sunday night leaving me now with over an hour after I return home before sundown. Had I not been so tired today, I would have worked on my bus. 

I am giving thought to alternatives to power and to attaching my barrels. It strikes me that U bolts could be used to tighten chains and coincidentally would be a load cheaper than using turnbuckles. If I'm right, it could be possible to attach the barrels without needing to do any welding whatsoever underneath the bus.

As far as the house battery is concerned, I suspect plugging into the cigarette lighter socket when I'm driving could well work best unless I can tap into the alternator circuit. Combining that with a charge controller would be an interesting approach. Indeed, looking at the LIon batteries I have been looking at online, I could probably fit them into a small ammunition box. I'm a big fan of small ammunition boxes as I can pack charge controlers, battery meters, cables and USB sockets etc into them as well as the batteries. In other words, a complete and portable power source that can be carried inside the bus. Truth be told though, I'd really prefer to use a supercapacitor

One of the things I'm a fan of is simplicity. Why go to the trouble of slinging things under the bus if it's not essential? The extraction fan for the bedroom can be solar powered on the basis that it's there to remove heat, not ventillate as the bus has plenty ventillation anyway.

With the LIon house battery in a portable case, it could be charged on 120v just about anywhere. The beauty of a standard solution is it can be put together like Lego blocks. Supercaps aren't mainstream which means it'd be a build-it-myself solution and even following published plans, those things don't always work. I really like the idea of building my own electronics but 75% of the time they don't work even when made from a kit and checked scrupulously. Mind, that's petty much my experience of ready-made electronics anyway.

So, the upshot is, tasks remaining to complete:
1. Replacing self-adhesive blinds with roller blinds.
2. Installing waste water tanks.
3. Developing a house-battery solution.
4. Installing a set of bungie cord anchors for the back closet.
5. Replacing or blocking the back door lower window.
6. Replacing or blocking the two back windows.
7. Developing and installing a front door unlocking system.
8. Blanking the school bus flashers.
9. Replacing the arrow indicator lenses with amber flasher lenses.
After all that, I'd say the bus is probably about as ready as it'll ever be. I would kinda like to put some kind of handbasin in the bathroom but a bowl will do quite well.

One of the interesting things that has come to my attention is urine disposal. I hear that peeing in a composting toilet makes the whole thing stink. I'm not quite sure how it will be affected by the fact my toilet is modelled after a cat litter tray. The deposits are simply covered with cat lit. The other day, there was an article in which one bus conversion owner complained she and her girlfriend discovered they had to go and pee in the forest rather than their composting toilet. The upshot was that in the end they replaced their composting toilet with a flush toilet though the domestic toilet they used would use about 10 gallons in a single flush. That's fine for campsites but otherwise, not so great. I would not be too surprised if in the end I decide to install a black tank and a camper toilet. Now the water from that could be pumped from the shower grey tank or if the handbasin empties into a 5 gallon bucket then that could be a source of flush water.

Well, in a few days I should hear more about reclassifiying my bus as a motorhome. I think there's enough there for it to work.

Depressingly little achieved

Today was pretty much of a washout in terms of achievement on the bus. The blinds didn't get put up. The main breaker didn't get installed. Nothing really was achieved. I have no real excuse for that. I guess I really wasn't feeling too great what with the sudden hot day, the time change and general depression.

Despite all that, I did wipe down the power socket cover with paint thinner. Then it was sprayed with grey paint. If the paint sticks then the thinner trick works. As a control sample, another area where the paint was peeling was wiped down with thinner and sprayed. It'll be interesting to see if the thinner trick actually works. I have my doubts.

The old main breaker box, I cleaned up and removed the cables, rescuing the TT30 plug that was attached to it. The next stage was to bore a hole in one side that would accommodate my 3/4" cable sleeves. That was a challenge that took literally hours. The main cause of the slowness was that the tool was entirely inappropriate. Now the reason I used an inappropriate tool is that I make so few holes of that diameter that rather than spend $25 on the proper hole saw, I spent $7 on a cheap hole saw designed for wood. I simply use it for metal and regard it as disposable. So, the hole was bored upon which the rainspots that had been hitting me off and on for the past few minutes turned into a torrential downpour.

Retreating inside the bus, I pulled out a file and filed the hole to make it really work with the inlet. After the rain had drenched the outside world, I worked on the hole a little more with the hole saw. Then the inlet was inserted followed by the end of the 3 foot section of 8-3 cable that raised so many eyebrows in Lowes (hiss, spit). The other end will go into my sub panel. 

I never got as far as installing the panel. It was rather warm in the bus, hence my thoughts about a solar-powered extraction fan. I did have a go at installng a roller blind to replace the fallen stick-up blinds. Thus, I pulled out the battery drill and started drilling and drilled and drilled and drilled and made a small hole but not deep enough to achieve anything. At that point the light went so for possibly the very first time I put power through the inlet socket I installed and had light inside the bus powered by 120v mains power. That worked quite well.

I had a look for the vehicle registration documents but didn't find them in the obvious place. Clearly they much be somewhere less obvious. I need them to be able to send off to apply to have the bus retitled as a motorhome. To be absolutely honest, I think the insurance companies are being ridiculous on insisting on retitling as a motorhome just to insure everything. 

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!

Now I'm really getting there.

It might not look exciting but it is a significant step forward. The plumbing descends from my shower via a U bend to a bucket placed underneath the bus. It might not be very high tech but it does mean I can now claim my bus has adequate plumbing. The pipes are held in place by clips attached to the brackets I welded the other day. The aim is to install the barrels I bought the other day but this is dependent upon finding the right plumbing adaptor. Now that could be very hard to find so for the moment I'm sticking with a bucket. 

As you can see, the pipe comes down, ending in a cap that protrudes slightly below the skirt. This is not intended to remain so but is rather useful for locating where to place the bucket. One thing I will add is a hook to hang the bucket from so that it won't blow away. In summer, evaporation should see the level of the effluent reduce through evaporation.

When I went shopping the other day, I bought a little gas cooker and some cooking items. These will make a huge difference as the gas will take care of the biggest power drain in any home. Cooking uses absolutely the most power. I have not tried a raw food diet but I gather raw food involves no cooking. It does require refrigeration though which is a constant power drain.

It really is a nifty little gas cooker. The kettle is nifty too. I don't as yet have an extraction vent above the cooker. This, by the way, is the bathroom vanity and not where the cooker will be situated. I was thinking of having it situated there when I'm gas cooking and just leave the microwave where it's currently situated. Thinking about it, and in view of my adventures with the roller blind, it might well be better just to swop the microwave and gas cooker around as required. That way I could put just one vent.

The cooker had all kinds of wacky reviews, mostly centered around being unable to find gas cylinders and the price of the gas cylinders. They were right next to the cooker, in Walmart and were $2.40. The small print says 8.8oz of gas and the cooker says that a single cylinder can last up to 1 hour, 15 minutes. I presume that's on low. Given that most meals take 15 minutes or frequently less to make, that doesn't seem to be much of a probem to me. In any case, this bus is intended for electrical plugin operation, not off-grid though I'm making sure it can be used off-grid.

Going back to an old problem - the china I had was all 9 or 10 inch round plates. I found that they are now 88 cents each in Walmart. My solution to the china not fitting my drawer was to give my existing china to m'lady who sadly did not want the matching mugs that I'd struggled to obtain. In Walmart are some 8 inch square plates. I might get a couple of those and a couple of square dishes too. That way I have something that won't roll in the drawer.

Today I turned my mind to the blinds. I bought a single blind the other day. It was way too wide and I'd reckoned I might be able to cut it down with my angle grinder. Thus it was - I cut it down and it actually worked. The edge on the cut side is a little ragged but that really doesn't matter. I'd like it to be smooth but I'm not prepared to pay massive amounts of money to buy a smooth blind of the right size. It's way overlong but that shouldn't be a problem. I did think about mounting it but the light had already gone by the time I considered that. Funny how that always seems to happen when I get to the interesting bits.

If you notice, at the top of the picture are two of the wobbling flower solar decorations. I won't be carving those up as they were gifts but having seen inside one, the wobble is caused by a magnetic coil that's charged by the small solar cell built into the base. I looked at the coil and am wondering whether one taken from such a decoration could be the solution to my front door unlocking problem.
Areas of the paint had peeled on the outside of the bus. That has been referred to before. Today I pulled out a pistol drill with a paint removing brush. I brushed areas where the paint was flaking and found the flaking to be of a local nature. I suspect I'll have to spot brush the whole bus wherever the paint is flaking and reapply the paint. Eventually it'll all stick. I found some cheaper spray paint in the dollar store but it seems to be slightly lighter in color which might not be a problem after a couple of weeks weathering.

Today's big fail was Rustoleum self-etching paint. I tried it and it sprayed well for a second or two then started spraying lumpy paint. Then the nozzle suddenly frothed and it stopped spraying. No matter what I did, nothing helped the situation. I had a can of Rustoleum rust killer that did this a while ago. I'm not that keen on Rustoleum - its just not good paint. It's cheap and that's its only virtue.

I looked again at the hillbilly cable compartment. The cable comes down on the left, very close to the front of the compartment. As I'm not needing to carry a big battery now, I looked at the compartment and looked at my massive construction and decided I could get away with a much smaller compartment. I will have to build a new, smaller compartment. 

Looking at the body ribs, I'd been worried about putting rivets in case of water ingress. Looking at the construction, they're not sealed at the ends anyway. The only question is how thick they are. I'm going to assume they're 15 gauge like the rest of the body. I can probably weld that quite satisfactorily. I think building the new compartment which will be purely a breaker box compartment with a plugin either underneath or on the side, I won't build it completely then try to weld it on. I'll build it in pieces, welding each piece into place. It won't have any great weight to carry which is a huge bonus.

Thinking about batteries again, the only thing I really need batteries for is to charge my cellphone, tablet and or a mifi pad. That could be achieved by simply charging cellphone charging batteries from a small solar panel. Those are cheap enough and put in a tin box insulated against fire, I could charge a couple.

I can't really see needing to charge much else. Charging my camera could be interesting. It's probably time to change camera systems. I suspect my 10 year old monster is not as good as a secondhand 5 year old marvel of technology. The thing holding me up there is that it's paid for and would barely fetch a single peanut on the secondhand market. My income wouldn't result in donation being a worthwhile tax deduction either. In fact last year I got back more in tax refund than I paid in tax!

The huge hole in the side of the bus will have to be filled. I'll have to see what I can do about that. I want to do something better than just rivetting a patch over the side but I suspect that's going to be the most expeditious solution.

The big news though is that today I consider it worth sending off to get my bus registered as a motorhome. I hate to think how much money I have spent on things I didn't end up using in my conversion process. Still, that's probably the same for everybody. Not everybody gets it right first time, particularly when there's nobody else in one's immediate and trusted circle doing the same thing.

I need to finish doing the blinds, to put something over the bathroom windows to maintain privacy and to put up a shower curtain. As far as the blinds are concerned, I can either put pairs of trimmed blinds over the windows or put cloth curtains with velcro attachments.

Looking at the paintwork today, the pain was peeling in the middle of the logo that said 3800 DT466. The first logo just came off very easily using just finger pressure. The second - on the other side needed a screwdriver and broke as it came off. They're off now. I might give the same treatment to the International logo on the front. I cleaned up where the logos had been and sprayed grey paint after filling the attachment holes with rivets. I don't know about my readers but I just don't like carrying other peoples' advertising. It's like shirts - if a shirt has a logo on it advertising some company or other then that shirt had better be free if I have to wear it for work or if it's outside of work then some company had better be paying me to wear it.

Retitling forms

A few days ago - before I hurt my back, I picked up the form to retitle my bus as a motorhome. This is South Carolina DMV form 4038. Looking at it, it seems that they're mainly interested in the purchase of components for kit vehicles. They ask for receipts but somehow I think they won't be interested in receipts for lumps of wood and tins of paint.


The main thing they're probably going to be looking for is whether it looks like it will be converted back into a bus while nobody is looking. I gather a minority of bus hobbyists will buy a bus, register it as a motorhome and then put the seats back in, taking advantage of cheap insurance.

Needless to say, I've recycled some of the stuff that came with the bus and obtained other bits elsewhere - Lowes, Tractor Supply, Home Depot, eBay and been given a pile of stuff too. Largely though, it's been wood, paint, fittings and so on - nothing in itself all that expensive. Had I paid somebody to do what I did in my own spare time then the bill for the work done would be many thousands of dollars. I'd say the most expensive things have been the tools I've had to buy such as my welder, sander, angle grinder etc.

I could probably get away with the bus as it is save for putting up window blinds and shower curtains. For the blinds, there are some very cheap folded paper blinds that look very usable. For the shower curtains, Walmart and the dollar stores look possibilities too. Aside from that, I need to do a massive tidying up inside the bus and weeding through my stuff.

One of the things I saw while in Walmart was rectangular plates. The crockery set I have is usable but the round plates are a bit too wide for the plates drawer. My mistake - I measured correctly but forgot that the floor of the drawer would have thickness. Thus, the drawer is the thickness of the drawer bottom too short. Needless to say, I didn't have my tape measure with me last time I was in Walmart. The existing plates are nothing special - they cost me theprincely sum of $10 for the set! I bought a set of 4 but the reality is that I only need two plates - one for me and one for m'lady.  

Things I have learned during the progress of construction..

1. My carpentry has improved greatly but needs further improvement. It's perfectly functional but I need to learn how to make proper joins in wood rather than relying upon steel brackets, bolts and OSB panels screwed to the beams.
2. Internet forums are completely useless, full of asinine opinions, dangerous suggestions and aggressors that call my carefully constructed motorhome all kinds of names - when they're not being abusive to me personally.
3. US plumbing sizes are rather fictional. I measured a 1.5" right-angle tube at 1.75" with my tape measure - and that was the inside diameter. To find plumbing bits that fit, it's necessary to go in and try things rather than to rely upon what's written on the item itself. 
4. US electrical systems are reasonably straightforward though the electricians that install things are not to be trusted. Better to look up how to do it and to do it yourself.
5. Rustoleum (Hammarite in the UK) produces the world"s most useless paint. If it can be avoided then do so.
6. Latex paint is for ceilings only.
7. Silicone sealant works but nothing sticks to it - way better to use latex sealant.

Today was a shopping day so it was a trip to Lowes (hiss, spit). I came to the conclusion that despite the fact that Lowes is unbelievably dishonest, since the nearest Home Depot and Tractor Suppy are 8 miles further and hence (even at $1.67 per gallon) an extra $1.50 to get there and an extra half hour in insane South Carolina traffic.

So, the upshot was I got enough cable to complete 60 feet of cable from the power post to my bus. I also got sufficient plumbing supplies to complete the plumbing underneath the bus. The termination in my plumbing will be a simple stopper screwed into the bottom of the line. That's just going to be there in order to stop critters from crawling up when it's not in use. 

Before I did any of that, I cleaned up the steel plates that will be welded ito the battery compartment using an abrasive brush in the pistol drill. That removed most of the rust. Then I slapped Rustoleum primer for rusty metal. If that kills the rust as well as primes, I'm happy. I rather suspect it'll be just as worthless as the rest of the Rustoleum product range.

The plan is to complete the plumbing, continue working on the battery compartment in the background, reseal one seam on the bus roof, work on the peeled paint, install shower curtains and blinds over all the windows. The battery compartment isn't 100% necessary right now as long as the cable compartment that's currently there for the moment though it has to be replaced. The priority is to get the above completed and get the retitling process under way. Longer term plans - well, the sky's the limit!

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.