#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.

Bang - ouch - grunt - bang - ouch!

That was pretty much how my day went. I spent most of the day underneath the bus, fitting the back on the power inlet. Now I'm using a Nema 5-30 when the recommended connector is the Nema 6-30. Neither has any particular advantage. Both will carry 30A at 120v. It just so happens that I managed to get 6-30 and 5-30 inlets by mistake. The 5-30 connectors were available but the 6-30 were not so I ended up with the solution I have. It's non-standard because the connectors are designed for two live wires as opposed to live and neutral but it works when one is wired live and the other, neutral.

Fighting with 50A cable in the confined space under the bus is not to be recommended. I bumped my head countless times. In the end and after a lot of time, some of which was wasted by having to fetch tools I had not envisaged needing, I managed to put everything together. The cable was too thick to allow me to install a rubber gromet around it. Well, that's not quite true - the cable was so thick and difficult to manover, I didn't manage to install the rubber gromet. I might return to that tomorrow or I might just squirt some silicone sealant in the gaps.
 
I would like to have some sort of guard around the wire but I'm not sure it's going to be that easy to install. Having said that, I can`t imagine anything is going to hit it, where it is.

Today I made use of the old battery compartment I built. I simply tack welded a brace on one side to make it less flexible then tack welded a top on. Now it's a handy support for my redundant 15 gallon barrel. That's going to be used to collect kitchen grease at m'lady's home.
  
At least it's going to have some use. I'm finding that nothing that came with the bus that was attached by the hillbillies was worth keeping. I spent two months working with various attempts at building compartments before I finally decided it wasn't worth the bother.

After welding the compartment remnants together to form something useful, I turned to the gas cylinder. Cutting it open surprised me. The steel was thicker than I'd thought at about 16 gauge and it was rusty inside. Looking at the thickness of the steel, I wasn't surprised that the bullet didn't penetrate both skins. It did prove that the people that hide behind car doors during a gunfight have a point. 9mm will go through the first leaf then the second will stop the bullet. I was quite surprised about that!

As can be seen, the bottom of the cylinder has indentations. This makes the bottom unsuitable for use as a handbasin. The top is similarly unsuitable as it has not just a valve but a pressure release plate. That's all fixable but it's just too much messing about. Better to look elsewhere for my handbasin.

The bullet was surprising. During its entry, it remained complete but seems to have lost its copper jacket at some point. The copper and lead are two entirely separate entities which probably accounts for the double dent on the non-penetrated side. At a guess, I'd say it shed the jacket as it came in through the entry hole.

As you can see, the jacket and the lead core are now separate! I didn't think this would happen.

In terms of what was done today - I put the power inlet into the bus. The main breaker is not yet installed but might be tomorrow. My 20A cables are 30 feet and 20 feet long. The 30 foot long length is just a shade too short to reach the bus. I could move the power socket and really should but I'll leave it where it is. I'll probably get a 40 foot 30A cable and make that up, maybe tomorrow. Tonight it's just too late to go and buy any cabling. 

After dinner, I took my LED lantern and went back to the bus. I didn't leave it plugged in as I have as yet not installed the main breaker box. I'll get to that tomorrow. Instead, I hung my LED lantern up in the bathroom and put up 10 rivnuts with screw eyes. Those will take S hooks and I will hang my shower curtains from them. 

It might be worthwhile to put a further rivnut and screw eye from which to hang the LED lantern. Very handy for showering in the dark! 

Not mentioned so far today, two more of my self-stick blinds have fallen down. Clearly the glue isn't up to much. I need to get some roller blinds to replace them. I might actually put off getting the 30A cable a while. It's not strictly necessary just yet. The main breaker box is far more important!

If I speed on with a trip to the store tomorrow, there's no reason why I can't clean the bus, install the blinds, install the shower curtain and take photos for the retitling process. The shower curtain will take mere minutes to install. The blinds won't take that much longer. Cleaning isn't going to take a huge amount of time either! There's only 210 square feet of bus!

My first shower

Yes - I'm a dirty bugger - this is my first shower ever. M'lady's water heater died yesterday so there was no hot water last night. Thus, this morning I went to the bus to get my shower equipment. I could have showered in the bus but as the shower base is being used to store screws etc, I didn't venture use the shower in the bus. Mind, I also need to install a shower curtain.

The good - I had a shower and managed to wash my hair, my body and came out clean. 

The bad - the shower unit is new (only been used once for testing) yet the hinge on the battery compartment has broken already. The hose connection from the pump unit to the output hose leaks pretty well.
  
I wasn't really expecting to have to fix the shower unit on its first real use. Thank goodness I didn't pay Amazon's rip-off price for it. I paid $18 rather than $35 because I bought mine on eBay. Same exact thing that Amazon charges more for. Having said that, duct tape is cheap and fixed the problem. I think a more permanent solution will be to put an external battery compartment.

It doesn't look elegant but it works which is the main thing. For the leaky hose connection, I suspect duct tape might not be the best answer. It's too flimsy to crimp the hose too tightly so I suspect the best would be to use a piece of soft copper wire and twist it slowly until it's barely tight. There might always be a leak there.

To use the shower, I half-filled my 3 gallon cooler with cold water then put a kettle full of boiling water into it. The result was luke warm - I could definitely do with two kettles of water. Having said that, I did manage to shower quite successfully. The key to good flow seems to be to mnake very sure there are no kinks in the hose. It definitely performed better today - with far more power than when I first tested my shower unit.

Showering like this definitely takes a while as it needs time to boil a kettle of water. The cooker works very well and the floor underneath does not heat much. I'd say the heat transfer is about on a par with the heat from my microwave.

The Coleman cooker cost me $18 from Walmart and the gas cannisters are $3 each. That's really not bad at all. The shower unit was $18 too. 

In terms of use, I used about a gallon and a half of water to shower. My hair is long and takes a while to shower. The key is to wet it, rub shampoo in quickly then work on rinsing it out before proceding to lower parts. Crouching in the shower worked well. Now if I was some bald dude then I can well imagine using maybe a gallon or less of water. I'm not a bald dude though!

I can honestly say that I really quite like this shower setup. I had thought it might be irksome or problematic but it all went together very nicely. The biggest improvement would be for the pump unit and the battery unit to be separated. Now I have seen some 12v versions of this which would work well enough if I had 12v in the bus. Right now, my unit runs off 4 D cells. 

In conclusion, the shower unit's construction quality leaves something to be desired. The efficacy is good. The cooler worked very well and works as a very handy limiter on the amount of water used. The gas cooker was slow and the kettle didn't hold enough water. The shower I had was very effective and quite pleasant though luke warm due to my cooking up only one kettle of water. The cooker needs some while to cool before being put in its box again. I can't imagine lugging the shower and the cooker if I was actually on a backpacking camping expedition but I suppose somebody woud. The nearest alternative is a gas-powered shower unit that costs $140 or over $100 more. This setup represents very good value and I'll keep using it.

Conceptualising

I had opportunity to continue thinking today. Normally, I just don't get a chance to do my own thinking so I have to buy pre-prepared thoughts from Walmart in the thought aisle. Usually I prefer the Indian spicy throughts with a side of Nancy's Nook. Anyway, I left Walmart with a couple of bottles of ideas in an unmarked brown paper bag.

Today I looked at different ideas for cooking, power and ventillation on the bus. That was prompted by the fact I am about to close-up a large aperture under the bus and that as it is, two compartments could replace the existing one compartment.

One idea I had was to put a gas bottle compartment for cooking and water heating. Lowes has some 4.25lb propane cylinders that are 9 inches tall by 12 inches wide. That sounded pretty interesting. Obviously it would have to be well ventillated so some kind of mesh would make the floor and sides. I have some mesh too though it's very rusty. New mesh is cheap enough. In the end though, I decided against this route as I don't really see the need for extra gas power.
For electricity I was thinking I might use those external cell-phone batteries and charge them from a folding solar panel rested against the windshield from the inside. Now that would charge my phone, tablet and mifi pad but not my camera batteries. Well, that's what I thought until I saw this website http://www.voltaicsystems.com. Actually, having discovered that site, many of my power problems are solved. Basically, I realised the only things I really need power for are my cellphone, mifi pad and tablet. Lighting is taken care of with an LED lantern powered by D cells. My toothbrush and hair clipper both run off AA batteries. My shower head runs off D cells too and in the event the batteries are dead, a manual option can be employed for all but lighting.

For ventillation I had the idea of using a fan to pump air from the ceiling in the bedroom out through a hole in the floor created by the hillbillies. That would be complicated. Better to close-up that ridiculous hole and make a roof vent instead. Now I looked for roof vents and found some interesting ones on the Amazon British website. They were horribly expensive though and only worked for single-skinned vehicles. Going further and back to the electric fan option, there are some solar fans. Perhaps mounted on the outside of the bus with suitable ducting and filters, they might be the solution. They'd need an on-off switch but would be a zero power option. They're also dirt cheap.
So, I don't need an underbody compartment for batteries or gas cylinders. This means I can just weld a plain sheet of steel over most of the exisiting hole. Had I realised earlier that I could have put the master breaker inside the bus, I could have just had steel conduit taking the cable to the power socket and done away totally with the underbody breaker box. Of course, one lives and learns. I didn't know anything about most of the things I have done before I started work. I am not a handyman. I am an office worker. I am prepared to persist and am not afraid to try new things.

Thinking ahead about water, I did see somebody else's conversion in which they had a handpump to pump water from a 5 gallon bucket under their sink. I deliberately have not installed a handbasin in my bathroom or kitchen. In the kitchen, it seems so pointless because everybody washes their dishes in a plastic bowl as it retains heat better than a metal sink. As for water disposal, I can simply chuck it down the shower drain. In the bathroom, the handbasin can be replaced by a bowl and a jug of water. Again the water can be chucked down the shower drain. I have thought about using a footpump to pump water out of an underbody tank. Now the downside of an underbody tank is that they freeze. I'm not worried about that with the waste tanks because 90% of the time, the drain cock will be open and it'll be draining to the ground. The waste tanks are just there for times when an open drain isn't desirable. The upside of an underbody tank is it can hold more. The upside of 5 gallon jerrycans of water mean it's unlikely to freeze as they can be stored inside.

Going back to ventillation, solar powered ventillation over the cooking area and the bedroom look very possible. The downside is they only work during the day and they will look a little odd from the outside. 

In terms of electrical supply, I have already experimented with a $5 USB charger and found it lacking. The other day I ordered a much larger capacity USB charger from eBay for about $9. If that works well then I have my power solution. I didn't realise I was so close to being completed!

In other news my rivnuts for the shower curtain supports arrived. I forgot to pay for my screw eyes so they will be a few days late as it was a few days before I remembered to pay for them.

New ideas keep hitting me!

Two members of the genus Sasquatch strolled past as, wrapped up against the arctic cold, I stepped into the freezing outside world. The aim today was to work on the breaker box compartment with a sub aim of marking the steel to cut to infill the rest of the hillbilly hole.

Last night, as I dreamed of things to be, things that might be and things that couldn't possibly ever be, I had an idea. Why not add brackets to the back of the box in order that extra securing points may be employed. Thus, the first order of the day was to locate some suitable steel, which I derusted manually, welded into place and sprayed with rust killing spray.
While I was at it, I re-welded the seam that was a bit loose that I'd welded yesterday. Yesterday I tried using my welder at the lower amperage setting since I was using thin rods and having a problem of burning through steel. That kinda-sorta worked. 40A was too low to be really useful. 70A is a bit high because extreme care needed to be taken that the rods didn't burn a hole in the steel.

Hunting around, I found my white paint. I set to and gave the assembley a white topcoat, hoping that it really won't matter much that some of the undercoat got burned off by the welding process. As rain is forecast for tomorrow, I placed an upturned planter over the assembly.
Then, looking at the sheet steel I placed behind the hillbilly aperture, I realised that it would probably support the edge of the compartment. I also realised that by being very careful I could probably stitch weld the steel into the hole after it's cut to size.
At least I found a use for the duct tape I had in the bus. It was well on the way to not being at all sticky! The steel for this operation was donated by a seat back from the bus that the hillbillies had not removed. Those with longer memories will recall that I removed it and the handrail that was attached to it in around April.

I sprayed around the perimeter of the aperture with orange paint in order to make an outline for cutting. Then, mindful of the fact rain was forecast and this is probably not galvanized steel, I sprayed inside with white paint.
The loose breaker box and cable are resting on top of an upturned trash recepticle underneath the bus. I must admit they look a load better since they were taken out of the nasty environment of rotting wood. Speaking of rotting wood, I did find some light surface rust where the wood had been in contact with bodywork steel. I treated it with anti-rust spray.

The next step will be to mount the breaker compartment in place and secure it from the front and the back. I had planned to drill holes in the tops of the sides but there isn't room to get the drill inside the box to be able to drill vertical holes. That's as of right now. In the future I might find a smaller electric drill and be able to do it.

If I put the steel infilling behind the bodywork panelling then I could weld it to the edge of the flange on the compartment and it would act as a support. I could rivet the steel over the front of the aperture too. That would solve the problem and old vehicles do have patches riveted over them. This bus is a splendid example, what with all the patches I've rivetted over hillbilly foolishness. I could butt-weld the whole patch into the aperture with the aperture (albeit with a cutout for the breaker compartment).

As far as locating the inlet box, that could be placed under the compartment or to the side. At the side, it could point downwards or go out through the side of the bus. The advantage for going out through the side is ease of access. The downside is it looks like a power socket. On the other hand, from 20 feet not many people would really notice anyway - particularly with a grey vehicle.

The paint is definitely peeling in places. I did read that somebody prepped their bus by wiping down the paintwork with paint thinner. That sounds promising and I might try that where the paint peels off. In fact that sounds easier than brushing down to bare metal, priming and painting. I can try it and if it doesn't work, I can try something else. It's not as though it has to be instantly perfect. It has to be comfortably livable inside - which it will be when the shower curtains are in place and it's all cleaned up.

12v electricity is a long-term project that will be installed at some future point. After infilling the hole in the side and installing the breaker compartment I might move on to installing the waste water barrels. I have considered various options and come to the conclusion that nylon cargo straps are the way to go. There seem to be three ways of securing barrels. I have seen some ideas that use plywood cradles but that just seems nuts having seen the way plywood under the bus just rots. 

The three ways are to use chains anchored to the skeleton and wrapped around the barrels, to use nylon cargo straps and to use plumbing strap. Each has its advantages and disadvantages. Cargo straps are pretty universal, easy to install and easy to obtain. Chains are equally easy to obtain but harder to tighten and install. Plumbers strap probably needs a special tool to apply that I don't have. 

Discounting plumbing strap, I'm left with chains or cargo straps. Chains are excellent and very strong but only as strong as the weakest link. As the tanks will be pretty close to the back wheels (unless I can situate them further forward) then there is a possibility that the chain could drop down and get wrapped around the wheel with catastrophic consequences. Nylon straps would just snap at 300lbs pressure. They'd also be kinder to the plastic barrels. Thus, catastrophic failure is not as likely. Some question how well the straps will last but protected from UV and kept dry (the only wet will be road spray) there is no reason why they should not last a good long time. Doubling them up would add extra security. The attachment points for the straps could easily be steel plate with a hole drilled in it that's simply riveted to the body skeleton.

Tomorrow, if it's raining as promised, it's unlikely I'll be able to do much outside the bus. As far as I know, the rivnuts and screw eyes I ordered on Friday won't be here tomorrow. Those will complete the shower curtain attachments. Another thing that could be done is to work out some way of raising the 3 gallon cooler that forms the basis of my shower in order to increase the efficiency of the impeller pump.

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.

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!

Ouch! My sore arse...

Now I know what a gay man feels like! My arse is still very tender after sliding down those stairs the other day. Indeed, it's now a nice shade of purple. I did wonder how close to the purple of the galley area of the bus it is but it would be hard to color match and I'd have to get somebody else to hold up the color matching cards. I don't think the world is quite ready to see my bare arse!

Today I fully intended to get to work on the coil for the front door unlocking system but as soon as I got to the thing, the glue had failed where I'd glued the enamel wire to the brass tube. That was addressed by cleaning the glue off the tube and the wire then wrapping aroud and spraying with varnish. That should hold it. If not then I'll have to go back to taping it.

Meanwhile, those with longer memories will recall my bathroom vanity. I'd cut a hole in some wood to make the original kitchen fixture back around January and then subsequently recycled the wood when I built the current vanity to include the original handbasin that came with the bus. As that handbasin totally lacked any means of securing it to the vanity and as it also had two large holes for water piping that I coudn't easily fill, I removed it and replaced it with a piece of OSB cut to size.

Today - even though it was pouring with rain, I took that OSB to one of the abandoned sheds on m'lady's land and sprayed it white. The paint dried to touch dry astonishingly quickly given that it was - as I said - pouring with rain. 

Having sprayed both sides, I took the OSB to the bus and set it in place. I'll screw it down tomorrow. It had been dark, rainy and overcast all day so by the time it was dry enough to put in place, it was already dark.

The plan is to stand a jug and a bowl on the vanity top. Think back to the Gary Cooper westerns where in the hotels there was a chamber pot in the room and a bowl with a jug for washing. This setup gives me so much more flexibility because after washing I can just open the emergency exit door (conveniently situated to the left of the toilet) and simply chuck the water out. In more regulated climes, I can empty it into the bucket underneath the vanity ready to empty at leisure. Now the downside of this arrangement is that unlike an ordinary handbasin, I now have nothing that doubles as a urinal unless I use the shower. Fortunately I do have my bucket and I suppose that could double though it'd have to be scrubbed every time it was emptied or it'd begin to smell. On the other hand since Walmart buckets are $2.50 and the lids $2, it's no hardship to treat myself to a new one every now and then.

Thinking about the front door unlocking mechanism, if the current electro magnet idea doesn't work then I might work on some kind of cam mechanism and an electric motor. That stands a reasonable chance of success though it would have to be designed such that it doesn't remain in the unlocked position.

When the rain finally stops, I'll be able continue with construction on my battery compartment. That will first require the battery compartment floor components to be derusted, painted and welded into the compartment. Then I'll paint the whole compartment. The sides will be thinner and riveted in place after the whole thing has been welded underneath the bus.

I realised I should try to get the bus retitled as soon as possible. I need to get the plumbing under the bus completed which will basically be a downpipe going to a U bend then down to a tap that I can close when I don't want to let water out. Being closable also means it's a way of keeping critters out.

Cooking is an interesting thing. For cooking, the answer could be electric, gas or tea-lights. I've been reading about cooking using tea lights and how many preppers use tea lights for their cooking needs. I already know how to blanch almonds using a candle and a spoon but this is more interesting. I like the idea of using tea lights as the worst that can happen handling a tea light is that it melts in the heat or bounces on the floor when dropped. Unlike liquids or gasses, they're much more controllable. They also keep almost forever and the biggest thing of all - they're pretty darned cheap. Now the downside is soot but as I was already going to have to install some kind of exhaust vent, it shouldn't be a great problem.

Thinking about exhaust vents, I could put one at the top of the window I filled in or I could make a hole through both layers of the roof. On the whole, I suspect they both have the same number of problems. The biggest will be leakage and then insulation. I don't think welding will be a good solution for the vent. 

Another epiphany

Toda started with the usual tummyache after eating too much on Christmas day. Then I headed outside to do battle with the metal that I dragged out of the bushes a few days ago that looked like an ideal floor for my battery compartment.

Cutting thin metal is always a challege for my angle grinder - which is now working perfectly thanks to the new carbon brushes and I went through several grinding disks. Good job I bought a second 10 pack of disks a while ago! Just look at the state of the disk I've just been using.

I cut the steel construction I found a few days ago, cutting the edge off one side and cutting it in two such that when two edges are welded together, the construction will be approx 18" by 29" which is about the size of my battery compartment.

As the steel had some handy folded edges, these will act as a strengthening bar down the center of the compartment. Very useful. I had, however to trim the excess fold off as it is somewhere water is likely to collect.

While cutting the floor of the battery compartment, a thought came to mind that has occurred before - namely why I'm even putting a battery compartment. I definitely need access to my main breaker panel and that's always best under the bus. Other than that, I can store the cables more securely inside the bus.

Given that I'm not putting a big house battery, the point of a battery compartment is somewhat questionable. Having said that, it does set me up for future expansion.

Thinking about batteries I was wondering about using NiMh batteries rather than lead-acid or lithium. Lithium batteries are just horribly expensive. NiMh batteries just don't seem to be available in 12v. This is a bit annoying! Out of interest, I looked up NiMh AA batteries and found I could get 48 for $24 and 3,000mah each. If they were put in sets of 10, giving 12v per set then I'd get 4 sets at 12,000mah or 12Aah. 

Thinking further about the NiMh idea, 6v would be way easier to work with just 4 batteries put in series. The downside is that all the charge controllers are set up to charge lead-acid or lithium batteries. To my mind, NiMh is way better than lead-acid because it doesn't gas and can be completely discharged without harming the battery.

Given that the only power I'd need would be to charge my phone, tablet and batteries for my LED lantern and my shower pump, I could probably get away with just D cells and a solar D cell charger. The D cells could in turn power a USB charger. Heaven knows how long that would take to recharge my phone though.

There are a whole load of different options out there for power. My favorite for cooling and for refrigeration at the moment are fans powered solely by solar power and a fridge powered solely by solar. The cold could be maintained in a fridge by simply using freezer blocks. The fans need only to remove heat when the sun is shining. As for the rest, lighting, the shower pump and phone charging - these can all be done from NiMh D cells. For the moment though, I shall continue the plan to install the battery compartment and the shower outflow.

Meanwhile, in a stunning development, the bathtub that m'lady often complained about has vanished. It didn't so much vanish in a puff of smoke but more behind a garden tractor and was hauled to one of the junk piles in the back yard.

It certainly looks better without the bathtub. For those with long memories and the ability to hunt through this blog, the bathtub came out of the original construction. It was used for most of the last year as a handy trash recepticle and had it not been full of trash, would have been easy just to carry.

Things are definitely progressing. The last thing done today was to paint the underside of the new bathroom vanity. This vanity will not have a sink. Instead it will have a removable plastic bowl that can be emptied either into a bucket or down the shower and hence into the bucket under the shower or onto the ground.
Apparently emptying water that's been used for hand washing is frowned upon. That seems to be just plain bizarre to me but I suppose if dumping grey water was approved, people would stretch it further and dump sewage too. Honestly though, as long as its buried properly even sewage can be disposed of outdoors without harm to the environment.

I might recover

Today started with the intention of taking my car for an oil change and getting a few things for the bus. That's when all the trouble started..

Reaching the dog food place I'd been told about, there were plenty empty 30 gallon open top barrels. Sadly they're too big at 18 inches diameter. I need 15 gallon barrels. Resigning myself to having to buy barrels at $40 each plus $20 shipping, I headed to Home Depot.

As normal in Home Depot, nobody could understand basic English so I spent the next hour browsing the plumbing bits. The plan was to sling a barrel underneath the bus using nylon cargo straps. It was then that I had an epiphany... Why not instead of using 15 gallon drums, use a few 5 gallon buckets with lids from Walmart at $2.50 for the bucket and $2 for the lid? I hunted in vain for a threaded tube with nuts that could be used with rubber gaskets to create a waterproof port through the bucket lid. This would have been ideal but bar a product sample display, nothing was available.

Abandoning the bucket or barrel idea, I bought some Allen keys that would allow me to disassemble my Harbor Freight grit blaster head in order to work on it. As 13/64 was the recommended drill size for a 1/4x20 bolt, I also bought two such drill bits with hexagon heads.

Moving on to Tractor Supply, I picked up a handful of nuts and a handful of stop nuts. Then I emptied the 1/4x20 by 1" bolt drawer into a bag. There weren't many left but they're all mine now. Checking for water tanks, they had a 30 gallon tank that looked very nice but it was way too large. I looked and they had better plumbing supplies than Home Depot but nothing that would make my bucket idea work properly. I left after buying just nuts and bolts.

The next step was the garage for an oil change. Sadly I was too late (at 3:00) as they were packing up to go home. Typical! From there I went to Walmart where I intended just to get a soft drink and some batteries. There, I had another epiphany. I realised that under the shower outflow, I could just put a bucket with a lid. Under the bathroom handbasin I could just put a bucket with a lid too. Tanotherr), I purchased three buckets. One for shower water, one for handbasin water and one for the toilet. This Walmart had no buckets.

While in Tractor Supply I had noticed blue plastic 5 gallon Jerry cans for $25 each. Walmart had two of the same blue plastic Jerry cans for $13 each. They don't now!

Moving swiftly on, the next stop was Radio Shack for some electronic gubbins. Four capacitors, two battery holders and a couple of other little things reminded me what an outrageously expensive place Radio Shack is! I should have ordered from China via eBay, waited 2 weeks and paid 10% of what Radio Shyster charged.

Next was fuel. That was a ripoff too. Last time it was $1.75 a gallon. Today it was $2 a gallon! Moving swiftly on after putting $20 in the tank, I visited the next Walmart for something not available at the first - the buckets. In that Walmart I got the three buckets and noticed the blue plastic Jerry cans were $15. Clearly different Walmarts have different prices.

Actually, the three local Walmarts are quite wild. The one in Red Bank has somewhat of a reputation for sleaze and gunfights in the car park. The one in Lexington has ladies of the night doing their shopping. The one in West Columbia closes at 10pm because they get robbed if they stay open later. That's probably the most dangerous Walmart as I've seen cars riddled with bullet holes in their car park.

So, I proceeded home. The first task was to work on the grit blaster gun. I cleared some clogs and enlarged some holes as suggested on the reviews of the grit blaster. If it doesn't work at all now then I haven't lost anything because it didn't work before.

The new plan for bus plumbing is to use the shower just as a shower, the bathroom handbasin as a handbasin and have the handbasin empty into a bucket. A different bucket goes under the shower outflow. That might benefit from extra plumbing in order to make positioning the bucket easier. Fresh water is carried in 5 gallon Jerry cans. There's plenty room to stand them in the shower when the shower is not in use.

The plan for the electrical compartment remains the same. I'll drill out the holes to 13/64 and put 1/4x20 bolts through. Meanwhile, if it turns out I need to cook and don't have electricity, I can simply use a sterno stove on a fireproof pad.

The 5 gallon Jerry cans were somewhat of a brainwave. They stand very nicely by the shower. Another will fit (when I get it) very nicely beside the bucket underneath the handbasin. I'm not too bothered about collecting shower water as I rather suspect that nobody will much notice nor care about it. Besides, I can always say somebody pinched the bucket!

I attacked the problem of the door mechanism next and put 6v from D cells into my electro magnets. They refused to repel each other. Clearly something is amiss there! I'll put those down as being cheap Chinese junk. I have never before encountered an electro magnet that would attract steel and attract another electro magnet but would not repel another electro magnet when the power, hence the fields are reversed or rather, opposing.

Next I put some numbers on the bus. Tractor Supply had the cheapest numbers at 48 cents each. I realise I could have sprayed the bumpers but since the Rustoleum garbage doesn't seem to stick to anything whether the surface has been prepared or not, I just used stick on letters rather than spending time with a stencil and a paintbrush.

Clearly I'm going to have to wind my own electro magnets. This, I can do. I'll have to buy some thick enough bolts but that looks like being the solution.

Plumbing has been downgraded to a much simpler and cheaper affair. Indeed, I wonder whether now, its better on several grounds. The cable compartment as is, kinda works. It's just not safe for a battery. Thus, rebuilding that is a priority.

Thinking about protecting crockery in drawers, another yoga mat could be sliced up in order to make liners and dividers. Clearly I need to tidy and clean the bus. The inside is pretty well done. I just need to clean the floors, put in drawer liners where needed, put up some curtains and shower curtains etc. One problem I had was that my bucket won't fit in the toilet side of my toilet unit. The square kitty litter box will, however. Clearly I need a second kitty litter container. I must have designed it like that and forgotten.

I'm definitely going to have to put some kind of solar panel to maintain the bus batteries. I can't have them going flat all the time! There's probably a power leak somewhere and that'll just be hard to trace!

I'll have to see now about registering the bus as a motorhome.