The beautiful thing about thinking is

That it's absolutely free. In the intervening days between working on the bus and my last entry and subsequently I have come to several realisations.

But first let's return to the exciting events of the other night. No believable news has been forthcoming about events next door. The loud truck has not returned. Some guys in jeans and black tee shirts were seen climbing all over the cabin. Other than that, there has been a complete lack of news. It's one of those things that will forever have to remain a mystery!

I thought about the plumbing system and realised there are two issues. The first is that if the tanks are installed crosswise then there will be a lot of strain placed on the fastenings on acceleration and braking. The second is that breaking fastenings could be disastrous. This has prompted two new lines of thought.

The first line of thought ties in with something else I have read about. Somebody posted that a composting toilet really stinks if urine is introduced to it. Thus, one thought was to reinstall the small handbasin in the bathroom that I removed and plumb it to a tank installed underneath the toilet side of the bathroom. The handbasin is an ideal height to use as a urinal! Having one tank under each side would mean more distance between the ends of the chains used to fasten the tanks and the tyres or the fuel tank. That's a bonus in that a broken chain is less likely to damage a tyre or the fuel tank.

The second line of thought is to put wedges in place so that the tanks can be aligned longtitudanally. Now I have seen people using plywood wedges but to be honest, having seen the hillbilly plywood, I have no intention of using plywood. Perhaps plastic or steel would be a better bet.

A further thought was a method of emptying the dirty water tanks. As I often park on sandy ground, an electrical valve that allows me to empty the tanks without actually getting out to open a valve is very tempting. There are some systems that allow that but they're mostly 24v. 

The important things to complete are the plumbing, the electrical breaker box, the ventillation, the 12v system and the front door unlocking system.

 Just thoughts.

Saloon Doors - the finalé

After holding up my hardboard to the door, it was obvious that smaller panes would have to be used. Thus, I added two extra bars. Then all the fun started...

The first piece of quarter round wouldn't fit nicely against the wood of the door skeleton and the first piece of hardboard wouldn't fit nicely inside the frame. After drilling a hole in the quarter round to screw it down, the quarter round promptly split. I measured another piece of quarter round and checked my measurements then remeasured and rechecked. Then I cut the quarter round and the blasted thing was too short!

At that point I realised that doing it the cheap ass way was as usual going to be far more expensive. Had I bought a piece of hardboard on Wednesday then I'd not have needed a special trip to go and get it. So my $11 piece of hardboard cost a gallon of fuel on top! Yes - I had to go to Lowe's.

The end result was pretty good and clapping the board on one side of each door ended up taking the warpiness out of the doors. They now both seem to line up. I'd been wondering why two doors the same length didn't line up.

That took me through until dusk. Although I do have a lantern in the bus, its not really good enough to work by. I never got as far as putting the shower base mount together.

Earlier in the day, the privacy film that still wasn't adhering in one corner was peeled off before its glue set hard enough to make it difficult. While I was there, the frosting was scraped off one of the four frosted windows. Once all the frosting is gone, privacy film can be applied. I have no idea why the film didn't stick. It could possibly have been that there was a bit of Windex on that corner rather than just soap and water.

While I was out, I looked into my vinyl tablecloth idea. Vinyl tablecloths are not expensive at $8 apiece. The Velcro was expensive though at just over a dollar a foot. Idly, I costed a vinyl floor covering and that worked out at 74 cents a foot. That looks much more achievable though trickier to cut. I'm more thinking of just slapping paint on the countertops and putting vinyl place mats where needed. Anything to cut the stupid costs!

Thinking about power, I'm still not really decided how I'm going to go about it all. A battery bank still might end up making the most sense.

And now, a view of my saloon door from the other direction...

Another thing I saw at Lowe's was cheap privacy blinds which seemed to be concertina paper. The box advocated cutting to size with a craft knife. If they can be raised and lowered, they have potential!