That was bloody exhausting.

After today's exertions, I am absolutely exhausted. Heaven knows why but I find welding very tiring. I suppose that could be because it wasn't particularly warm today but it was very dry. I didn't complete everything I would have liked to have done but I got closer to completing a lot of things.

The first task was to climb up on the bus roof to reseal one of the seams. That took a complete cylinder of silicone sealant. Ideally I'd have used something other than silicone but since I've used silicone everywhere else and it seems to be working, I've stuck with silicone. This motorhome will only ever be a 20 year old vehicle. It will never get younger so imperfections aren't that important.

After that, I thought about my plumbing. I decided that for the moment I'll plumb for a bucket under the bus. It should be straightforward to add underbody tanks. The plumbing didn't go quite as planned as it was the last thing done today. Needless to say, I cut the tubing too short after having previously cut it too long. It's currently an inch too short after being an inch too long. Having said that, this is what it looks like.

The long horizontal is an inch too short. It would be usable with a small block placed between it and the attaching point. The jubilee clip I bought to attach it turned out to be way too small. I'll have to buy a couple of bigger clips. Now the attachment point was the first thing I made this morning. Basically, it's two steel brackets welded together. 

Welding was where I made great progress today. I started using 6011 rods rather than 6013 and started getting an arc every time rather than having to fight to get an arc. Most things needed a second pass to get the weld to look good but I burned through fewer sticks and had better welds. I ended up making four tube mounts. Two are to hold the downpipe and two more to hold horizontal pipes when I get the tanks installed.

This was part way through my welding progress. Welding small stuff was way easier than I thought it would be. It was important to keep moving the rod though as I did burn the edge of one of the brackets away a little in one place. 

This is how the mounts looked when completed. After welding them and clearing the slag off the welds, I sprayed them with cold zinc plating. Now that's quite expensive but if it stops rust then it's worthwhile. One is already installed but the second isn't yet as the battery in the electric drill expired before I finished drilling the second hole.

Another task completed was to weld the two parts of the roller shutter top that I'd previously cut into two pieces. I welded with 6011 rods both at the top and the bottom of the join. I did several runs with the welding rods in order to make the welds look good. In between runs, I wire brushed the slag off the welds.

After brushing the slag off, I sprayed with my zinc spray. I would have liked to have cut the construction to fit the battery/cable box but I didn't have time. After I'd worked on the plumbing, it was just too dark. The sun had escaped from me again. I'm just hoping it appears again tomorrow!

I have concerns over whether my underbody work will be too much for the skeleton. I might complete what I'm building for the underneath and then ask my mechanic for advice and maybe get him to weld the underbody stuff. I really don't want stuff dropping off as I'm driving!

Lesser achievements but achievements anyway

No photo today. Sorry - it was dark before I'd really done enough to merit a photo. The day started off with my planning to do the plumbing under the bus. Thus, I played around with my plumbing bits and found the S bend I'd bought wouldn't fit anything else that I had so I coupled together a few bits and bobs to make a strangely shaped U bend. The problem is that I've bought bits from Lowes (hiss, spit) and Lowes (hiss, spit) seems to specialise in non-inter-compatible fixtures. 

The resultant U bend looked pretty good and was glued together. Then I realised I should - since it was a fine day - get up on the roof to finish off the final seam with silicone seal. Oops... The silione seal had dried up. There weren't quite enough plumbing supplies either. That and the fact m'lady's chickens were out of feed meant a trip to Tractor Supply.

Before I left, I had a quick look underneath the bus. The barrels will fit very nicely between the main chassis members and the side of the bus with enough room for my plumbing parts. I judged I would need 4 more right angle bends and two T sections plus some kind of faucet. Making a quick list, I headed out. Half way down the driveway I had inspiration and went back and grabbed a stopper from one of the barrels.

Arriving at Tractor Supply in glorious sunshine, it took a while to find a cart to carry 100lbs of chicken feed. That 100lbs should last the chickens about a month to six weeks. Then on the shelf I spotted some galvanizing paint. That, apparently is 98% zinc and should protect my fresh welds very well from rust. Then after getting the plumbing parts I wanted - aside from the faucet, I saw something interesting - a great big T junction with threads. Out of curiosity I tried my stopper from the barrel into the T and it screwed in perfectly. Then I found the male mate. I picked out two - one for each waste water barrel. 

When I looked underneath the bus earlier, I found two barrels could be fitted very nicely between I section girders. That means I can use simple bolts to attach the straps that hold the barrels. That makes life considerably quicker and easier. The whole plumbing operation can be carried out simply and painlessly. The sections that screw into the barrel are way big in the center and need to be stepped down to fit my pipework. Needless to say Tractor Supply didn't have the correct parts.

Leaving Tractor Supply, the next stop was Walmart for silicone sealant. Tractor Supply had it but it was 50% more expensive than Walmart so I picked some up. While I was there, I looked at the camping gas cookers and saw a very nice dual burner cooker with wind shields for $35 and a set of cooking pots for it for $30. That was very interesting and it seems a pair of gas cans are $6. According to the blurb it seems that on full blast with both burners going, 16oz of gas will last about 90 minutes. That sounds very doable.

Leaving Walmart, I visited Lowes (hiss, spit) to see if they had anything I could use as a faucet or to step the big pipe down. Needless to say, they had rack upon rack of irrelevant stuff. As I studied the racks an announcement came over the speaker to the effect the store was closing in 4 minutes and that I should proceed to the registers. So, not having found anything I headed to the door and left.

It transpires there's a better plumbing store on 378 so I might visit that or the plumbers supply in Lexington later this week. The plumbing looks like it'll be a load easier than I thought. I didn't get plumbing straps nor any means of attaching them to the chassis but that doesn't sound that hard. Everything has been a case of working out how to do it. I'd been wondering how to stop the barrels from sliding but having seen the space available, there shoudn't be a problem. I could probably use two straps per barrel but I'll probably use 3 for safety.

Once the plumbing is done, I can work on the battery compartment. Having cleaned and painted the metal that will be the floor of the compartment, I expect that the first fine weekend I shall be welding the floor to the compartment. 

The front door remains a problem waiting to be solved. I'm going to keep the door as a concertina affair. I just need to work more on a way of getting the latch to lift. If I had air brakes then I could simply tap into the air cylinder for a simple plunger and use residual pressure after bleeding the tanks. On the other hand that would mean I'd need to pressurize the tank every time I opened the door. It is, of course, possible to put a small air tank but I don't think I will.

A rainy day

I blundered today. When I went out to the bus, it was dry. While I was inside, it began to rain. I had hoped to derust the other side of my steel plates then to paint them ready for welding tomorrow since tomorrow is alleged to be going to be a dry day. We all know the weather forecasters speak with forked tongues though!

While I was in the bus, I sat down and completed my second 20A cable. The one terminates in a NEMA 6-30R which will plug straight into the NEMA 6-30C when the battery compartment is completed. Construction in failing light was not easy but was completed fairly swiftly. I have to say it doesn't look at all bad. It was confusing that the hot/cold pins had no markings other than X and Y which meant I had to look it up to see which wire should go where. I'll doubtless get the same issue when I wire the NEMA 6-30C.

Meanwhile, since the lottery is now up to $900,000,000, m'lady wanted a ticket so I headed to the store and bought two tickets. I don't so much believe I stand a chance of winning but I'd love to see somebody win $1,000,000,000 and be a billionairre for a day - before the IRS takes 50% and the state takes their 20%, leaving them with probably $400,000,000. It'd be hard but I'm sure that by economising they could just about live on that money! For myself, I"d be happy with any amount

When I went out I planned to stop off at a place where barrels were on sale. Oops... I was in thick traffic and missed the turning so I carried on to Lowes (hiss, spit). There, I realised I'd forgotten the piece of tubing I'd cut to take to Lowes for sizing! Still, I had a look at various plumbing bits. Then I looked at hooks from which I could hang my bucket. Looking at them, they would have had a difficult job coping with the lip inside the skirt on the bus. I passed on buying a hook. That was fortunate as it so happened.

On the way back home, I passed the sign where used barrels were on offer. The actual place was a long way down a lane. Down the end of the lane was a downtrodden looking mobile home. In the yard, a big dog barked noisily while some 15 gallon barrels stood to attention. The fellow must have seen me arrive and opened the door as I approached. He was very pleasant and didn't have change for my $20 so rather then buying two of his $8 apiece 15 gallon drums, I bought 3 with my $24.  They had contained some kind of brownish liquid wax. That was slopping about inside the drums so I made very sure the caps were screwed on firmly in order to avoid spills. Clearly the fellow worked where such barrels were used. I'm very happy with my barrels. I suppose I could put 3 grey water tanks or two grey and a black just in case I decide to put a flush toilet some day.

30 or 45 gallons of waste water is a very attractive idea because that puts me squarely into boondocking territory. I can carry fresh water in jerry cans and to be honest the risk of tampering with fresh water supplies accessible from the outside is low but nice not to have. Indeed, with the waste water, a faucet could empty that into a bucket or a hosepipe.

Looking around the bus today, I noticed a tag from a conversion company. I've never noticed it before but it looks like it was Tennessee hillbillies that did the conversion. Clearly some kind of professional hillbilly conversion.

Now that I have the barrels, all kinds of possibilities open up for plumbing. Of course, the things I would have liked to have done didn't get done. The path is there to go way better than just a bucket.

Retitling forms

A few days ago - before I hurt my back, I picked up the form to retitle my bus as a motorhome. This is South Carolina DMV form 4038. Looking at it, it seems that they're mainly interested in the purchase of components for kit vehicles. They ask for receipts but somehow I think they won't be interested in receipts for lumps of wood and tins of paint.


The main thing they're probably going to be looking for is whether it looks like it will be converted back into a bus while nobody is looking. I gather a minority of bus hobbyists will buy a bus, register it as a motorhome and then put the seats back in, taking advantage of cheap insurance.

Needless to say, I've recycled some of the stuff that came with the bus and obtained other bits elsewhere - Lowes, Tractor Supply, Home Depot, eBay and been given a pile of stuff too. Largely though, it's been wood, paint, fittings and so on - nothing in itself all that expensive. Had I paid somebody to do what I did in my own spare time then the bill for the work done would be many thousands of dollars. I'd say the most expensive things have been the tools I've had to buy such as my welder, sander, angle grinder etc.

I could probably get away with the bus as it is save for putting up window blinds and shower curtains. For the blinds, there are some very cheap folded paper blinds that look very usable. For the shower curtains, Walmart and the dollar stores look possibilities too. Aside from that, I need to do a massive tidying up inside the bus and weeding through my stuff.

One of the things I saw while in Walmart was rectangular plates. The crockery set I have is usable but the round plates are a bit too wide for the plates drawer. My mistake - I measured correctly but forgot that the floor of the drawer would have thickness. Thus, the drawer is the thickness of the drawer bottom too short. Needless to say, I didn't have my tape measure with me last time I was in Walmart. The existing plates are nothing special - they cost me theprincely sum of $10 for the set! I bought a set of 4 but the reality is that I only need two plates - one for me and one for m'lady.  

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!

The mother of all videos!

The quest continued today, despite my back injury to build the front door unlocking mechanism. There were plenty frustrations today! I'm in no way going to throw the towel in on this one. Even if what I come out with costs way more than anybody else's solution, I will perservere.

Today was fraught with difficulty. Yesterday or the day before, I'd reglued the end of my wire to the brass tube. After I'd finished winding the coil, the damn glue failed again! So my nicely wound coil suddenly sprang loose and ended up looking more like a slinky than anything else. Wrapping tape and spraying glue ended up with a loosely wound coil that's definitely not to my liking. I might re-wrap that coil another day.

Next, I connected a pp3 battery clip to the two wires. That was a challenge as the enamel on the wire was extrordinarily thick. Normally it's easy to burn through with a soldering iron. This was most definitey not easy and had to be scraped off.

What I'm trying to do is to rig up a method of lifting the latch that holds the front door closed without going to extremes such as electric garage door openers that require the door to be both opened and closed electrically or other severe methods such as replacing the entire door assemly. This is such a simple thing to do yet is proving to be extraordinarily difficult!
 
The upshot of today's work (which I'll probably have to redo) is that I did manage to make a rare earth permanent magnet move out of my coil. It had little to no actual power behind it which is a major problem. I'm currently running it off 6v. I'll have to try raising the power to 12v but this is not currently looking promising. I have found that I was correct in using a permanent magnet with my coil however. I suspect I might get more luck with more power and possibly extra coil windings.


As you can see - it's not that powerful even though it is spectacular. It looks to have the right amount of throw to open my latch - just not yet enough power.

No wonder I'm depressed....

Today turned out to be yet another dull, grey, dreary day. No rays of sunshine to lift my gloomy mood. The one thing I love about the US is the way there are many more sunny days than cloudy days. Cloudy days just sap my strengh and my will and frequently (as today) give me a distanced feeling as though I'm not really here. I believe it's called Seasonal Affected Disorder.

Despite this, I went to the bus to install my new vanity top and promptly broke the tip off my drill bit, rendering it useless. That meant a trip to Lowes (hiss, spit). There, I picked up a couple of packs of 3/32 drill bits just in case. While I was there I also picked up a 5-15 plug to make the other half of my 20A extension cord. I don't want to get the 30A cable yet - I'll stay cheap right now. Then while I was there, I looked at plumbing supplies but as I didn't know exactly what I have, I didn't get anything. It turned out from investigations last night that the second part of the downpipe from the shower isn't needed - the plastic fittings I have will clamp onto the first section very sucessfully. It seems that I can simply take an off-the-shelf fixture to fasten the bottom of the tube to the side of the bus. There are some rather nice valves available to use to close the end of the pipe off when it's not needed to empty. They're somewhat stiff which means they'd definitely need to be secured very firmly. Thus, for the moment, I'll stick with my screw-in bung.

Returning to the bus, I screwed the countertop down that I'd been working on yesterday then sat in the bedroom with a cup of tea and my tablet for a few minutes. What with the dreary, miserable weather I'd taken to playing a game called "Boom Beach" and without funding the programmers drug habit by buying game credits with real money that's hard to earn, it was increasingly hard to continue. Thinking about it, while watching the dwelling I'd just errected commencing its count down to 5 hours before it could be used, I came to the inevitable conclusion that the game was as the Americans euphamistically say, "a crock".

Having deleted the game, I set about cutting some more steel for the battery compartment only it wasn't that simple. The angle grinder needed a new disk so that was installed. Then I had to find the adaptor in order to connect the grinder to my TT30 socket. That was a hunt! It was eventually discovered, hidden underneath an immense pile of Christmas stockings.

I cut the steel and then tried to straighten an angle out of the steel. It's showing progress but the work is very slow. I suspect that this might take longer than I want to spend on it.

Meanwhile, I looked at the DMV form to retitle the bus and it needs photographs of the inside plus details plus the original bus title. This is a totally different form from the one I was shown before. It looks way more likely as a form so I suspect I probably have the right form this time. I have a lot of tidying to do inside the bus before I take photos. 

I believe I'm pretty close to having it in retitlable condition. As far as I can see, I can just run it as an electric motorhome and pop a portable generator in for the inspection. Water - aside from plumbing the waste pipe properly, is already done. The shower curtains, blinds over the windows and a front door unlocking gizmo is all that's needed. Everything else should work just fine. The whole bus needs a darned good cleanig and spruce up but that should be it!