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!

Taking stock of what can be done

Today was a day when nothing much was done. The sum total of today's effort was to install two looks on cupboard doors, make a video and implement the final solution to the toilet problem.

Interspersed with that were requests from m'lady to feed the chickens since they had apparently not been fed and to make trips to the dump with 3 months of household garbage that should have been taken weekly. Kinda smelly!

The cupboard door catches can be a little iffy. I've had them undo themselves when I thump the doors. That might or might not be an issue. If it is, well, I'll face that when and if it occurs. They're probably not the best latches but were what I could get. Having these latches now makes me wonder whether it's even worth putting handles on the doors. If I can avoid that then I can save some money. The drawers need knobs. Knobs are better than handles because they need just one hole. So much easier to draw a line from each corner and drill a single hole where the lines intersect!

The toilet had a problem. The way I'd put the lid meant the whole lid had to be lifted. Given that the lid raising is blocked by the emergency exit door handle, I couldn't be opening that door all the time. Thus, the solution was to cut the lid in two and have two separately hinged sections. The toilet side is easy to lift. The grit bucket side has a hatch to use to get grit. Should that side absolutely need to be opened then I have no problem opening the door or moving the toilet to do so now there's no risk of tipping the slop bucket.

Tomorrow has to be a painting day. Aside from electrics, plumbing and putting knobs on drawers, its time to paint. That means masking tape, rollers, brushes and old clothes! The area requiring attention is the cockpit (primer paint), bedroom table (primer), bathroom (green), dinette (purple). The dinette will be left til last because its full of supplies.

Thinking of electrics, it makes sense to have a 50 Amp socket outside and 3 or 4 sockets at 15 A inside. I can't imagine needing more than 3 sockets. Microwave, fridge and another appliance. I'll see if I can get switched sockets so I can switch unneeded stuff off. No point having the microwave burning up power displaying that silly little clock!

The old Chinese curse

The old Chinese curse was "May you live in interesting times". Around me, things are definitely getting interesting. Thus, the bus project is getting ever more relevant. With recent events in South Carolina, tension could definitely rise.

As far as work on the bus, today, there wasn't much done. I put some great stuff behind my kitchen counter to seal gaps and reduce vibration. Then I had a go at sharpening the broken drill bit. Sadly, as I lack skill in that area, it didn't improve matters much. I cut a couple more pieces of aluminum to go over two holes on the other side of the bus but lacking the drill bit, could not drill rivet holes.

Thus, I headed out to get a drill bit and while I was out I picked up a new shower base. This is black rubber and cost just $19 from Tractor Supply. I suspect it's some kind of feed trough or something but it looks sturdy. Tractor Supply had drill bits and I got a 1/4 inch replacement drill bit but forgot to get a carbide 1/8 inch bit. Oh well, another day.

While I was at Tractor Supply, I looked at their batteries. They had quite some selection, including some deep cycle batteries. Right now I'm somewhat confused about batteries. I hear that I need deep cycle batteries. I can understand that but then I read people writing that some deep cycle batteries aren't. Then I read that some deep cycle batteries with 12 month warranties won't last much more. It's so hard to separate truth from nonsense when you're a beginner.

At $90 for a 108AH battery. It has promise. Given that actual facts available on how deeply a deep cycle battery can be discharged are somewhat rarer than hens teeth, its somewhat hard to know how much promise. Some sites say 80%, some say 45% - its the internet being its usual factually inaccurate self again.

Assuming 80% which seems reasonable, that means a 108ah battery can be used for about 80ah or 1 amp for 80 hours or 80 amps in one hour. My 900 watt microwave that takes an inordinate 10 minutes to cook anything would probably consume about 6ah per hour or about 1ah per use. Based on 3 meals daily, I could use the battery for almost a month between charges. That pretty much makes a mockery of everything I've read on "forums" and "groups". Of course with the wildly contradictory stuff I've read, it all boils down to sucking it and seeing. I have to be my own Guinea pig!

As I said, its all getting quite interesting.

What an awful disaster

Today was pretty much an unmitigated disaster from start to finish. Let's start from the beginning...

Overnight insomnia kept me from having a good nights sleep. Thus at 4am I turned my 6am alarm off. The result was that I missed my Tuesday morning voluntary job. Had I gone in after two to no hours sleep, I'd not have been all that great.

I went out to the bus after breakfast and found I needed to go to the store to buy a few things. Mind, I needed to get out of the house. This was my first trip in a week! My usual job has quit on me for the summer so its a case of not spending anything and minimising travel.

So, I went to the store and got most of the things I need. As usual Lowe's was totally out of 1/8 drill bits. After chasing down a clueless shop assistant who had made haste to bugger off when customers looked likje they were about to approach, it transpired that he'd never heard of carborundum drill bits or diamond tip drill bits. Clearly something too specialised for Lowe's.

By the time I'd finished at Lowe's, I was feeling the heat a bit because it was still over 100F outside. Thus, other things I needed never got picked up.

Returning to the bus, it was just too hot to work inside and thus I decided to work on patching holes. About 12 were just screw holes that I treated for rust and filled with a rivet. Four holes were larger requiring patches. Thus I found a suitable strip of aluminum and cut four patches with my angle grinder. Then I picked up the wrong piece of metal and burned my fingers.

Recovering from signed fingers I drilled a hole in the first piece of aluminum which broke loose from the mount, flipped around and hit my fingernail, breaking it. Cursing, I drilled a hole for the rivet in the bodywork. Then after I slapped silicone glue on the back of the piece of aluminum, I riveted the aluminum on via the first hole. While drilling the second, the drill skipped and the hole didn't end up quite where I wanted so the aluminum when held by the second rivet wasn't straight. The next hole started well enough by then my 1/4 inch drill bit snagged on the edge of a second piece of body panelling, jerked and snapped. Bugger! Now I had a broken drill bit poking out of the hole. It took quite some effort to remove it. Putting the rivet in wasn't easy either as the hole wasn't completely clear. I located another 1/4 inch drill bit that was as blunt as can be. Somehow I managed to make a hole for a rivet then put the rivet in.

At that point I gave up for the day. This was clearly not my day! After going inside I found voicemail on my phone that I should have received days ago but which mysteriously only appeared today though it had been sent days ago. Then a voicemail from my real job saying they'd lost a document and demanding another by two weeks time!

On top of all that, one of my online accounts was questioned by the account provider to the effect they don't believe I am who I say I am. Well, fine. I just don't care. I was threatened with account cancellation if I couldn't produce documentary evidence within 7 days to prove my identity. So... One of my accounts might mysteriously vanish. I just don't care!

Tomorrow I'll have to drive to Lowes for a new 1/4 inch drill bit. It will apparently be well over 100F tomorrow so heaven knows if I'll even be able to work outside the bus. The good news is I have 5 holes ready prepped to rivet patches over. After that I don't have any more bodywork holes to fill.

More good news - I'm just about ready to put primer on the whole of the dinette/kitchenette. There's stuff I'll have to move out of the way but it'll be nice to have it printed. I might prime the bathroom while I'm at it even though I still need to lay down one more board. No photos today - every time I tried my phone, the battery was flat!

Massive but insignificant

Today was a day that started with no real plan. I had a look at the side door lock but decided to do some woodwork instead after realizing it would be easier to start again with the lock installation. For that, buying some longer self drilling screws would help and that means a trip to the store.

Looking at the place where the kitchenette will go, I had to do a lot of picking up, sweeping and general debris removal. By the time I'd taken this photo, I'd installed the two visible cross members. Getting them horizontal and level with each other wasn't easy and involved both my tape measure and my set square (as it has a spirit level) and took an age.

Having installed those members, I installed one on the other (non visible) end. Then I started with the first of the two long members. Getting that trimmed to length with the circular saw and wedging it into place so that it was horizontal, at the right level and correctly oriented took a long time. When it was mounted, it was possible to see how warped it was. Still, that will either be fixed when I wedge in some cross members or won't matter because it'll be hidden by the countertop.

The next order of the day was to fill in under the seat rail. I've been filing in under the seat rails with Styrofoam then screwing OSB into place in front of it. It just means there's one less place for critters to hide. After that, I installed the final cross member, propping one end up in the right place as below.

Having got that end in roughly the right place, I propped the other end in exactly the right place and drilled through the cross members and into the beam then inserted two very big lagging screws.

Having secured that end, I repeated the process at the other end. The end result wasn't as perfect as I'd have liked but is perfectly acceptable. The next thing I did was to lift my weight on the beam. Yes... It will support 200lbs without the central supports that it will soon acquire.

The final result is a massive change from the old kitchenette but was an insignificant amount of work. It took me all day and I got more achieved today than for positively ages but then, the bus was a little cooler. The thermometer read just 99F (38C)! It was the usual work an hour, rest indoors for half an hour, rinse and repeat.

I'm now totally out of 2x4 and probably need to get more. I'm definitely nearing the end of internal construction, even though there's stuff left to finish all along the bus. The countertops will probably be OSB on the basis that I'm going to put vinyl on top anyway.