Space - the final frontier

These are the voyages of the the good bus NSA 2011. Its five-year mission: to explore strange new places, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no Brit has gone before.

Well, I don't know about a 5 year mission but I do know I'm running out of space rapidly. After painting the green paint on the bathroom roof or rather, giving the roof a second coat, it was too soon to consider giving the lower wall a final coat of white as the green was not hard enough to take masking tape.

Clambering around the galley, I constantly tripped over pieces of molding. Thus, it was time to use them and use them I did. The first piece, I glued and nailed but it wasn't that great. The second, I just put the glue and nails away, drilled, countersunk and screwed it in place. Much more satisfactory and a load faster.

I noticed how warped some of my doors are and how off vertical some of my verticals are. All highly unsatisfying but they're good enough that nobody will notice and it'll all work just the same. The green paint could do with another coat in places but its not really enough to merit the time. I have until the 17th to have the bus ready. After that, woirk recommences and further construction will be relegated to weekends.

My biggest challenge right now is rehousing all my construction materials as its becoming somewhat challenging to find space to do anything. I've transferred my paint cans and long wood to the front closet but tools and supplies take up a lot of space.

In order to work in the bathroom, I'd moved the toilet to the bedroom and the shower base to the galley while the handbasin is in the cockpit. Moving two pieces of molding from the galley because I was falling over them to use them in the bedroom meant clambering over the toilet. It would be so nice to be able to do all this in a great big air conditioned garage where I could pile things ready for use!

I washed the somewhat mucky head protector from the emergency exit and replaced it after the paint had dried. There's now no Virgin Exit sign - they all left! http://schoolbushome.blogspot.com/2015/07/virgin-exit.html


I had a feeling I should be doing more painting and painted a cupboard door purple before deciding that my effort would be better employed marking where to put the drawer handles I bought last week at Ace. Thus, the drawers were marked and holes drilled. Now I can install knobs when I've finished the paintwork.

Tomorrow its probably going to be a good idea to paint the lower bathroom walls, washstand and some, if not all of the toilet. That way I can finish the bathroom then move all of the bathroom bits into place. That should give more room in the galley to work on the galley.

The batwing door hinge looks pretty straightforward. Looking at materials, I should have just about enough to complete the doors. They won't be a fancy shape - they'll be square but they'll be there!

I can see all the flaws in my workmanship and that makes me want to do better but honestly, I've done it just about as well as is reasonably practical given I need it completed by August 17th. Apparently I should be starting back to work about then.

Onwards and upwards! Completion is getting incredibly close. I look back to where I was just two weeks ago and progress has been little short of amazing!

Painting yet again

Today started with giving the cockpit partition a second coat of blue paint followed an hour or so later by touching up the edges and corners. It now looks really good.

After that, the bathroom was cleared and plastic taped over the window that I'd tinted. Then green paint was applied. I quite like the green though it's more lurid than the color swatch said it would be.

Tomorrow the plan is to do a second coat of green paint in the bathroom then to do more tidying in the galley prior to doing the purple paint in the galley.

I still have a lot of white paint to apply but since the colors are above the whites, it makes sense to apply the colors first as then I can just paint over the splashes and drips.

It's quite exciting how close I am to finishing! I still have to put a shower base mount and to make my saloon doors but otherwise I'm almost done. After the painting which will probably take a few more days, I'll build the shower base mount and the saloon doors.

I have run out of suitable materials for the saloon doors, believe it or not! There are a few pieces of trim left to fit but that'll take a day at most as will the tinting. Another thing that needs to be done is the creation of a way of unlocking the front door from the outside. I have some ideas for that!

The ants from yesterday appeared to be dead in large numbers but there were survivors scurrying around so I closed the bus for the night and set off another bug bomb. I might have to keep doing this for a few days. The next thing I need to do is to spray all the crevices with bug killer.

Sherwin Williams horrible wrong color matching app

Being somewhat lazy, a few weeks ago, I used Sherwin Williams color matching app on my phone. To say the color doesn't even faintly match is very much of an understatement. It's kinda sorta the same blue but ten times darker than it should be. The app was trying to match the color of the paint Carpenter used on the inside. I used daylight and an open door to match the color. The paint was on the inside of the door and the door was swung wide open with sunlight directly illuminating the paint and the app still got it wrong.

The paint is very nice but way off the shade it should be. I'd have been better off using color swatches. Having bought the paint, which is non returnable, I used it. It's not right but it'll do.

So, aside from that, today I worked hard putting white paint on things. The bits missed by my roller inside my closet got painted. The underside and supports of the bedroom table were painted. The inside of the galley door was painted. By then there was so much fresh paint it wasn't really possible to do much more without waiting for paint to dry.

Having been indoors for a while cooling off, painting was resumed. The vertical beam of the table had the other two faces painted an the latest cupboard door was painted on the inside. Having compketed that, the accursed blue paint was put on the front of the front partition.

Returning after yet another break while the blue dried, the bedroom table was installed in its correct position. It's not really level and the column isn't quite vertical but neither are that far off.

It needs a coat of white paint on the top but it looks pretty good. As usual, the screws were problematic to put through the floor but it worked in the end.

In other news, I found I have a lot of tiny black ants scurrying around inside. From reading, its unlikely that they're termites or Carpenter ants. Mind, since the majority of my wood is treated, I'm puzzled as to why they're there. Still, I let a bug bomb off and closed the bus. If they're not all dead by the time I open the bus tomorrow, I'll be surprised. I'm prepared to have to do two or three treatments in order to nail offspring. Worst case scenario, I have to go and spray every crevice with bug spray.

More painting amid thunderstorms!

As I'm not doing anything electrical with circular saws, angle grinders, power sanders or power drills, the fact rain was falling didn't matter a tiddlers winkle. In fact,it was cooler with the rain falling if not comfortable inside the bus.

The first thing done today was to finish priming everything. The front closet had the areas untouched by the roller primed. Then the drawers had the final bits of primer then the toilet was mostly primed. Some areas are just very tricky to reach with a brush. That'll take some determined contortions!

After the priming was completed (bar the tricky bits of the toilet), the closet had a coat of topcoat. That'll need work with a brush tomorrow. After that the front partition might get a coat of blue paint. During that process it might be as well to paint the floor. Now that should be black to match the existing floor but by the time it's been walked on a few times, it'll turn black

Yesterday there was no blog entry. This was due to work commitments, an after work meeting and some shopping. Ace Hardware had a bargain bin that had brass drawer knobs. They look the same but there are in fact two varieties. One is fractionally larger. At less than half price it was impossible to resist the temptation. While there, a fire extinguisher caught my eye. As there's a plan to have six - two in each compartment, it seemed a good time to pick one up.

The one purchased yesterday claims to work with electrics and flammible liquids. That sounds like it should be good for engines, batteries and kitchens.

The bus came with one. It seems to be OK but with extinguishers its not possible to have too many. I'm not really sure which extinguishers are best so I'm fumbling around in the dark.

No pictures but a lot of work

Today got off to a late start but start I did. Going to the bus with the intention of doing something simple - putting green paint in the bathroom - I found as usual that I ended up doing something totally different.

Wanting to get the bedroom table done and out of the way, priming was the obvious thing to do. As the cockpit, closet, drawers and toilet needed priming also, I started in the cockpit. The closet was a bit rushed because it was hot leaning in there so there are gaps. I'll fix those anothger day.

The cockpit walls are well primed though perhaps I should also have primed the floor since it is bare plywood. After the cockpit I moved on and primed some of the toilet before printing the beam in the bedroom and the underside of the table.

Needless to say, as it was over 100F in the bus, I did take several breaks. At one point I had to add water to the paint to thin it as it was getting thick in the heat. I continued on and primed most faces of the drawers and the topside of the table. The new cupboard door saw primer too.

By the time the last drawer had received paint, the light was beginning to fade. I popped the brush in a can of water to keep it soft and left, admiring the fact the cockpit now looks a load better.

Tomorrow is a shopping day. I need solely bolts to lock the drawers shut. I might also get more brushes and rollers. I know I have several brushes but it was all I could do today to find just one!

Of one thing I am certain - the way I'm rip-roaring along, the bus will be painted by the end of the week. Meanwhile, some weeks ago, I glued two pieces of PVC plank together. Looking at it today, that joint is now rock solid. I know exactly what I'm going to build my shower base mount out of! Yup - PVC planks glued together and glued to my PVC floor!

Taking stock of what can be done

Today was a day when nothing much was done. The sum total of today's effort was to install two looks on cupboard doors, make a video and implement the final solution to the toilet problem.

Interspersed with that were requests from m'lady to feed the chickens since they had apparently not been fed and to make trips to the dump with 3 months of household garbage that should have been taken weekly. Kinda smelly!

The cupboard door catches can be a little iffy. I've had them undo themselves when I thump the doors. That might or might not be an issue. If it is, well, I'll face that when and if it occurs. They're probably not the best latches but were what I could get. Having these latches now makes me wonder whether it's even worth putting handles on the doors. If I can avoid that then I can save some money. The drawers need knobs. Knobs are better than handles because they need just one hole. So much easier to draw a line from each corner and drill a single hole where the lines intersect!

The toilet had a problem. The way I'd put the lid meant the whole lid had to be lifted. Given that the lid raising is blocked by the emergency exit door handle, I couldn't be opening that door all the time. Thus, the solution was to cut the lid in two and have two separately hinged sections. The toilet side is easy to lift. The grit bucket side has a hatch to use to get grit. Should that side absolutely need to be opened then I have no problem opening the door or moving the toilet to do so now there's no risk of tipping the slop bucket.

Tomorrow has to be a painting day. Aside from electrics, plumbing and putting knobs on drawers, its time to paint. That means masking tape, rollers, brushes and old clothes! The area requiring attention is the cockpit (primer paint), bedroom table (primer), bathroom (green), dinette (purple). The dinette will be left til last because its full of supplies.

Thinking of electrics, it makes sense to have a 50 Amp socket outside and 3 or 4 sockets at 15 A inside. I can't imagine needing more than 3 sockets. Microwave, fridge and another appliance. I'll see if I can get switched sockets so I can switch unneeded stuff off. No point having the microwave burning up power displaying that silly little clock!

Almost momentous achievements?

This is my almost table. Today, after yesterday shaping the plywood, I mounted a beam on the wall and some supporting beams. Getting to the critical point, cutting the 2x4, the circular saw stopped.

Wiggling the saw flex produced brief spurts of saw power. Then I saw a section wrapped with tape. Unwrapping the tape revealed that the cable had at some time been cut in two. One can only presume that the operator at the time considered the cable a bit long, tried to shorten it then had a change of heart. The ends of the wires had clearly been pressed together and had clearly parted.

Whipping out my trusty soldering iron, I sat in a hit bus with a hot soldering iron, repairing the cord. Lacking electrical tape, I used duct tape but that'll work. A few moments later, the deed was done. The saw once more worked.

Having cut my beam ready to bolt to the table as the new leg, I took a break and fitted a lock to a cupboard door. The lock turned out not to be that great. If I bang the door, it pops open. Very unsatisfactory so I'll be looking for better locks. To add insult to injury the power ran out on the cordless drill!

Having pretty much come to an end for construction, I looked around and my dissatisfaction with the window tint I'd applied resurfaced. I peeled the film off one of the two windows with poorly applied film, cleaned the glass and put a new film on. That having gone well, I repeated the process with the other window. I'm sure you'll agree it looks better!

Looking down the bus from the bedroom, its shaping up nicely.

It'll probably take me a couple of days to paint the support post and table but when I've erected it, that represents the end of major internal construction. After that I have handles and latches to install in the kitchen, quite a bit of painting and cleaning. By Friday next week, I assume that I'll have finished. I must admit that though there's external work, its nice to have got this far single handedly.