Some people....

By way of a change, milady and her erstwhile junior companion and I went out for a meal. That, of course was followed by ladies favorite sport - shopping. Needless to say, today Lexington town center was blocked off by a children's parade or something. This meant I could not follow my heart and buy bus stuff. That, as it turned out was rather fortuitous.

Returning to the bus following a lengthy session at Walmart I set to work. The first thing I did was to install the U bend I created last time.

Following that, I looked under the bus and ascertained where to drill the hole for the drain. Reckoning on a good spot, I drilled a pilot hole that I could fill readily if it was in the wrong place. Checking underneath it was ideally placed. Thus I whipped out my masonry hole saw and within a few minutes that seemed like centuries due to my having to lie on my toilet with my head under the sink, I had a very nice hole that I quickly sprayed against rust.

Looking at my plumbing plan, it transpired that if I needed to remove the bend at some point in order to remove foreign objects, I would be unable to. That led to some fast replanning and a decision to use flexible pex tubing and screw connectors. That would also allow me to empty the sink into a bucket if required by simply redirecting the hose.

Needless to say, a trip to Lowes (hiss, spit) ensued. That ended up with my sitting on the floor of the plumbing aisle trying to find bits that fitted together. My mission was somewhat complicated by  customers asking whether I - clad in paint-stained pants, a riped and paaint-stained shirt and torn-up tennis shoes - was a plumber. One would have thought that as I wasn't displaying half a yard of arse crack the answer was clearly negative on that count! Another thing that complicated matters was the seemingly complete failure of Lowes (hiss, spit) to keep the right items in the right containers. At least one box had just one of the items I needed but buried under a sea of things that bore no possible resemblance to the description on the shelf marker. It was pretty much a lucky dip!

Leaving Lowes (hiss, spit) after what felt like an eternity but which could not have been more than a couple of hours, I headed to Walmart. There, milady has tasked me to find her some Mountain Dew. That's when the fun really started....

Walking along the aisles I found Walmart's last five bottles of Mountain Dew. I could carry four but the fifth proved too much of a challenge. Needless to say, I'd neglected to obtain a shopping cart. As there was no point in letting a single bottle of milady's favorite drink escape, I returned hurriedly with a shopping cart.

Having loaded all five drinks on the cart, which was not perhaps the finest in the world, I pushed it toward the checkout. The cart had a misshapen wheel that caused it to bounce in rather the manner of the Duracell bunny on crack.

The first checkout had a line as far as the eye could see The next was the same. I raced along the row of checkouts seeing lines that crossed the horizon at every one of the few that were open. Finally I reached he gardening section and their line was wrapped around several displays. I headed back to the first checkout in the desperate hope the line would have shortened.

Sure enough, there was a checkout available. As I pushed the cart to the conveyer I became aware that my cart was dripping. Checking the bottles it transpired one was responsible. There was a trail of drips behind me. Picking up the offending bottle I discovered it was spraying sticky Mountain Dew very strongly from the bottom of the bottle. It was hosing down the checkout pretty thoroughly. Fair do - the cashier leapt into actio! She quickly scooped up the bottle and stuffed it into a plastic bag then moped up the trail swiftly with paper towels.

Needless to say, if I had left with the four I could carry, this whole incident might have been avoided. The funniest thing though - I messaged to friends that the bottle had been spraying and hosed down the checkout. That's not what their minds expected fro Walmart. Their imaginations went off on the lines of the People of Walmart website The imagined somebody standing at the checkout, urinating. The only time I have seen that is women squatting in the car park to pee.

Returning home I returned to work  on the bus. By the time I had knocked off for the night, the ex tubing was ready to install. Other than that it is time to work under the bus. That has to be done in the daylight however.

Last rites.

My first mission of the day was as a gravedigger. During the day at some point, a rather splendid and fairly large bird had flown into the upper rear door window, killing itself and leaving a greasy mark on the window. I have to clean that off later. For the moment I Satisfied myself by fetching a shovel and burying the corpse by some bushes in the front yard.

Inside the bus I put together the U bend for the handbasin. That didn't take too long and included 6 PVC plumbing parts. It all worked pretty well. I'm pretty happy with that.

Again, no photo. I'd just got that done when I was reminded why I need a better job. Working with kids, I get just about every bug and particularly tummy bug possible. I make sure never to eat near children and maintain scrupulous personal hygeine. It doesn't help much though as most of these bugs are airbourne. Yes - I got hit by the need to visit the smallest room.

As I've said before, it doesn't matter how great your resume is in South Carolina, you don't get anything good in terms of work without paying bribes. I refuse to compromise my morals by complying with that low standard of honesty. The aim of the bus is to give me somewhere to live and work from Monday to Friday that I can just take wherever my work will be. Weekends I can spend back at m'lady's ranch.

In terms of closeness to completion, I have to finish plumbing my waste tank in, install a front door unlocked, weld over the rear window. Then there is the fresh water tank and some testing and proving. It's almost there!

I must be the biggest sucker

No photo again but today's work didn't merit it. Two things were achieved but only two.

Those that can cast themselves back a couple of blog entries will recall that I ran out of rivets putting the steel plates over the sites of the old schoolbus flashers. Well, today despite feeling quite yucky from working, I replaced the four screws used temporarily with rivets then sprayed over with grey paint. Not very exciting but worthwhile.

My other accomplishment or rather the reason I consider myself to be the world's biggest sucker stems from an experiment I carried out today. Those with very long memories will recall I bought a pair of electromagnets from China some months ago. It has already been established that no matter what polarity current was supplied to it (which would normally alter electromagnetic polarity), the electromagnet never would change polarity. In fact, it seemed to be both polarities simultaneously. Two identical electromagnets would not repel each other. They would just attract. Similarly no matter which polarity of permanent magnet was introduced to the electromagnet, the electromagnet could never be persuaded to repel the permanent magnet. Pretty strange and rather useless.

Today I tried the electromagnet for its attractive purposes. Fail again! It would attract but as a 9v magnet, it would attract from around 1/8 inch but very feebly. It would grip something strongly but was utterly useless in all other respects.

My goal is to engineer a way of opening the bus front door. What I'm trying to do is to lift the locking latch on the front door opening mechanism. Carpenter did employ an electric door opener but my bus has only a manual opener. Had I had the electric version, I could have simply tapped into the circuit with a remote opener. Looking around those would set me back $500. That's just too costly!

Clearly I was a fool to believe any Chinese electronic gizmo would actually work. I do buy bits from China but that was my first electronic gizmo. Oh well, lesson learned. Don't buy any electronics from China.

Looking around, there are some linear actuators on sale. That would make the door an electric only affair. That would make exit in an emergency somewhat interesting so I'd have to put some way of bypassing the electrical system. Sounds interesting though!

Barfworthy!

No photos today. I did work on the bus but not very much. I started the day by heading to Lowes (hiss, spit).

On the way to Lowes (hiss, spit) I became aware of not feeling too well. I pressed on and got the stuff needed from there. That was entirely plumbing supplies.

Having left, my next stop was Tractor Supply where I got the steel rivets Lowes (hiss, spit) can't be bothered to stock. I also got the hardware needed to hang a fresh water barrel. Still not feeling well, I headed off to Home Depot.

At Home Depot I was feeling pretty rough and forgot the jubilee clips I'd wanted but did get the turnbuckles needed for the water tank. Having done that, I started home.

Feeling like death walking, somehow - with breaks lying down in a cold dark room, I managed to unload the car into the bus. While in the bus I paused to gather a handful of receipts that m'lady is totting up for me. I remember telling her not to let me know how much it has cost until it is complete. I don't want to faint!

In my only construction act today, I drilled two holes and riveted a handle to the outside of the folding door. Now I have something to hold onto when I close the door. This will make life so much easier. Needless to say, putting it on was distinctly challenging. First it was dark and I had to hang a lantern off a nearby tree branch. Second, the riveter didn't cooperate well. Drilling the holes was no problem. It was the riveting that was hard. It seemed as though the riveter was sliding on the rivet pin rather than pulling it. It seemed to take forever, switching between riveters but it was done, by which time I was almost about to indulge in psychedelic yodelling!

A couple more trips into the cold, dark room and I'd locked everything away for the night. M'lady was concerned that I should eat but as what I have seems to be a migraine, it was avoided.

Meanwhile, I heard back from the DMV. It only took them a month to tell me I have to send them $15 and my bus title to get it retitled as a motorhome. I suspect they might want to inspect too but that I'm ready for.

Getting down and dirty

Today was a day of achievement and visible achievement at that! In short, the plumbing under the shower is complete. There is a question as to whether I should perhaps add a jubilee clip on each end of the pex tubing so I probably will, just to be sure.

The nuts on the cable grips were replaced with stop nuts. Getting them off was easy despite the application of Locktite Blue Thread Locker. I had anticipated a struggle given the instructions to heat the screw to 700F to release the Thread Locker. I had to do no such thing. Clearly Thread Locker is a garbage product trading on unsubstantiated claims. It was applied to clean, new bolts and the nuts installed just after the stuff had been poured liberally over the threads. It just didn't stick. This is why I trust stop nuts. They just don't vibrate loose. As it transpired, there was insufficient space on the thread for two nuts so I only had to work on one barrel. The other already has stop nuts.

The next thing was to replace the screws and clean up the excess silicone goop from when I installed the sheet metal over the schoolbus flashers. I ran out of 3/16 steel rivets. I'd been rather overzealous with my fastnings and had clearly put 27 holes in each plate. I'll get more rivets tomorrow.

It looks a little better now. A little less obvious. I didn't feel it was worthwhile to weld though soldering would have been useful had I a functional propane torch. While I was up there I replaced the broken CB aerial. This time, rather than having it vertical, I have angled it slightly in order to lessen the chance of tree branches snapping it off.

Now is getting to be the kind of weather when working under the bus is getting unpleasant. Fortunately I don't have much that is truly essental to do underneath. I had to brush off one tick, swat one mosquito, brush off some ants and a couple of spiders. Right beside the bus were a couple of anthills.

Clearly it is going to get really unpleasant soon. The good news is that I have only two things that need doing under the bus. The first is to redo the hillbilly wiring. Now for that I might just get my mechanic friend involved. As for the other, it's a case of doing the plumbing under the sink into the other barrel. For that I need to get a new sink connector and a 1.5 to 1.25 inch piping adaptor plus some 1.25 inch piping. I found my hole saw makes 1.25 inch holes so it seems better to get cheap piping to fit rather than an expensive hole saw the right size. Of course, under the bus, the piping has to reduce to 0.75 inch tubing as I have a lot of 0.75 and my junction is 0.75. I'll further need another 0.75 to 0.5 pex adaptor. The whole plumbing setup is nonstandard because of different ideas that have cropped up as I have been working.

In some places I have overspent. In other I have had bargains. I'm pleased with the hosepipe valves that I picked up for $2 in Walmart. They are way cheaper than anything Lowes (hiss, spit) had. As there will be no real pressure, they don't even have to be very strong!

I am sure my waste water system will leak though I don't know how much. Some leakage is desirable in order to reduce the need to actively dump the waste water. In actual fact, it's just soapy water used for washing. That's not really dirty. The only problem will be non biodegradable deturgents.

I have been giving thought to carrying freshwater and located a 15 gallon barrel at Walmart for $47. That's quite a bargain when U-Line sells them for $41 with $30 shipping. Either that or a 220 mile drive to the nearest U-Line suplier. At 19mpg and $1.85 a gallon, paying shipping would be cheaper than visiting U-Line. Anyway, the Walmart solution sees best. A manual pump also seems in order. Those seem to be between $20 and $60 with electric pumps coming in even cheaper. An alternative to the pump would be just to draw water from under the bus via one of those handy Walmart $2 faucets.

Right now, the goal is to obtain the supplies needed in order to complete current operations. The back door lower window needs to be replaced with something solid. That will involve welding. In fact, quite a lot of welding and some grinding in order to make it smooth. 

Finally, the front door locking mechanism needs addressing. I have encountered linear actuators that sound interesting though pricey. Currently I'm returning to an old idea using the two electromagnets I bought from China that won't repel anything magnetic. Rather than have them pushing the latch upward, pulling it upward - if they're strong enough. Placement will be ultra critical however.

On the whole though progress is painfully slow, I am happy with what has been achieved thus far. I am looking into some kind of fireproof box to keep important documents safe. By that, I mean passports, insurance, registration and citizenship documents. Sadly, thus far, all I am encountering are pretentious pieces of junk. I am seeing fire proof boxes calling themselves safes and sporting ludicrous things such as combination locks and keypads. How utterly insane! All I need is a fireproof box with a latch. I don't want to fuss about with locks or fiddly trash like combination locks. Most of those alleged safes can be picked up and carried away for later opening or can be quickly opened with an angle grinder or a can opener!

Feeling like death warmed up!

Today, in a radical departure from the norm, this blog entry is being entered via my smartphone with the task being made easier by a bluetooth keyboard. Now the reason for this is simple - after my Macbook started playing the fool, I switched to using an RCA tablet. Three months after I bought it, the USB charger decided to give out, leaving me pretty much with an RCA branded frisbee. As it appears RCA will simply toss the tablet and give me a "reconditioned" tablet that might or might not last 3 more months and wants me to pay to ship their $50 trash back to them, I'm questioning the worth of throwing more money at RCA. Thus I can either do my blog entries as emailed entries from m'lady's computer (running the heinous Windows 8) or do the via my phone. I choose the latter.

As you might have guessed from the title, I really am feeling quite unwell. This sad state of affairs has been rumbling on for over a week and all I have to say about that is it had better bloody well stop. Despite feeling unwell, wobbly and nauseaus, I did actually work on the bus today. Well, after taking m'lady grocery shopping during which I saw how Walmart's "cleaners" simply sweep trash under the displays rather than actually cleaning. On the other hand, Walmart never has had a high bar!
I wonder whether I picked up a bug last time I was in Walmart. The hygeine there is sufficiently lacking for me to wonder whether Walmart deserved a Z for food hygeine.

So, the upshot is that I only did some of the things I had intended. I climbed up on the hood of the bus, struggling to stand upright and fighting nausea. Realising that falling off the hood would not be advisable, I did my best to stay perched up there. After drilling about 50 holes I screwed in my replacements for the front flashers, slipping copious quantities of silicone goop behind as a sealant.

The screws used are not intended as final fixtures. The final fixtures will be rivets. This is just a temporary measure until such a time as I can test the lights to make sure I have not buggered up any wiring with my drill.

While I worked on the flasher panel I took a look inside the compartment behind and noticed that the rivets used were standard pop rivets rather than waterproof rivets. I had wondered about that. Clearly the individual that had written online in some forum I used to glance at had been writing nonsense. His claim was roof rivets had to be special waterproof rivets. No they don't and I saw the proof! Interestingly, the rivets used all had very long shanks. Carpenter obviously found a standard rivet was the best option.

So, the front flashers are now dealt with. Next I want to replace the bolts with rivets after checking the electrics all still function. I will probably do the same to the back flashers and possibly install my extractor fan at the same time.  

Arrgghhh! No photos...

Today was one of those really odd days. Rain was forecast so the plan today was just to go and do some shopping. As it turned out, the rain never materialized so though nothing major was achieved, progress was made. To be honest, what with feeling yucky because of a stomach bug and yucky because of (probably) eyesight issues, I didn't get as much done as I could have.

The first order of the day was shopping. That started with my heading to Harbor Freight, Walmart and a Lowes (hiss, spit). I had intended to pop into Hancock Fabrics since the entire chain is closing but didn't get to it, which was rather unfortunate as I was right by the store when I went to pick up my eyeglasses. I didn't because I wanted to get m'lady's bank deposit completed before I got side-tracked. There's also the little matter that I really hate being responsible for other people's property just in case something untoward happens. I'd be really upset if something happened to my property but if it happened to somebody else's when it's in my possession, I would be incredibly shamed.

So, after picking up the glasses, I made the bank deposit then headed to Harbor Freight. There, for the first time ever, I managed to exit the store with only the things that were on the list. Those were grinding disks for my angle grinder (I had to hunt the entire store to find them), a replacement paint-removing brush for the pistol drill, some 6013E 1/8th inch welding rods and the free flashlight m'lady desired. Harbor Freight has some nice freebies!

After Harbor Freight I headed to Lowes (hiss, spit) where I had to hunt and got the two hose barbs I needed plus some connectors. I didn't find the handy all-in one thing I found last time but Lowes (hiss, spit) is a bit like that! Needless to say I did forget to get the blanks I needed for the hand-basin - to cover the holes normally occupied by faucets since there will be no faucets in the bus.

While in Harbor Freight I perused the solar section and found a solar charge controller for $30 and the connectors that connected it to things for $10. Solar panels were strange prices. I'd say that because today was one of their fake sales days, they had raised the prices in order to have a fake sale - a bit like Kohls but Kohls always has a fake sale going. Harbor Freight had a pricey deep cycle battery that claimed 35 amp hours. That might actually be useful if my solar panel can produce enough surplus power. I doubt that my panel will produce the 5w promised. Having said that, even if it produces 1w then over 8 hours that'd be 8 watt hours a day. Heaven knows how much the fan uses. It'll be interesting to work that one out. I'm not a great believer in solar power having seen the specifications on solar panels etc and how much complete nonsense is claimed by the manufacturers.

Speaking of solar, in the middle of the day I connected my solar panel to the little fan that I bought. This time, it actually worked. The fan buzzed away madly. Playing with it, it transpired the fan has a higher startup current than the running current. It seems the best position for the panel is actually horizontal. I'll put the fan into the back of the bus to suck out heat. Buzzing away like it did, it might actually work as planned!

Having got home, albeit without the hand-basin blanks, I set to work and installed hose barbs on the two existing waste tanks. Tomorrow, if it's still fine, I'll slip under the bus, put the extra nuts on the barrel supporting bolts and finalize the plumbing under the shower.

The next thing did was to clamp the two blanks that will be attached in place of the school-bus flashers together, back to back. Then the top right corners were trimmed simultaneously to the same curve. Then holes were drilled all around the edges. Now the original plan has been to rivet the panels in place. That might yet happen. For the moment I shall use self-drilling screws on the basis that I might want to employ the wiring behind the panels for something though I have no definite plans at the moment.

No sooner had I done that than m'lady's sister's dog made a break for freedom as did her mothers dog. That led to a mad dash down the dirt track to recapture them lest a trigger happy neighbor decided dogs were in season. Having successfully recaptured the aforesaid four-legged miscreants, m'lady rang the dinner gong. By the time dinner was completed the daylight had all but gone. It was so dark that it was hard even to see whether m'lady's chickens had left any eggs. Definitely too dark to work!

Tomorrow is a shopping day and if the rain holds off then after returning with the month's food supplies I intend to complete some if not all of the following tasks. First - the blanks over the school-bus flashers. Second the nuts on the waste tank supports. Third I want to complete the plumbing under the shower.

And finally, the exciting news. Just as I was completing this blog entry, there was a very loud explosion that shook the house. It was by the sound of it, several hundred yards away. In this neighborhood that means either a meth lab explosion or somebody had a gas leak and blew up their trailer. Alternatively it could have been a still that blew up. Like the shooting next door, there will probably be no news about it. The news media rarely ventures out of the safety of cafes and places where the journalists are spoon-fed.