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.

Getting into her drawers again

After rescuing my damsel in distress to the tune of $2135, I returned to the bus. There really wasn't much left of the day so what was done seems paltry.

The usual problem of heat exhaustion keeps cropping up. I still
need to take more breaks than I would like. The humidity was pretty high which didn't help.

Despite all that, I plugged on, trimmed 4 pieces of 2x2 and fastened them so they're level, ready to attach drawer runners and install drawers. The plan was for four drawers. Then I hit a snag. One set of runners is incomplete. It's also a bit long. All the runners above the seat rail can be 18 inches but the one below has to be 16. Clearly I'll have to hit Lowe's for that. I'm also running low on 1.25 inch drywall screws. I have enough for now but will have to buy more, probably.

Having installed all four strips of wood for the drawer runners, the sky darkened and rain began to fall. That pretty much was the end of work for today.

The drawers I put in yesterday vary. Two are a little stiff and one opens freely. It's probably not worth redoing them but for the sake of ease of use, I might have a go at adjusting them. At least silicone glue can be removed. All I have to do is to peel them apart when the bus is hot. Silicone glue hates heat.

I'm certainly looking forward to completing the project. I've already decided that the first trip I'm going to make with the bus will be a one or two night stay at Sesquicentennial State Park about 40 miles away, just to run a good test on all the systems.

4 screws to a marathon!

The idea was simple - to bolt the final upright into place for the front closet. Practice was a different matter entirely! It didn't help that the temperature was 111Fahrenheit either!

The first bracket bolted in nicely. Then after such little exertion as drilling two holes in the wood and two holes in the seat rail then bolting a bracket to the rail and screwing the bracket to the wood, the heat was too much and I had to retreat indoors.

Returning to the fray which was now 97F, I marked the place for the second bracket, having checked the wood was vertical. I drilled thge holes and bolted the bracket to the side of the bus then had a problem.

The head protector on the door lintel was blocking access for the drill to make holes to screw the wood to the bracket. Fortunately it was held on only by 3 self drilling screws. Those were undone and as normal, most just spun in their holes. One went bouncing down the steps and out the door into yard debris.

I resolved to replace the screws with rivnuts. Enlarging the holes was easy enough though one hole had been mangled by whoever put the protector up. So, I got on with my beam and after securing that, turned my attention to the protector.

Two rivnuts went in well, the third not so well. When the protector was in place, one bolt just spun, indicating that removing it if I have to will require an angle grinder! Maybe I'd have been better off using rivets?

Having done it all, I measured for a low cross member then stepped back to admire my work. Looking up and down, it looked fine. Then I saw it! The vertical was straight until the bottom 18 inches. The bottom 18 inches bowed forward. More of America's "wonderful" wood! How a country can build homes with wood of the low quality available, I don't know! Anyway, as it has only to support an OSB panel, its not too bad.

Knocking off for the evening with sweat pouring off me, I noticed how the bus had sunk into the ground. I suppose 13 tons will sink a bit. Probably time to start the engine again and move it a bit!

Timetable to drawers

As many of you know, I made a drawer base a few days ago. Then I did nothing because it was simply too hot. I've realised the heatwave is continuing so I'm now working in briefer spurts. The temperature in the cockpit of the bus a couple of days ago was astounding. Read the thermometer!

Thus today I set to , to complete my drawer. No plans have ever been drawn up for anything I've done in the bus so far and its all working wonderfully. The first thing was not to start work but to fix a plumbing leak in m'ladys yard. Then it was a case of feeding and watering chickens and doing the myriad of other things one does on a homestead.

Eventually I managed to measure and cut three planks of 19 inches and 15 inches with the circular saw. That was enough and I had to go inside to cool down. It was 104F outside and hotter in the bus. In fact, the bus feels like an oven when I'm inside!

Returning to the bus after cooling down, I worked on cutting two more short planks for the drawer. Sweat was dripping onto the floor with a splashing sound and running into my eyes giving blurry vision and a stinging sensation.

Eventually, after yet another trip into the house to cool off, I assembled the final parts of my drawer. It's definitely heavy. I just hope the runners are up to it!

It could have done with a little sanding and fine fitting but it works. It is my first ever drawer. The next drawer will be lighter and I might just abandon using Lowes $7 runners and just use wooden runners instead. Far cheaper and simpler!

Onward... The next thing to do to the dinette is to put a countertop and two cupboard doors! After that I can paint it and call it mostly completed.

Fighting the good fight but not really seeing much progress!

Today was mildly frustrating in that nothing stunning was achieved but problems abounded. I couldn't do any carpentry because the 2x4 is still wet. In fact I decided to leave one piece outside until tomorrow to see if it improves any, even risking it getting warped.

Overnight I left 2 pieces of 2x2 out due to their mouldy appearance. Well, today I sanded them and they look a load better. They're definitely not treated 2x2 contrary to Home Depots claim. After putting them into the bus, I saw the 3rd piece of 2x2 from Home Depot and sanded that too. That had some nasty looking dark marks and now it doesn't!

I had a go at installing the bathroom handbasin and put in a piece of 2x2 that's the correct length and perfectly level. That's as far as it went. The next piece of wood just didn't cut right then didn't mount right so I decided to skip that for the moment.

I'd have loved to have done the cockpit door but because I have 2x4 lying uncut in the bus, there was no way I could even attempt to build my door. The wood would have stopped it swinging. I thought about making a drawer but that would have been a new learning experience that would probably be better done en masse - do all the drawers at one time.

I did get on with some metalwork. I cut off the surplus metal that had been welded to the seat back tubing. Now all that's left is some blobby welds that I'll have to reduce when I switch out the cutting wheel for a grinding wheel on my angle grinder.

Another thing I did was to install the other part of my door lock. That went pretty much OK though the door needs to be partially opened by the big door lever in order to get the lock to move. The shim I had to put behind the lock is a little too thick. Without it, the lock wouldn't work. In fact, I battled most of the day to install that lock plate. The end result is that yes, it works but I'm not 100% happy with the implementation. I am however relieved that I have two working locks on the bus that can be opened from outside. Now it'd be rather hard to be totally blocked from entry.

No pictures today. I didn't achieve anything of which I am sufficiently proud. I did, while having lunch, look at an interesting YouTube video in which a guy made an instant water heater from a pair of 110v heating elements and some aluminum tubing. There was a 12v water heater too but I didn't watch the video. It did set me thinking though about whether I could get a 3 gallon immersion heater. That should be sufficient for a good shower combined with a shower head that cuts the water off when its not actively being used.

Today the temperature rose to 105f (40.5c) inside the bus. That made working on the door lock for a couple of hours real fun. Sweat was pouring off me. Doing the bathroom sink should be easier as its right beside the door.

While I was in the area, I measured the shower area at 34 by 53. The water trough I saw in Tractor Supply yesterday for $18 looks like it'd make an excellent shower bottom. It just needs a drain to be installed. That should be easy and I'm not restricted about where to put the drain either. There isn't one so I can make it where its convenient for the bus!

Right now, its frustrating because progress is slow due to the heat. Progress is imperceptible. I know I need to buy more OSB but I'm holding off on trips due to my lack of income. As I said before, my job ended for the summer and my applications thus far haven't produced as much as an interview.

I'm hoping to get the bathroom sink base completed tomorrow. That's something I can do without using OSB though to put the sides on, I shall need some.

As far as the $40 shower base I bought. I'll just have to write that off as a bad buy and won't ever return to Bonner's Wholesale. I did look at Habitat for Humanity Restore but their stuff looked no better. I'm better off ignoring secondhand and salvage as its always wasted money. What really pisses me off is that I worked damn hard for that money that got wasted on the garbage shower base. Oh well, tomorrow's another day!