Ouch! Note to self - wear gloves!

Today there were three or four goals in mind and blow me down if I didn't achieve most of them! The first thing I did - while waiting for milady to enter my smaller chariot in order to whisk her off to our monthly date at Walmart (for grocery shopping) - I  sprayed the inward face of the security panel with more white appliance epoxy.

During the monthly jaunt to Walmart, I nipped next door and visited Lowes (hiss, spit) and bought a gallon of white paint, some M5 nuts and replacement electrical plug and connector. The plan is to use M5 nuts to space my panel away from the door a little more in order to stand it off, away from the rubber gasket holding the window in place. As I already have M5 bolts and M5 rivnuts, it would seem a shame not to use them! The space between the M5 nuts can be filled by my leftover window padding from when I moved some of the original bus windows around.

Having returned from Walmart, I looked at the bus and decided to paint the roof. I started initially with a brush and a small can but graduated to the gallon can and a roller fairly quickly. The brush left the usual streaks and dribbles but the roller was far better with more even coverage. Needless to say, I finished the edges fairly quickly using my stepladder and roller.

It was time to climb on the roof. Before now I had used a ladder to climb up to the roof. This time I used a stepladder to climb onto the hood then the small steps I use to enter the bus via the back door to climb from the hood to the roof. The first trip to the roof was quite painful as the roof was very hot and burned my hands. Next time I wore a pair of gardening gloves and that solved that!

I think I was up on the roof of the bus in hot sunshine for about two hours. I was quite wobbly by the time I came down for the last time. The first coat of white went on so well that I don't think that it is necessary to put a second.

I'll tidy up the areas where I have painted white into areas I want to remain grey at a later date. I might even get a can of white spray to touch up areas I haven't hit with the roller when I was trying to cover up areas painted with a brush. Clearly at some point I'll have to paint the inside of the front wheel arches. They're still yellow at the moment.

Inside the bus, shortly after completing the white paintwork I noticed the thermometer had recorded a 2 degree drop in temperature. I'll have to see if it reaches the summer high of 140F that it reached last year. After the white paint had dried, I put my hand on the white area and it was not uncomfortable. I put my hand on a neighboring grey area and it was very uncomfotably hot.

I continued on working with my security panel but after painting the window side of the panel with white paint, the paint had not fully dried in the crevices. Thus, after drilling the mounting holes, it was not really practical to install it. Of course, having got so exhausted by the heat, I spent a while just putzing around, doing little jobs before deciding to drill the holes in the panel.

The first putzing job was straightforward - I put the caps into the holes intended for faucets on my sink. I do have a little catching device that goes down the plug hole but I haven't much idea which box it's in at the moment. Anybody that knows me in real life will know I store everything in boxes but can rarely remember which item is in which box. At one time I tried cataloging my boxes but didn't keep the catalog up to date and that was the end of that idea.

I think those caps look pretty good. I'm happy with the result. As you can see, there's a lot of tidying that needs to be done. I'm slowly beginning that process, taking leftover materials to the shed as well as tools that I won't need to use again in the bus, even during routine maintenance. As you might have guessed, I'm coming toward the end of construction.

Another of my putzing jobs was to replace the plug and connector on my 20A cable. The plug is a 15A plug but that's not a problem. I'll eventually replace it with a 20A plug when the bus is in use. Those are interesting plugs as they're hinged at the sharp end. My old plugs probably disintegrated because though they were for 20A cables, the cable probably put too much stress on them. I've tried to leave the plugs a little less stressed by not tightening the case screws too hard. If they break then I'll have to find some heavier duty plugs - probably via eBay.

I was very impressed with yesterday's test of my CPU fan. It shifted large quantities of air. I can well imagine two of those would evacuate quite a lot of the hot air from inside the bus. Combined with my white paint, this should make a major reduction in interior temperature.

I am looking forward to completing this project. As far as I can see - aside from cleaning, tidying and putting my stuff in the right drawers - there's not much left to do. I need to put an unlocking system on the front door. How useful that would have been, done right at the start! There's the ventillation, the remains of what needs to be done to the security door and fixing a hole the hillbillies cut in the floor of what is now my wardrobe.

Other than that, it might be interesting to put a battery into the mix. I'm still not convinced by solar panels. On the other hand, all my battery will be doing is charging phone/tablet/laptop/camera batteries. It need not be a massive battery. I'm very tempted by NiMh D cells or perhaps AA cells, built together in an old ammunition box. Unlike lithium batteries, they're a cheaper way of doing things. Unlike lead-acid, they won't emit noxious fumes. Unlike SuperCaps, they don't cost the earth. Another advantage is that I can get replacement cells very easily.

Saturday the Fourteenth is Jason day

The wacky stuff that is alleged to happen on Friday the thirteenth finally arrived. Friday itself was quite boring but Saturday...

The first thing I did was to set out to do some welding to make a security screen for the lower back window. Thus, I got out my extension cord and found both the plug and the connector had disintegrated. The plug and connector were from Lowes (hiss, spit) and purchased new about 6 months ago. The cord had been used two or three times then put carefully in a closet on the bus and nothing put on top. In the intervening time, one plug had cracked and both plugs had broken away from the screw threads holding the two parts together. What a diabolical disaster. I can't believe Lowes (hiss, spit) had the cheek to charge for that garbage.

Working around the cable issue, I got my welding gear together and started welding with my latest rods. That didn't go at all well! The rods with no hesitation burned right through the steel.

Looking with dismay at the holes, I took my welding helmet off whereupon it immediately fell apart. Clearly Friday the Thirteenth was a late arrival! I gave up for a while.

After a rest, I carried on with plan B. That involved riveting metal strips onto the security patch. As the welding had torn up the edge of the steel sheet, I had to move the security sheet nearer to the center of the sheet of steel i had cut from an old fridge some weeks ago.
  

Having trimmed the steel and riveted the steel strips on the edge, i painted the passenger compartment side of the panel with anti-rust paint then with white appliance epoxy. At that, it was time to pack it in for the day.

Tomorrow I want to try to complete the installation, including installing it. As tomorrow has been declared by milady to be a shopping day, I'll have the opportunity to buy some needed supplies.

I need to get some plugs to cover the faucet holes on my handbasin since there won't be a faucet. I also want to get some white paint. 

Inside the bus, the temperature was 108 farenheit. That was pretty hot! As many busses in SC have white rooves, I think I will paint the roof of mine white. That will reflect some heat at least.

TThe next stage will be to add extraction fans. I have a usable solar panel that I can glue to the roof. Today I had it connected  to a CPU fan. It worked pretty well though I probably need to add a capacitor to collect low current in order to give the fan a starting boost.

I'm not initially going to have a battery or a generator nor a fresh water tank. Those can be added at any time as can a modified swamp cooler.

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!

It's colder than a witches tit today!

It has been below freezing for several days in a row. It's highly likely that I won't be doing any welding tomorrow. Today was just plain miserable most of the day. It was made even more miserable by a stomach thing that fortunately cleared up by 4pm.

Thus, at 4pm I headed out to Walmart, being slightly surprised that my car battery actually started the car. It didn't want to but it did start. So, while the mechanics at Walmart changed my battery (which was free), I went shoppng and got 4 more blinds and 4 mounts for my blinds. The cheapest blind at walmart was $3.95 but these were $4.95 roller blinds. For the other windows - in the shower - I suppose I could use the $3.95 blinds but I haven't given that much thought. I'm thinking more in terms of how to attach shower curtains to the ceiling.

Looking around Walmart, I saw some very interesting things but my mission today was explicit - blinds and battery. If I don't stick to my list then it's likely that I'll spend too much. Income is not unlimited and the last paycheck I was given has to have special consideration as it was printed incorrectly. Apparently it'll be OK with the issuing bank because they know of the error. My bank might be another matter entirely though!

Of interest were another D cell lantern for $20 - mine works very well though with just one, lighting is limited to a small area. For the potential battery I looked at the EverStart Lawn and Garden battery for $20. It was interesting but did not state its capacity at all. Given that all I would need to power would be fans and phone/tablet chargers I really don't need much power. I could probably get away with a 20ah standard battery and use only 2-3 ah out of it. Indeed, I could probably - if the USB connectors would handle voltages that low - use a 6v battery. That could even be a DIY battery made of NiMh AA cells. Now that would be definitely worthwhile. I have a pile of NiMh AA cells that I don't use.

As it's perishing cold right now, I was looking at alternate heat sources for my bus and chanced upon a Coleman gas heater. The one of immediate interest seems hard to obtain. It's called the Coleman SportCat but nobody seems to stock it. It takes a different size of gas cartridge and offers 14 hours of continuous heat per cartridge. That's definitely doable.

I'm not too keen on having multiple standards of gas cartridge or indeed multiple standards of anything but sometimes it is necessitated by cost and availability. Apollo 13 discovered to their cost why different standards are a very bad idea when their spaceship had a mishap. It turned out that the lunar lander air filters had a different fitting from the command module filters. Thus they had to rig up a solution in order to make the wrong filters work in the command module just to survive.

Clearly I need to add some more fire extinguishers but that was always the plan anyway. I did wonder whether I should build a bay under the bus to hold a couple of 20lb gas cylinders. Plumbing for gas needn't be expensive or hard and is very possible. The gas cooktop could be installed above where the fridge or cooler will be situated. Indeed, I looked at coolers today and saw one that would do that was $22.

In mind today were the schoolbus flashers. The plan is eventally to intergrate them into the turn signal and braking light systems. The existing reversing horn needs to be tested and connected to a switch on the control console. That way I can switch it on when reversing and off when not which would also give the option of having it sound when necessary and not when it's not or not when it's dark and would unnecessarily cause noise. There's a lot of systems work that could be done.

The aim right now is to get the blinds and shower curtains up. That will get the bus pretty much ready inside. I would like to have the battery/cable compartment refitted but this is not essential right now. I think with the blinds and curtains in place, I will be able to reregister the bus as a motorhome. I will want to put a couple of extractor fans - one over the cooking area and one in the bedroom but those can wait a little while.

If it's a nice day tomorrow (which it should be) the plan is to install the blinds and possibly get started on replacing the battery/cable compartment. The compartment will take a while. I need to experiment welding very thin sheet steel because the aperture under the bus created by the hillbillies is way too big for the new breaker box compartment. The new battery compartment will be quite small as it doesn't now have to carry a battery big enough to power the cooking systems.

It's always a toss-up which way to head with design and one person's error could be another person's salvation. I don't like gas - never have and probably never will. On the other hand the cost of a battery setup capable of powering a microwave would need a battery capacity costing $500 while my electrical system will cost maybe $50. A small battery such as the one planned could be charged from a smaller solar panel. Indeed, solar in this instance would work. This is even cheaper than the generator system I had planned earlier.

The only issue I am likely to have with tomorrow's welding is that the bus is probably beyond the reach of just a single one of my two 20A cables. One cable has Nema 5-20 connectors at each end but the other has a Nema 6-30 on one end which won't connect to anything other than the planned connector on the bus. The solution there will be to start the bus engine for the first time in 3 months or so!

I can honestly say that I am looking very much forward to getting the bus completed and ready for action. I want to see if I can get it ready and reregistered in time for the Battle of Aiken so I can take it for the whole Battle of Aiken weekend.