Virgin Exit

Glancing around my bus, I noticed the sign above the side exit. That had me wondering what manner of schools they have in Tennessee. Perhaps I'm better off just not knowing...

Today I looked at yesterday's work and found I'd inadvertently bolted the leg of the vanity to the floor in the wrong place. I spent quite a while getting it better situated. It's not perfect but its not visibly wrong now.

I know exactly why I got it wrong. Heat exhaustion had set in yesterday. I really, really cannot cope with the ludicrous heat in South Carolina. If I had to spend more thgan 30 minutes working in it, I'd be dead and thats a fact! It takes longer to cool down than it does to get hot.

Anyway, the leg was adjusted satisfactorily and a side cut from my remaining OSB to fill in the side of the vanity. The original top from the original kitchenette I built came in very handy as the top of the vanity. This, by the way, is the only sink in the bus.

Yesterday I looked online at flushing camp toilets, thinking I could out my grey water into the tank and use it twice. It seems most have a leakage problem. That and the $70 price tag had me thinking more about a $8 sheet of OSB, a couple of pieces of $3 2x2, some screws and brackets. I also thought about the problem with ordinary house toilets that seem to block all the time. Dry toilets are so much more hygienic!

Anyway, I worked more on the vanity and ended up with this. I'm probably not going to put a door on the front. I might put a lip to stop things sliding out but as all it will hold is toilet rolls and initially a waste water tank, it doesn't really need a door.

Well, my OSB supplies are dwindling as are all my supplies. I noticed one OSB offcut that would do very nicely as a desk/table in the bedroom. I have a feeling that's where its going to end up. Whether I have sufficient OSB to build my toilet, I'm not yet sure. One thing is certain though and that is that construction is rapidly approaching conclusion. Plumbing will initially be very simple, as will electricity but those are things that can be built up at leisure. I can see my sending off to get the bus registered as a motorhome soon!

Getting into her drawers!

Drawers came to mind today as did painting. I reasoned that to paint, I'd better clean the dinette. Then I reasoned that it would be better if the drawer was completed and in place ready to paint.

It was pretty hot but with the internal door propped open as well as the front and side doors, it was bearable. I put a fan up to blow hit air out of the bus but it didn't improve matters much.

Putting the drawer together wasn't actually that hard. Oh, I can complain and bitch about it and it took until I ran out of wood to put it together but it was all pretty simple. The key was cut accuracy. Everything had to be pretty accurate.

I started days ago by ensuring that all the supports that would be involved with drawers were perfectly symmetrical. Today it was just a case of installing the runner bars and making sure they were horizontal, both at the same height and that they were parallel. So, 3 dimensions of orientation at each end.

Once that had been achieved it was a case of adding the drawer runners, one of which rather usefully captures the slider so that it can only be removed at the end of its run. That helped with measuring the width needed for the wood. Cutting the wood was easy enough.

I only miscut one piece - a mistake I've made before. I simply misread the tape measure which is not that hard when reading the numbers upside down. I cut the wood too short. Sadly I was unable to finish the drawer because the next piece of wood as supplied by Home Depot had been consumed by termites. Now you know why I try to make sure all my wood is pre-treated. The termite problem must have occurred at Home Depot or before. Wood in this condition should never be sold!

After stopping work for supper, I raced down to Lowes to replace the two drill bits that had broken, to get a catch foir the cockpit door and to get some more OSB and 1x4. The 1x4 is excellent for making drawers. As with the 2x4, its wet and I laid it across a stepladder to dry overnight. Speaking of the 2x4, its definitely drying. One piece of the four is still pretty heavy and might need a lot more drying. The rest is probably now usable.

Of course now its dark so nothing can be achieved until the sun reappears. Its getting quite exciting looking at progress...