Category Archives: Weather

2015/11/21 (S) Not Quite As Planned

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The weather forecast for today had snow moving into the area starting at 4 AM, increasing in intensity by 8 AM, and continuing through the day and into the evening.  The initial forecast was that we would get 4 – 6 inches of accumulation with temperatures hovering just below freezing.  We overslept this morning and did not get up until 7:30 AM but decided to go to our weekly ham radio club breakfast in South Lyon anyway.  I have had Mike’s (W8XH) climbing harness for a while and wanted to return it before we left for the winter.

There was already some accumulation on grassy areas when we left at 7:45 AM but the drive was not a problem and we arrived at 8:10.  We were the last ones there, of course, but someone had to be.  We had a nice chat with Harvey (AC8NO) and Diane, who are usually close to the last to arrive.  I called Mike, who did not make it to breakfast, and let him know I was transferring the harness to Harvey.

On the drive home we stopped at Meijer’s in Brighton so Linda could get some additional ingredients to make more granola.  By the time we got home at 10:30 the snow was starting to pile up.  I had four text messages from Kristine Gullen in quick succession which turned out to be four parts of one message.  She wanted to pin down our dinner plans for this evening.  I texted her back once I got home and after a couple of exchanges we came to the mutual conclusion that the weather was going to interfere with our get-together.  Sadly, that meant we would not see her and Jim again until May 2016 as they were probably headed to Frankenmuth for the Fall MERA conference and then on north to their cottage at Crystal Mountain for the Thanksgiving holiday.

Snow piling up around the bus less than a week before our planned departure for Florida.

Snow piling up around the bus less than a week before our planned departure for Florida.

Our original plan for today was to clean the inside of the motorcoach and then start cleaning up the garage/shop.  With the snow piling up we decided to defer cleaning the rig and concentrate on cleaning up the garage and staging things that we will eventually load on board.  I worked in the garage most of the day although that included moving things into the library and house.  Linda concentrated on making granola, preparing a billing statement for the bakery, and organizing/staging kitchen-related things for the bus.  She also came out and helped me when I needed assistance.

My objective for today was to get one of the temporary workbenches cleared off and disassembled.  I also wanted to get all of unused plywood stored flat.  By 5:30 PM we had accomplished those two goals, gotten most of the power tools put away, moved quite a few things to the library, and stored or thrown away quite a few other things.  I had also managed to strain my lower right back.  That is never a good thing, but it was especially bad given what we have to accomplish in the next three to four days.  We will continue the process tomorrow and I will try to get my tool boxes reorganized before I quit working for the day.  A critical piece of the cleanup will be getting everything that should be protected from freezing out of the garage and into the library as we do not heat the garage while we are away even though it has a furnace.  From there some of it may get moved to the laundry room in the basement, or not; it just depends on time and energy.

We need to clean up the garage enough to get the Honda Civic inside and also the (non-functioning) lawn tractor.  Optionally we can leave the tractor where it is and put a tarp over it or I can borrow Mike’s trailer and take it to Sloan’s in Linden to have it repaired and stored for the winter.  I like the last option best but I doubt that I will have the time to take it there before we leave.  It would have to be on Wednesday, assuming they are even open the day before Thanksgiving.

Snowstorm in progress. Lots of snow on the rear deck and still coming down.

Snowstorm in progress. Lots of snow on the rear deck and still coming down.

For dinner, Linda sautéed an onion with some mushrooms and heated some frozen broccoli and peas.  She used all of that as toppings for two baked potatoes.  We watched the snow fall as we ate and estimated the accumulation on the railing of our rear deck to be at least a foot.

By 7 PM Howell had officially recorded 14.5 inches of snow and it was still coming down.  I decided to text Kerry Fear, who does our snowplowing, to let him know that I staked the driveway yesterday but we still have a mower deck, wheelbarrow, paving blocks, and plastic conduit in the northwest corner of the drive that we have not yet had a chance to remove.  He texted back that he was “up north” and would be back Sunday afternoon.

We went to bed before 9 PM, watched a few minutes of weather on TV, and caught a bit of a Cirque du Soleil holiday show on Detroit PBS.  I was going to call Butch and text Chuck but it was after 10 PM so I went to sleep instead.

 

2015/11/18 (W) Fuel Run

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Linda was up at 5:45 AM and off to the bakery at 6:15.  I was up at 7:45 AM and skipped breakfast and coffee.  I put on Weather Nation and took stock of the forecast while I folded the clean laundry.  I took a shower, got dressed, made a cup of tea, and had a small glass of orange juice to wash down my pills.

My main objective for today was to get the bus fueled which would also serve as a test run.  The forecast had the chance of rain increasing through the morning and heading towards certainty by early afternoon, albeit intermittent and not very intense.  I wanted to take care of the fueling before the rain settled in but wanted to wait long enough for the temperature to rise so I set 11 AM as my target departure time.  Before I moved the bus, however, several things had to be done.

First on the list was turning on the electric block heater for the main engine.  It wasn’t cold enough for this to be necessary but having the oil warmed up a bit never hurts, especially with the straight 40 weight oil.  It helps the engine crank over and get oil to the bearings more quickly.

The living room and kitchen in the bus looking aft from the cockpit. New flooring, new seating, new desk, new refrigerator, new slide-out pantry, and new window shades (rolled up).

The living room and kitchen in the bus looking aft from the cockpit. New flooring, new seating, new desk, new refrigerator, new slide-out pantry, and new window shades (rolled up).

Next was simply cleaning up the interior so the coach could be safely moved and nothing would get broken.  I gathered up all of the tools and materials that I no longer needed and moved them into the house and garage.  I then installed the solid brass door stop on the bottom of the pull-out pantry.  Finally I mounted the two aluminum angles to the inside of the refrigerator alcove, one by the freezer door and the other by the fresh food door.

The angles were 1/2″x3/4″ with holes drilled in the 3/4″ flange for #6 SR self-drilling wood screws.  I had carefully countersunk (chamfered) each hole so the screw head would be close to flush with the surface of the flange.  The aluminum was only 1/16″ thick so I had to be careful not to overdo it.  With the freezer door open I set the 1/2″ flange against the face of the refrigerator case (on the side opposite the hinges) and held the 3/4″ flange square to the side of the alcove.  I used a #5-6 self-centering VIX drill bit to drill three holes about 3/8″ deep and installed the 5/8″ #6 screws with a manual screwdriver so as not to over torque them.  I repeated the procedure for the second angle which was longer and had five mounting holes.

The new floor in the cockpit of the bus.

The new floor in the cockpit of the bus.

I had a little spare time so I drove my car up and down the new driveway to compact the gravel.  I won’t drive the bus on this new driveway until next year but it already supports the cars very nicely and the weight of the Honda Element was sufficient to knock down some of ridges and compact the surface.

I checked all of the tire pressures and they were OK so I did not have to get out an air compressor and adjust them.  I will have to do this next week before we leave, however, as the temperatures will have cooled off significantly by then.

Around 11 AM I turned on the coach batteries and opened the auxiliary air supply valve for the engine accessories.  I turned off all of the electric heating elements and made sure the inverter was turned on and then started the main engine.  I let it run for one minute and then switched it go high idle.  While the engine was warming up and the air pressure was building I shut off the shorepower, disconnected the power cord, and stowed it.

I pulled out at 11:15 AM and headed for the Mobile Truck Stop at exit 122 on I-96, approximately 22 miles from the house.  While there are a couple of closer places I could get fuel this truck stop has very good egress and is fairly busy, which means the fuel is being turned over frequently and is thus relatively fresh.  The drive is a mix of Interstate and Michigan Highways with a few stoplights and a couple of miles of dirt road, so the bus has to run up and down through its gears.  It is also a long enough round trip to get the engine up to normal operating temperature under load.

I estimated that the tank would take on about 120 gallons of diesel fuel so I added two bottles of Stanadyne Performance Formula and one bottle of Stanadyne Lubricity Formula.  The tank started whistling at 112 gallons, which meant it was getting full.  I added the last few gallons by controlling the flow manually and stopped at 119.990 gallons, so my 120 gallon estimate was pretty good.  I paid for the fuel and got a free beverage to go with it.

I had some occasional light rain on the drive out and on the drive back but the trip was otherwise uneventful.  I was back at 12:45 PM, parked the coach, and started the auxiliary generator, which I had not done for several months.  To load the generator I turned on all three electric toe-kick heaters, the engine block heater, the Aqua-Hot electric heating element, and front bay electric heater.  I let it run for 90 minutes with an average current draw of 25 Amperes on each leg, which is about 35% of its full load capability.

I got the shorepower cord out and connected it but did not turn it on.  As long as I had water and air pressure I flushed the toilet and then ran a little water through the various faucets in the coach.  I set a rubber door mat under the drain for the fresh water tank to keep the water from drilling a hole in the driveway and then let the tank drain slowly.  While it was draining I got the long fresh water hose out and connected it to the spigot on the front of the house and the water port for the coach.  With the fresh water tank empty I checked that the outside water spigot was configured to provide filtered/softened water.  I closed the drain valve, opened the fill valve, and opened the valve at the house.  I then went in the house, set a timer, and had a bite of lunch.

I had a phone call while I was driving back from the truck stop but did not answer it.  The caller left a message so I listened to it and then called him back.  Kevin Stufflebeam, from the southwest part of Michigan, had a 1995 Marathon Prevost conversion with a non-functioning Webasto system.  It turned out that he had the system worked on by a company in that area and the guy from the company had called me during the summer.  They got my name and contact information from Josh Leach at Coach Supply Direct, with my permission.

The fresh water tank has an overflow tube so that is how I knew it was full.  I closed the fill valve on the bus, closed the spigot valve at the house, and then opened the fill valve to relieve the pressure in the hose.  Sure, it was a lot of back-n-forth, but it eliminated the spray that occurs when unscrewing a fitting on a pressurized hose.  It also makes the fitting easier to unscrew.  I removed the hose from the coach and then from the house.  The spigot is about four feet higher than the driveway so I pulled the hose up towards the spigot, allowing it to drain as I coiled it up.  Once it was coiled I connected the two ends together, put it back in its storage tub, and put the tub back in the front bay.

Linda called at 4:30 PM to say she was on her way home.  It had been raining, off and on, all afternoon so I took about 45 minutes to drive on the new driveway with my Honda Element and compact it even more.  But first I got the metal toothed rake and evened out the few remaining ridges and valleys.  Besides going up and down the driveway I drove across it at various angles at both ends.  Most of the driveway has fresh topsoil along both edges, which is soft and has grass seed and straw on top of it, so I stayed off of those areas as they definitely should not be compacted.  The end of the new driveway by the house ties into our concrete driveway and some solid, undisturbed lawn with a flare.  The far end, which ties into the street at our third culvert, is much wider (to allow the bus to make the turn), relatively flat, and ties in to solid, undisturbed lawn.  The concrete, road, and undisturbed lawn allowed me to drive beyond the edges of the driveway in these areas and go across them at various angles.

Any kind of weather always slows commuter traffic and Linda did not get home until 6 PM.  It had been a long day for both of us and she just wanted to relax for a while.  She opened a bottle of Barefoot Moscato and poured each of us a glass.  For dinner we had mock oriental orange chicken with reheated frozen broccoli and white rice with soy sauce.  It was an easy but very tasty meal.

After dinner I finally settled in at my desk to finish updating the FMCA Freethinkers Chapter roster, financial statements, and minutes from the 2014 annual meeting.  Linda reviewed the financial statements and helped me reconcile them to the bank statements.  Once we were satisfied they were accurate I saved everything as PDFs, uploaded them to our Dropbox, and sent the folder link to the members via e-mail.  We then headed to bed and watched the last episode of The Brain on Detroit PBS.  Linda went to sleep and I wrote for a while, finally turning the light out at 11:30 PM.

 

2015/11/17 (T) Drivable Again

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Linda set her iPad alarm for 5:45 AM.  I heard it go off and got up shortly thereafter even though I did not turn out my light last night until 12:30 AM.  She got up at 6 AM and was showered, dressed, and out the door by 6:20.

I tuned in Weather Nation on WILX TV out of Lansing while I folded the clean laundry.  Of all the stations we can pick up this is the only one with a dedicated weather sub-channel.  The current forecast was for two more days with high temperatures near 60 degrees F but high humidity and rain as moisture races north from the Gulf in advance of a cold front.  By the weekend we are looking at highs at or barely above freezing and lows in the low 20’s.  The 10-day forecast has us back in the 40’s by Tuesday so we should not have any weather difficulties for Thanksgiving and the following day when we head south.

We planned to re-install the two front seats in the bus late this afternoon and I plan to take it on a fueling run tomorrow so I can run the Aqua-Hot diesel-fired hydronic heating system instead of running electric heaters.  I will also drain and refill the fresh water tank, but those are tomorrow’s tasks.  I had other things to do today, starting with the laundry.

I needed to wait until late morning to do the final cleaning of the tile in the cockpit and had several things to do that had to wait for the cleaning to be done first.  To make good use of my time I decided to measure, cut, drill, and paint the 1/2″x3/4″ aluminum angle that will serve as a retaining bracket for the refrigerator.  I will install it tomorrow after the front seats are re-installed and out of the way.

With that done I got the 3/4″ piece of walnut that Jarel cut and shaped for me to cover the front edges of the plywood under the refrigerator.  The piece sticks up a little above the top of the top layer of plywood so I wanted to install it in a way that will allow it to be easily removed.  That precluded the use of nails, even small ones.  I did not want the appearance of screw heads and wasn’t interested in drilling deep countersunk holes and using plugs.  (The woodwork in the bus was essentially assembled this way and most of the plugs have come out.  We will probably put them all back in once we are done reconditioning the wood even though I would rather not.)  That left Velcro as the only reasonable option, so I started a shopping list.

My next mini-project was to attach the 1/4″ walnut veneer plywood to the face of the pull-out pantry.  Jarel had ripped two pieces to the proper width for me but neither one was quite long enough to fully cover the front of the pull-out pantry.  Step 1 was figuring out where to have the two pieces meet and then determine how long each piece needed to be.  The next problem to solve was how to attach them.  I decided to use glue, clamp the walnut panels to the front of the pantry, and then secure them using screws from behind.  I looked for my large wood clamps but could not find them so I added face clamps to my shopping list.

The front structure of the pantry is 1/2″ thick ash and I planned to drill countersunk holes from the inside so the screw heads would be flush.  That meant I needed #6 5/8″ screws, which I did not have, as 3/4″ screws would probably puncture the veneer.  I added the screws to my shopping list.  I selected a small drill bit and drilled holes from the inside just below the top board and just below each shelf plus one just above the bottom shelf.  Because of the metal side plates these locations were easier to reach on the inside.  I then switched to my countersink bit and drilled the holes out from the inside.

Back in the garage I sprayed a second coat of black paint on the aluminum angles for the refrigerator retaining bracket, moved a load of laundry to the dryer and put another load in the washer, and then took my shopping list and went to Lowe’s.  Lowe’s had a very clever Automax self-adjusting face clamp with a 6″ reach.  It was a little pricier than the 3″ version which was a little pricier than the 3″ manual adjust version, but the size and auto adjustment feature swayed my decision.

On the drive back to house I had a nice QSO with Steve (N8AR) on the South Lyon 2m repeater.  When I got home I had some wasabi/soy almonds and sourdough pretzel nibblers with hummus for lunch.

Returning to the bus work I cleaned the tile in the cockpit using Armstrong Once ‘n Done and rinsed it with a clean sponge and warm water.  I then returned to working on attaching the walnut veneered plywood to the face of the pantry.  I decided which piece to use for the longer bottom section and which portion of the other piece to use for the top section.  In the shop I clamped each piece in turn to a 2×4, set the Boca saw guide, and trimmed them to length.

The 1/4" walnut veneered plywood clamped to the front of the pull-out pantry.

The 1/4″ walnut veneered plywood clamped to the front of the pull-out pantry.

Back in the bus I applied the bottom piece first.  It was slightly curled, lengthwise, so after applying Titebond II glue to the back I positioned it using the two Automax face clamps and then used C-clamps with scrap pieces of underlayment to hold it flat while protecting the veneer.  I then installed #6 5/8″ SR screws from the back to secure the face plywood.  I installed the upper panel using the same procedure.

We are using the same handle for the pantry that we have used throughout the bus.  Jarel made a 4-1/2″ by 8″ piece of 3/4″ walnut with coved edges to serve as a decorative base for the handle and to cover the joint between the upper and lower pieces of veneered plywood.  I marked the vertical centerline on the back and then marked two holes on 3″ centers, centered vertically.  I selected a 1/8″ drill bit, which was slightly larger in diameter than the #8-32 machine screws used to secure the handle, and drilled the holes from the back side using a block of 2×4 as a drill guide to make sure I went straight through the board.  (A drill press would obviously have been the correct way to drill these holes, and I have one, but it is buried behind other things where I cannot get to it.)

I clamped the decorative base to the front of the pantry centered horizontally and vertically on the joint between the two veneered panels.  Using the handle mounting holes I drilled all the way through the front of the pantry.  I bought special handle mounting screws the other night that are 2″ long but can be broken off at 1/4″ intervals.  I needed a 1-3/4″ length, so I inserted the screws through the holes from the back and broke off the first section with a pair of pliers.  I screwed them into the handle, temporarily securing the block.  I then drilled four countersunk holes from the inside of the pantry into the back of the decorative block and secured it with 1-1/4″ self-drilling screws.  I left all of the other clamps in place while the glue dried.

The only thing I did not get done on the pull-out pantry was attaching the door stop to the bottom of the face.  I will take care of that tomorrow.

Linda called at 3:30 PM to let me know she was on her way home.  I started working on remounting the accelerator pedal.  I got the pieces of old tile that were installed in that area and used them as templates to mark the location of the mounting holes.

Yesterday I discovered a grease fitting on the steering column.  It is located towards the center front of the bus about 8″ up from the floor.  Joe has never put grease in this fitting when he has serviced the chassis and for all I know it may not have been greased since it left the factory.  I wanted to get some grease into this fitting before I remounted the steering column shroud but I did not have a grease gun so I put that on my next shopping list.

Linda got home a little quicker than usual due to lighter than normal traffic.  After changing into her work clothes and grabbing some pretzels for a snack she came out to the bus to help.  I set the accelerator pedal upside down on top of the brake pedal to get it out of the way and drilled holes at the three points I had marked.  Linda handled the vacuum cleaner as we are trying to keep the coach clean.  I set the accelerator pedal where it belonged and started the three lag screws by hand.  Linda then held the pedal up while I tightened the three screws with a socket and ratchet.  I also drilled a small hole for a screw to secure the cable clamp on the accelerator wiring harness and installed that by hand as there was no room for the Rigid drill/driver.

I did not want to install the steering column shroud until I had greased the fitting but I went ahead and installed the base bracket.  Again using an old tile as a template I lightly marked two of the five holes.  I removed the old tile, set the bracket in place, and lined it up with the two marks.  I then marked the other three holes.  I selected a suitable drill bit, smaller than the diameter of the screws, and drilled through the tile and a little ways into the plywood below.  The screws were 5/8″ pan head Philips so I installed them by hand.

It was finally time to install the two front seats.  We got the base/pedestals from the library and checked to make sure the paint was dry.  It was, so we moved them to the bus.  I was going to install the driver’s seat first but the 3/4″ holes I had drilled in the tile when I installed it were not big enough.  Actually, they were exactly the right size if they had been in exactly the right place.  I needed to enlarge them to 1″ but did not have a 1″ drill bit.  I added that to my shopping list and we proceeded to install the passenger seat.

I set the base over the four captive mounting bolts and put a large/thick washer over each one followed by a substantial lock washer and finally a nut.  I ran the nuts down by hand as far as I could and then used a socket and ratchet to snug them down.

By now it was half past dark.  We needed dinner and stuff for the bus so we headed to Lowe’s where I bought a 1″ twist drill with a 1/2″ shank.  We then went to the new Panera, on the same property as Lowe’s and Walmart, for dinner.  This Panera had a different look and feel than the older ones, which a much smaller bakery section, but the food and coffee were the same and were good.  After dinner I drove across the street to O’Reilly’s Auto Parts and bought a grease gun.

On the drive home I decided to defer greasing the steering column until tomorrow. Our priority was getting the driver’s seat installed.  I used the 1″ twist drill bit in our 1/2″ Craftsman drill to enlarge the four holes.  The base/pedestal has 1″ long alignment tubes on the underside so the holes in the tile and underlying plywood had to be big enough to allow for less than perfect positioning.  With the holes enlarged I dropped the base in place, set a large washer over each hole, and threaded the new bolts into holes in the structure of the bus.  That was the end of the bus work for today.  We retired to the basement recreation room and watched NCIS and NCISNOLA before going to bed.

 

2015/11/10 (T) A Rainy Day

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I checked the TV weather station before I turned off the lights last night.  Rain covered most of Indiana and Ohio and was moving northeast.  We were going to get clipped by the western edge of the moisture but the heaviest rain was forecast to pass to our south and east.

Linda planned to go into the bakery today and had her alarm set for 5:45 AM.  It went off and I woke her up enough to shut it off and go back to sleep.  Around 6 AM we both received e-mails on our iPads and phones, a sure sign that we had lost power to the house.  I was awake at this point but stayed in bed until 6:45.  I was not falling back asleep, so I put on my robe and made coffee.  I finished up the Kenya AA, which is not decaffeinated, figuring we could both use the boost this morning.

While the coffee was brewing I cleaned the cats’ litter tray and checked my e-mail.  I had a reply from Bill Tharpe which decided for me that I would be going to Indiana on Friday.  I also had replies from the two Mitch’s who had contacted me as about articles I wrote in Bus Conversion Magazine and replied to both of those.  I edited the e-mail with the minutes of Sunday’s SLAARC meeting and forwarded it on to the club officers.  An e-mail from Gary at BCM indicated that they still needed a photo of Byron and Betty Pigg for the December featured bus article, so I replied and cc:d Byron.  Writing for BCM is sometimes a lot of work, but it’s a hobby for and I enjoy it so I do not mind.

It was wet outside and still raining lightly, a perfect day to sit by the fireplace in a robe and drink hot coffee.  Phil was hoping to return today with a load of screened topsoil and get it placed and graded along the edges of the driveway but said it would depend on the weather.  Once the topsoil is taken care of he will grade the driveway with his bulldozer and make sure the 40 foot long parking area is as flat and level as possible.

Linda finally got up at 8:30 and was starting to get dressed to go to the bakery when I suggested she stay home, rest, and get well.  She was immediately OK with that idea, put on her robe, and took her iPad to the living room to enjoy the warmth of the fireplace and some hot coffee.  I finished up my draft blog post for yesterday, e-mailed it to myself, and started this one.  I really cannot afford to lose a whole day of work on the bus but this is the kind of day where we like to just sit and do quiet things, or even nothing at all.  We finally finished our coffee, got dressed, and had a light breakfast at 10 AM.

Taking care of Madeline for three days and nights took a lot of Linda’s mental and physical energy and her cold took what was left.  She headed back to bed and I got my thoughts organized relative to working in the bus.  I talked to Jarel yesterday and found out that it would cost $50 to have a sheet of 1/4″ Baltic Birch plywood delivered to his shop because he did not have a regular delivery scheduled and the $50 cost of the 60″x 60″ sheet would not meet the minimum cost for free delivery.  I did not need the piece of plywood badly enough to pay a 100% surcharge to get it so that idea was off the table until next year.

My goal for today was to get a piece of SurePly underlayment cut and installed on the passenger seat platform.  Before I even started on the piece I had to resolve what to do about the four carriage bolts that are used to mount the base.  One of the four bolts has some messed up threads but I have a tap and die set and might be able to clean them up.  However, I am adding the thickness of the underlayment and floor tile plus a washer to what was there before so I wanted to use a longer bolt.  I already knew that Lowe’s and O’Reilly’s did not have what I needed and I presumed that The Home Depot did not either.

I finally went to Howell Hardware and had a good QSO with Steve (N8AR) on the drive there.  As I had been told they had a very good selection of hardware, by the piece, but they did not have fine thread carriage bolts in the 1/2″ size I needed.  I bought four of the 2″ long coarse thread bolts, four flat washers, four lock washers, and four nuts.  I also picked up a large washer to match the other three I already had for securing the central mounting stud along with two nylon washers.  That trip took over an hour out of my day before I even got started on my main task.

It took me several hours and many trips back and forth between the bus and the shop (in the garage) to get the piece of underlayment to fit just right.  I made one small mistake but the piece was large enough and complicated enough that I did not want to take the time or material to remake it.  Before I could install it I needed to get the outside end of the floor patch secured.  Yesterday I tried to screw that end to the material underneath it but the screw would not penetrate.  I scratched my head for quite a while until it occurred to me that I could use a small angle bracket attached to the vertical wood wiring chase in the forward outside corner.  I had limited access to that area, and it took me multiple attempts before I finally got the screw in, but I did.  Securing the bracket to the floor patch was a lot easier.

After securing the end of the patch I realized that the area between the front mounting channel and vertical front of the platform was slightly concave.  It was not a big dip but it was big enough that it needed to be patched.  Floor patching compound was the last thing I wanted to deal with today but it turned out to be just that, because once I applied it it had to dry for hours.  It was heavily overcast all day and my mood was correspondingly suppressed so I felt like I was doing everything in slow motion.  Based on the fact that I did not even get the piece of underlayment installed perhaps I was.

I try to keep an eye on the “house” batteries in the bus.  When I checked them this afternoon the reported voltage was higher than normal so I turned off the charger function on the Magnum 4024 to let the batteries rest and see where the voltage really was.  The DC draws on the battery bank were minimal.

I am finishing this post a couple of days later and no longer recall what Linda fixed for dinner but whatever it was I’m sure it was good.  After dinner we relaxed in the living room for a while, watched our Tuesday evening TV programs on the larger TV set in the basement recreation room, and then went to bed.

 

2015/11/06 (F) MEF3

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Rain was forecast for overnight with the highest probability between 4 and 7 AM.  I think we had some light rain starting a little after midnight but around 6:45 AM a front moved through with intense thunderstorms.  The heavy rain lasted at most 15 minutes, but while it was coming down I could not see past the railing on our deck.  The winds were also very intense judging by the sound and movement of the Crimson King Maple Tree next to the deck.

When we finally got up Linda checked the weather.  The storm front had already pushed into Ontario, Canada and it looked like we were done with the rain.  Temperatures will drop during the day and we have some below freezing lows coming up the next few nights, but it’s November so we can’t claim to be surprised and have no basis to complain.

Linda left around 9:45 AM to go to the supermarket.  While she was gone I worked on my iPad finishing my posts from Wednesday and yesterday.  I made a few phone calls and sent several e-mails before getting to work on the bus.

One call was to SLOAN’s in Linden to see about having the lawn tractor repaired.  The service tech said the normal turnaround this time of year is about two weeks depending what is needed and whether they have the parts on hand.  He said that if I brought it in soon and they did not get it finished before Thanksgiving they would store it for us until spring.  Given the limited space in our garage and the need to get Linda’s car in there for the winter having them store it would be a real bonus but would require the better part of day to borrow Mike’s trailer, haul the lawn tractor up there, and return the trailer to Mike.

The second call was to A-1 Upholstery in Elkhart, Indiana.  Terry said the fabric was sewn for our spacer cushion and she was expecting the foam today or Monday.  Once the foam was stuffed into the fabric she would have to stitch the seam closed.  She figured it should be ready by Wednesday.

My last call was to Pat Lintner from our FMCA Great Lakes Converted Coaches (GLCC) chapter.  He and Vickie live just outside of Elkhart, Indiana and found several pieces for an old Nutone kitchen counter mounted multi-function appliance.  We have a Nutone power base in our bus that works and got a few accessories from Pat and Vickie at the GLCC Surplus and Salvage Rally back in September.  They subsequently found more, and were going to bring them to Florida, but I let them know I would very likely be passing through Elkhart late next week and could pick them up.  Pat offered me the use of the guest room, as he always does, and I may take him up on it this time.  Given the number of places I have to stop it will likely be a very long day.

One of my e-mails was to our cabinet maker, Jarel Beatty, to update him on when I might be coming to Logansport and to see if he could/would get a 60″x60″ sheet of Baltic Birch plywood and cut it into four 30″x 30″ pieces for me.  I then e-mailed Bill Tharpe to let him know I would be in his part of Indiana late next week and would drop off the antique SUN Distributor Tester at his place in Mexico, Indiana.

Bus floor under the driver’s seat. Black tray to rear (upper left) has been sprayed with rubber undercoating. Seat mounting rails (center) are visible. Open area is the bay below the driver’s seat.

Bus floor under the driver’s seat. Black tray to rear (upper left) has been sprayed with rubber undercoating. Seat mounting rails (center) are visible. Open area is the bay below the driver’s seat.

Linda got back around 11 AM and we finally got to work on bus-related projects at 11:15.  The POR-15 and black spray-on rubberized undercoating paint seemed to have dried adequately overnight but the wood I treated with Thompson’s Water Seal was still tacky.  The directions said it took 48 hours to dry but we don’t have that kind of time to wait.

We removed all of the painter’s plastic and painter’s tape from the cockpit of the bus and put it in a trash bag.  I then drilled a 1/4″ drain hole in the bottom of each tray area where water had accumulated.  The one under the passenger seat opened into a dark space but I was fairly certain it was outside the body behind the plastic wheel well trim.  I could see the driveway gravel through the driver side hole so I knew it was outside the body.

The next task was putting spray foam insulation in a few critical spots.  We did not need much for the bus so I sealed two holes in the floor of the bedroom in our house (under a couple of the baseboard radiators) and then added some around the back door frame of the garage.  Once I start using a can of this spray foam insulation I find it best to use it up.

Cutting and fitting the new plywood to patch the area under the driver’s seat in the bus.

Cutting and fitting the new plywood to patch the area under the driver’s seat in the bus.

Patching the floor under the passenger seat involved three pieces of wood.  The tray area under the plywood floor between the seat mounting channels is slightly raised along the inside edges of the channels.  I had cut a piece of 3/16″ SurePly to fit between the raised edges and slide under the existing floor towards the center of the bus.  I set it in place and slid it under the old floor while Linda and I help it up slightly with pry bars.  Because of the geometry of the situation I had to cut about six inches off of the end of this piece towards the outside of the bus.  I had notched this piece to fit around the drain line for the front AC evaporator, so it slipped in behind the first piece just right.  The third part of the patch was a piece of recycled 3/4″ plywood that I had cut yesterday to just fit between the mounting channels.  With that in place I screwed through the old wood into SurePly and screwed through the 3/4″ plywood into the SurePly and pulled it up tight.

By this time it was 1:15 PM and I was ready for lunch.  Linda made hummus and onion sandwiches and served them with tangerine halves.  A simple but delicious mid-day meal.

After lunch we worked on the driver side floor patch.  The driver side was trickier because the patch has to rest on and span structural members.  As with the passenger side I am trying to replace 1″ thick plywood without having access to material of that thickness.  The plywood sold as 3/4″ actually measures from 0.707″ to 0.717 inches in thickness.  As it turned out the combination of so-called 3/4″ plywood with the SurePly underlayment plywood was just thick enough to match the old 1″ stuff.

Yet another layer of plywood to fill in and even up the floor under the driver’s seat in the bus.

Yet another layer of plywood to fill in and even up the floor under the driver’s seat in the bus.

I had to trim the piece of SurePly several times and drill holes for the seat mounting bolts.  The holes were not quite in the right place but I was able to trim it to my satisfaction and it was generally a good fit.  We then used it as a template for laying out the same shape on a piece of 3/4″ oak veneered plywood.

Hardwood veneered plywood is more expensive than regular fir plywood but it has more layers and is dimensionally more stable.  I had a piece that was flat and big enough to cut out the part we needed so I used it.  After some minor trimming it fit properly and lined up with the SurePly layer.  I turned them upside down, aligned them carefully, and screwed the SurePly to the underside of the 3/4″ piece.  I then installed them back into the open area.

We now needed another piece of SurePly, but it needed to be larger and a different shape.  It would be one of two pieces that would replace the 1/2″ thick top layer of plywood.  I removed the old piece from the bus after feeding two wires back through a hole.  We used the old piece as a template to outline the new piece and mark the four holes for the mounting bolts and the one for the wires.  I cut out the new piece and drilled the holes and then put it in place.  I was surprised by how much it was off.  It needed to be wider and longer and the holes were not as well aligned with the holes in the plywood below it as they needed to be.

All of the patch pieces in place in the driver’s compartment. The four holes are for the mounting bolts for the seat pedestal base.

All of the patch pieces in place in the driver’s compartment. The four holes are for the mounting bolts for the seat pedestal base.

SurePly is not expensive but it’s not free either.  It is relatively easy to work with, however, so making a second piece was not a big deal.  What was a big deal was the cloud cover, dropping temperature, wind, and diminishing light, all of which were making outside work more difficult and less enjoyable with each passing minute.  But we took our time and got it cut, and after some minor trimming it fit very nicely.  I did not, however, secure it, or the 1″ plywood sandwich under it, as I needed the top piece to use as a template for the final piece.  This last piece will not only cover the area under the driver’s seat, it will extend out towards the door and cover the landing.  Once I have that cut correctly I will secure the bottom sandwich and then use floor leveling compound to fill in gaps.  I will then install the last two layers of SurePly.  At that point I will need to go to Lowe’s for another sheet of SurePly to finish the passenger seat platform and will probably get two sheets just to make sure I have enough.  As much as I like going to Lowe’s and The Home Depot, each trip takes time away from actually working on the bus.

We quit working at 4:30 PM to get the tools put away before Brendan and Madeline arrived.  They got here at 5:15 PM and she was very excited to see us and be at our house.  Linda and Brendan got all of Ms. M’s stuff from the car to the house and Brendan transferred the car seat to Linda’s car.  Brendan entertained Madeline while Linda got the inflatable toddler bed set up.  Madeline went immediately for the cabinet under the sink in the hall bathroom where we keep the bandages and found one to put on.  She likes cartoon character bandages.

Brendan hung around until 6 PM and left just as Linda put dinner on the table.  He and Shawna are headed to Ajo, Arizona this weekend for a wedding.  Their flight to Phoenix leaves tomorrow morning so Madeline will be with us until Monday afternoon when Linda takes her back to her house in Ann Arbor.  Her parents’ flight is due in at 7 PM so Linda won’t be home before 9 PM that evening.

For dinner Linda made roasted potatoes and mock chicken tenders.  She and Ms. M had broccoli and peas but she was kind enough to only serve me broccoli.  I don’t think I will ever develop a taste for green peas.

By the time we finished dinner Madeline was a little tired and had a brief crying episode when I told her she could not use our bed as a trampoline.  Linda offered to let her watch an episode of Daniel Stripped Tiger and that seemed to ease her distress at having been told ‘no’ which is a very traumatic experience for her at this age.  She wanted to put on her pajamas and brush her teeth first, so Linda helped her with that.  The two of them climbed into our bed and watched the video on Shawna’s iPad while I stayed in the living room and wrote this blog post.

When the video was over Madeline wished me ‘good night’ and went quietly off to bed.  Linda and I lingered in the living room and I texted Chuck to inquire about their travels yesterday and today.  I then went to my office for a while where I updated our WordPress site, off-loaded photos from today’s work, logged in to RVillage and checked the forums of various groups, and dealt with a few e-mails.  I came back upstairs at 9:45 PM and we were in bed by 10 PM where I finished the draft of this post.

 

2015/10/29 (R) A Setback

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Linda turned off her alarm and slept a few extra minutes before getting up at 6 AM.  I watched the weather on TV while she got ready to go to the bakery.  She left at 6:25, about 10 minutes later than usual.  I am always amazed at how quickly she can get showered, dressed, and out the door.

The temperature across our area was 37 degrees F, more or less, and the wind was blowing, which we could see just by looking at our trees.  The winds were forecast at 15 – 25 MPH out of the SW gusting to 40 and strengthening into the morning hours as they shifted out of the west in advance of a second cold front.

Last night I shut off the color laser printer, the two NAS units, and the Linux box as a precaution against losing power but left my laptop on since it runs on its own internal battery.  Even though all of our devices with hard disk drives are plugged into uninterruptible power supplies, and we have an auto-start whole house generator with an automatic transfer switch, I decided to leave all of these computing devices turned off until the wind subsided later today.  Morning showers were forecast as likely, with the possibility of a few snowflakes, but never materialized.  Overnight lows tonight are forecast in the mid-to-lower 30’s.  The bus is not winterized, and I have been working in it almost every day, so I have had the heat turned on in the bus for most of October.  I do, however, set the thermostats back to approximately 55 degrees F when I am done working for the day.

I got up, put on my robe, fed the cats, and made a half pot of coffee (Sweet Seattle Dreams).  While the coffee was brewing I heated up a banana-nut muffin, poured a small glass of orange-grapefruit juice, washed the last of the blueberries, and fixed a bowl of granola.  I was done with breakfast by 7:15, took my coffee to the living room, and enjoyed it by the warm glow of the fireplace as I worked on my iPad with Juniper on my lap and watched the night yield to the orange glow of sunrise.

New photo accessories from B&H Photo Video in New York, NY.

New photo accessories from B&H Photo Video in New York, NY., photographed with the new Sony a99v-DSLT camera.

My main focus today was the cockpit of the bus, specifically the floor/wall tile, but first I got dressed, turned up the heat in the bus and the garage, and then opened the boxes that arrived yesterday from B&H Photo.  I managed to do that at 8:30 AM; well ahead of my usual getting started time of 10 to 10:30 AM.  Most of the items were in one large box but two small items were in a separate box that must have been shipped from a different location.  The shipping boxes were in good shape and the B&H sealing tape was intact.  I removed everything from the shipping boxes and then checked them off on the packing slip.  Again, all of the individual product boxes and other packaging were undamaged.  I opened each item, carefully removing all of the pieces and manuals/paperwork.  I arranged everything on the dining room table and took a few photos to document what was there.

I had been pondering the damaged plywood under the driver’s seat ever since I removed the old vinyl tile.  The exposed plywood was screwed down in lots of places so I figured it was not the original floor of the bus.  I could also see many additional plywood layers in the holes for the seat mounting bolts.  Closer inspection revealed that the top layer of plywood in the driver’s area was in two pieces, fore and aft, and that only the aft piece was damaged.  Based on all of that information I decided to try removing the aft piece.

All of the screws came out except for two and they just spun in their holes so I figured the wood around them was bad.  It took a little prying but the piece popped loose.  I pushed the two power wires for the motorized seat back through a hole and the board was free.  What I found made my heart sink.

First look at the water damage in the aft portion of the driver’s floor area.

First look at the water damage in the aft portion of the driver’s floor area.

The underside of the plywood was much more damaged than the top side and it was moist.  The original bus floor was even worse.  Part of it was missing and I was able to crumble much of what was still there from the rear mounting holes back.  It was obvious that there had been considerable long-term exposure to water but it was not obvious how this had occurred and was, apparently, still occurring.  I texted Linda and Chuck with a photo of the damage and heard back from both of them fairly quickly.  This was clearly an unanticipated setback but long term it was better that I discovered it, and had a chance to fix it, rather than having covered it up.

Speaking of covering things up, the top layer of plywood must have already been damaged when we bought the coach in late 2009.  One of the things we had Creative Mobile Interiors (CMI) do to the coach between September 2009 and April 2010 was pull the carpet out of the entry and cockpit and replace it with the gray vinyl tile that I just removed.  The tile was under the swivel pedestal base of the driver’s seat so whoever installed the tile must have removed the base and must have seen the obvious signs of damage.  They should have stopped right there and let someone know and CMI should have contacted us to discuss a course of action.  The obvious course of action would have been to pull up the top layer of plywood and see what was going on.  We would not have been happy about it at the time as we were already spending more money on fixing things than we anticipated, but we could have discovered and fixed this six years ago.

The floor directly under the base of the seat is the ceiling of the first bay on the driver’s side of the bus.  It was very chilly outside so I put on my hooded sweatshirt and had a look from below.  I could see that the four threaded holes for the seat mounting bolts were part of two large steel angles running fore and aft that were welded to two square tubular steel cross members.  From that observation I decided on how to proceed.

My plan was to cut out the bad plywood by cutting between the centers of the holes.  That would leave half of each angle to support a new piece of filler plywood.  I got the Porter-Cable oscillating saw and started cutting out the really rotten wood aft of the rear seat mounting holes.  I was not prepared for what I found when I finally got that piece out.

The damaged bus sub-floor cut away. I could see through into the bay below the driver’s seat. The blue to the left is paper shop towels soaking up the water and rotted plywood in a small tray area.

The damaged bus sub-floor cut away. I could see through into the bay below the driver’s seat. The blue to the left is paper shop towels soaking up the water and rotted plywood in a small tray area.

What I found was water; not dampness, but standing water.  And debris, lots of mucky debris.  We had a lot rain starting late Tuesday evening, all through the day yesterday, and overnight into early this morning so I suspected that this water might be “fresh” as in recently arrived in this location.

The cross member aft of the rear pair of seat mounting holes is the top of the rear wall of the compartment under the driver’s seat.  All of the water was in the area aft of the cross member in what appeared to be a kind of tray about two inches deep below the level of the driver’s floor.  It was almost full of disintegrated plywood, and other stuff, and obviously did not have a natural drain.  I sent a second  text message to Linda and Chuck with a photo of the water/debris-filled pan aft of the rear mounting holes for the driver seat pedestal.  Some things you just have to share, and some things you just have to see to believe.

It took me a little longer to realize what was going on as my immediate concern was cleaning up the mess.  I put on a disposable glove to pick up all the detritus in the tray and put it in a trash bag.  The tray extended under the floor towards the outside of the coach so I reached back in there and just kept pulling out more and more wet junk.  At this point I started to analyze what was in front of me.

It was now obvious to me that the damage to the floor under the driver’s seat was caused by water filling this tray and coming in contact with the bottom of the plywood bus floor.  With nowhere for the water to drain it was able to stay in contact with the plywood for very long periods of time allowing it to penetrate the plies, soften them, and destroy the (water soluble) glue between them.

Clearly I needed to figure out where this water is coming from and stop it, but that was not going to happen today.  I did, however, go back outside and check the front electrical bay.  Sure enough, there was a little water on the floor of that compartment, so it was possible that the water might be coming from there somehow.  If so, I need to find the breach and seal it.  That, however, just pushes the problem down the road as I will still need to figure out how water is getting into the electrical bay in the first place and stop that.

The more I studied the way the bus was built the clearer it became that the original plywood bus floor extends under the left console into the first bay and separates the small upper compartment from the larger one below.  But this tray-like area was below the floor and farther back which meant it was under the front electrical bay and above the driver side steer tire.  I will have to check again but it appeared that this piece of plywood must be the floor of the electrical bay.

With a better, but still incomplete, understanding of the situation I resumed cutting out plywood.  My oscillating saw went through the rotten wood like a hot knife through butter, but did not cut the undamaged plywood very well.  I figured the blade was dull so I opened the Bosch replacement blade I had on hand only to discover that it did not fit my Porter-Cable tool.  Arrrgh.

It was probably a good time for a break anyway, so I went to Lowe’s to get a couple of extra blades.  I had good QSOs with Mike (W8XH) going to and from the store.  The weather is supposed to be very pleasant all next week, with afternoon highs in the upper 60’s, so we are going to try to find a day to work on my antennas and the small tower next to the house.  Bus or no bus, I also have to make time for our amateur radio hobby.  When I got home I made popcorn for lunch and then got back to work.  It’s a good thing I don’t have to fix most of my meals.

Linda called at 3:15 PM to see if she needed to come home and pick me up before going to Ann Arbor.  Given what I was dealing with I was tempted to say ‘yes’ but I knew that this was a situation where I needed to stay on task until it was fixed.  Brendan and Shawna both had work-related obligations this evening and asked Linda if she could watch Madeline for a while.  Rather than have her cut her work day short to come home she left the bakery and drove directly to Ann Arbor while I continued to work on repairing the floor.

I called Chuck to see if he had time to consult with me about all of this.  He called me back and we talked it through.  He thinks the entry point for the water could be the frame on the large piece of fixed glass just aft of the driver’s position.  I know we have a leak near the front of the large window assembly just aft of that one and the forward edge of the window panel may also be above the front electrical bay.

As soon as I was done talking with Chuck I removed the reading light on the vertical walnut chase by the driver’s left shoulder and then removed the nine screws that hold the cover in place and took it off.  I have known for a long time that there was a lot of stuff running through that chase but I had never removed the cover to look inside.  It is crammed full of AC and DC wires, coaxial cables, air lines, and residential air-conditioning refrigerant lines.  My immediate interest was evidence of water, and I did find the same stains that were similar to ones we have found elsewhere in the coach, but I did not see anything that looked or felt wet.

With the new blade for my oscillating saw I managed to cut out the piece of plywood between the four mounting holes but it wasn’t easy.  With that piece out, however, I could use my inspection mirror to see the underside of the floor and reach into the space below to determine distances to various structural members with my carpenter’s tape measure.

I still had more wood to cut out but by 4:15 PM I’d had enough for today.  I set the top layer of plywood back in place and covered all of the larger holes with painter’s tape in a feeble effort to keep critters and cold air out of the coach overnight.  I also used two pieces of felt and painter’s tape to seal the hole where the steering column goes through the floor.  I took a few more photos, which I had been doing all along today.  Tomorrow I think I will use the circular saw and/or the cutoff tool and try to make quicker work of this.

Before quitting for real I decided to unscrew the 3-sided bump out from the passenger side HVAC duct cover and measure the left desk base and pedestal to see what the correct distance needs to be.  The bump out protrudes about four inches but it should only be three inches.  As I suspected it is too big by the width of the wood, but I will take more careful measurements before I take it to Jarel to have it cut down.  I also discovered, however, that the filter material we used to cover the hole where the heater hoses previously came out of the HVAC duct was interfering with the fit of the duct cover, including the bump out.  While I was thinking about it I pulled out the two filler strips that go on either end of the plywood sofa seat.  Jarel is going to remake them longer and out of solid walnut.  Since we moved the seat board out almost five inches one side of each strip is now exposed and visible and the stained plywood edge is just not the look we want.

We had a heavy overcast most of the day and by 5 PM the light was fading.  I dialed back the thermostats, grabbed the camera and the house phone, locked up the bus and went inside.  I changed into my robe and then fixed dinner.  I did not want to spend a lot of time preparing and eating a meal by myself so I had a can of Amy’s Chili with Vegetables.  I added crackers, Smoked Tabasco Sauce, and shredded Daiya mozzarella vegan cheese.  Some strawberry preserves on crackers added a touch of sweetness and Stash Raspberry Pomegranate Green Tea added its own warmth.  Given a little more time I can make a better meal for myself but ever since Linda retired and took over preparing our whole-food plant-based (vegan) cuisine I am no longer as comfortable/confident in the kitchen as I once was.  This way of eating involves ingredients and techniques with which I am simply not familiar.

After dinner I sat on the living room couch in the same spot, and in the same robe, as I did at the beginning of the day and worked on this post.  I like the sense of things coming full circle, but mostly it is a comfortable place to sit and use my iPad.  Linda and I texted for a while after she had put Madeline to bed.  At 9:07 PM she indicated that she was leaving Ann Arbor and heading home.  She got home a little before 10 and we sat in the living room for a while and finally turned in at 11.  It had been a long day for both of us.

 

2015/10/28 (W) Inside Flash

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Linda’s iPad alarm went off at 5:45 AM but she did not get up until after 6.  I got up at the same time she did but she was dressed and out the door by 6:15 while I was still stumbling around.  I put on my warm robe, fed the cats, made coffee, and had a banana nut muffin.  After enjoying my coffee by the fireplace I had my orange juice and granola with blueberries.

It started raining overnight and was still raining this morning as the remnants of hurricane Patricia pulled up from the lower Mississippi River and moved north between the river and the western side of the Appalachian Mountains towards the Great Lakes.  The forecast was for the rain to continue through the day and then off and on into tomorrow.  It was a good day to work in the house so that is mostly what I did.  But first I gathered up the trash from the house and rolled the large container to the street for pickup.

The first thing on my self-imposed to-do list was finalizing an order with DX Engineering.  I had already placed multi-packs of two different sized snap-on ferrite beads in my cart but needed to spend slightly more money to get free shipping.  I am not, however, one of those people who is drawn into buying something I do not need just because it is a BOGO item.

I have been planning for quite some time to install a multi-outlet fused DC distribution panel in the front of the bus to provide Anderson PowerPole connections for the various 12V DC accessories such as the GPS.  I had just never made it a priority, which is to say, never taken the time to figure out exactly which product to buy.  I had to go out to the bus to assess the size and feasibility of available areas for mounting.  After looking at all of the options I selected an 8-port unit from West Mountain Radio.  I really wanted a unit with USB charging ports but the only such model they make only has four PowerPole connections, which is not enough.

My next task was to order a couple of items from the Rockler Woodworking and Hardware website.  I have been considering their black, powder-coated shelf brackets for a while.  I made another trip to the bus to determine how much space I had on the wall where the table will go.  It looked like I will have 14 inches of wall space for mounting brackets so I selected the middle of three sizes, which is 12″ high by 18″ deep.  The brackets will support 1,000 pounds each so a pair of them will certainly support the weight of the Corian-topped dining table.  The table is 38″ long and fully supported by 3/4″ plywood underneath, but it remains to be seen if the wall is strong enough to support the table in a cantilevered installation.  If not, we will have to add a leg or an angled support.

The other thing I needed was hardwood veneer to build the three panels that will replace the strip mirrors that were on the lower portion of the outside hallway wall.  I decided to go with the Allwood 2-ply maple and put a 24″ wide by 96″ long roll in the cart.  The three panels will have a finished size of about 22-1/2″ by 28″ so the 8′ long piece should work out just right.  I placed the order and moved on the next thing which was entering account information into our password program.

Our password app is wonderful but frustrating at times as it tries to synchronize via the cloud every time you open it, edit an entry, or create a new one.  By design it keeps our passwords up-to-date on multiple devices, which is why we have it, but it is slow to sync and sometimes appears to hang up.  When it is trying to sync it won’t let me do anything else, so I sit and wait (or make another cup of tea).

Phil called around 12:15 PM, returning my phone message from yesterday, and we chatted for 20 minutes or so.  With any luck he will have stone delivered here on Friday or Saturday and get the driveway put in before Joe gets here next week with his trailer.  Phil, however, is at the mercy of Wayne County inspectors on another job and was not able to work anywhere today due to the rain.  Most of his work is weather and bureaucrat dependent.

I had the leftover squash and quinoa/lentil pilaf for lunch at 12:45 PM.  While I was eating a lone buck wandered through the back yard with what appeared to be a 6-point rack.  It is the first buck (with antlers) that I have seen this year.

I worked on this post for a while and then went to my office.  As much as I needed to work on getting posts uploaded to my blog there were other unfinished tasks weighing more heavily on my mind.  At the top of the list was an article for Bus Conversion Magazine on a 1985 Model 15 Eagle bus conversion that I saw and photographed at the Eagles International converted coach rally in Quartzsite, Arizona back in January of this year.  I met the owners at that time and subsequently interacted with them a bit but then got really busy with my own projects and had to set the article on the back burner.

I was pleasantly surprised to find that the article was farther along than I remembered.  I also had a short narrative and eight photos from the owners that I had not yet incorporated into the article so that gave me additional material to work with.  With only a few short breaks to interrupt my work I pulled together a first complete draft by 6 PM and e-mailed it to the owners and the publisher of the magazine.  Gary (at BCM) wants to run this article as the feature/cover story in the January 2016 issue so the editor needs it before the end of November.  Personally, I need to be done with it at least a week before Thanksgiving.

While working on the article I had quite a few e-mails back and forth with Gary, one of which inquired about my article on The Desert Bar / Nellie E. Saloon outside of Parker, Arizona.  A draft of that article also exists but it is not even a full page of text and I have not yet selected and processed any photos.  I wrote a little bit on The Desert Bar in a March 2016 overview article about our time in Quartzsite.  For a standalone article I will need to say something more/different than I said there.  If the weather continues to be crummy tomorrow I may use that as an excuse to sequester myself in my office, hunker down at my computer, and crank this article out.

One of my afternoon breaks was in response to the doorbell.  It was UPS delivering my order from B&H Photo.  I did not open it right away as I wanted to stay on my BCM article task.  Linda texted me at 3:30 PM to let me know she was leaving the bakery and arrived home about an hour later.  Even though she left the house at 6:15 AM this morning it took her 90 minutes to get to the bakery in Hamtramck.  Wet roads with poor lane markings in marginal early morning light will do that.  Michigan does not do a good job of maintaining its roads.

For dinner Linda made a simple salad of power greens with Ken’s Sweet Vidalia Onion dressing, roasted the white asparagus we bought the other day, and reheated the leftover risotto.  The risotto held up well to being served as leftovers but the white asparagus, which was fresh, was disappointing.  It was tough and we ended up microwaving it.  Linda thought it was bitter, and did not like it, but I think that is a characteristic of asparagus.  We both agreed, however, that it did not taste like much of anything.

While we were relaxing in the living room after dinner I did a search on white asparagus.  Asparagus is a spring vegetable so the stuff we bought probably came from a long way south of the border.  It is grown “underground” by keeping dirt around the stalks; a process known as etiolation, or light deprivation.  It is supposed to be milder than regular (green) asparagus but with a tough, bitter outer skin than needs to be removed before cooking.  The classic German method of preparation is immersion in simmering water with salt and butter until tender.  Now we know.  Eating things out of season may be one of the “benefits” of being globally interconnected but there is a lot to be said for eating local in-season whenever possible.

The power flickered once during dinner and several more times during the evening.  Winds were forecast at 15 – 25 MPH out of the SW gusting to 40 and strengthening into the morning hours as the wind shifted out of the W in advance of a second cold front.  I shut off the color laser printer, the two NAS units, and the Linux box as a precaution but left my laptop on since it runs on its own internal battery.

 

2015/10/27 (T) The Pilot’s Seat

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My morning started at 8 AM in its usual fashion.  I fed the cats, made coffee, started a load of laundry, made/ate breakfast (orange/grapefruit juice and granola with fresh blueberries), drank my coffee in the living room with the fireplace on and Jasper at my side, day-dreamed about high quality used Sony alpha lenses, and finally got to work on the bus a little after 10 AM.  Rain is coming tonight and forecast to stick around into Thursday so today would be a good day to do some more trimming, felling, and cutting up of dead trees.  The temperature this morning was still in the 40’s, however, and there is still much to be done in the bus.

A few days ago I installed a new AC outlet on the forward side of the cabinet behind the driver’s seat.  I wired it into the outlet on the aft side of the cabinet and then discovered that the original outlet was cracked.  I had also used an oversized cover plate on the new outlet and it interfered with the Corian cabinet top.  I finally got around to replacing the cracked outlet this morning.  I also switched the cover plates.  The regular size one still interfered slightly with the Corian top so I cut 1/8″ off of the top edge and added strips of felt on the three edges of the cabinet to raise the Corian top slightly and cushion it.  Everything fit nicely.  I turned the circuit breaker on and checked for power.  The outlets were good to go and I checked this mini-project off my (mental) project list.

I took a break and called the Escapees RV Club to register Linda and me as staff for the July 2016 Escapade.  I then called Josh at Coach Supply Direct regarding extra brackets for our MCD shades/brackets, the wiring of the passenger seat switch, and the correct orientation of the swivel bearings.  I learned that the flange, which wraps around the other piece on the inside of the ring, goes down.  (I had puzzled out that it should go the other way so I am glad I asked.)  When I was done with my phone calls I had a quick lunch of Sabra Roasted Red Pepper Hummus and Snyder sourdough pretzel nibblers.

My next task was unbolting the driver seat pedestal base from the floor.  The pedestal is secured by four large carriage bolts that go through holes at the four corners of the base plate and thread into nuts that I presume are welded into the floor structure.  The base had to be removed in order to remove the old vinyl floor tile which was installed under the base.  To get the old tile out I also had to remove a plastic cover around the steering linkage and a floor mounted bracket that retained the bottom if it.  Last, but not least, I had to unscrew the accelerator bracket from the floor by removing three small lag screws.  The accelerator is electrical, with a cable that runs through the floor, but other than limited access it was easy to detach.

Removing the old vinyl tile from the driver’s area of the cockpit was relatively straightforward.  It’s somewhat flexible and wasn’t glued down that tightly.  When Creative Mobile Interiors installed the tile they laid it out in a way that allowed the pieces to be trimmed in reasonable ways to fit around the steering column and brake pedal.  The brake pedal is mechanically linked to a complex multi-port air valve in the compartment under the floor and any finished floor has to be installed around it.

The plywood under the driver’s seat area was depressed directly under the base.  It seemed unlikely that this was the result of the base being bolted down.  It may indicate that this area also got wet like the area under the passenger side seat base.  I plan to install SurePly underlayment on the floor under the passenger seat but not the under the driver’s seat so I will either have to replace this piece or use floor leveling compound to fill the depressed area.  Replacing the plywood is probably the correct, but more involved, solution.

I started thinking about installing the new tile so I laid out all of the old tiles on the floor in the garage, kind of like putting a simple jigsaw puzzle back together.  I plan to use them as a pattern to cut the new tiles.  With a clear view of the whole driver’s area I became intrigued by the lower sidewall counsel next to the driver’s seat.  The more I looked at it the clearer it became that Royale Coach had cut the top off of a bumped out area, removed the upper three inches of the wall of the bump out, replaced the top piece, and tried to fill in the three inch gap in the side wall.  They had also cut out an access plate and then screwed it back in.  It eventually became obvious to me that they had done this to create horizontal space for the wide Villa driver’s seat that was in the coach when we bought it.  Had Royale Coach left the ISRI seat in place these modifications would not have been needed.  They were originally hidden under carpet but once the carpet was removed the really poor quality of the workmanship in this area was all too apparent.

I probably should have applied adhesive remover to the stairs and walls around the cockpit but it has to sit for 1 to 3 hours and the timing wasn’t right.  The weather was still decent and I needed to finish working on the trees at the west end of our property.  The adhesive remover can be left on for up the 24 hours so applying it at 5 PM with the intent of removing it the next morning might be ideal.  The weather forecast for overnight, through tomorrow, and into Thursday, however, is for rain and colder temperatures, so they will not be good mornings for working with the door of the bus open.

Around 3:30 PM I had a banana nut muffin and then called Phil at Precision Grading.  I got his voice mail and left him a message.  I was getting ready to use the chainsaw to cut down a small dead tree at the west end of the property when Linda texted that she was leaving the bakery.  A few minutes later Chuck called.  He had some carpet remnants for us and was nearby so he came over.  He could not stay long but took the time to look at what I was working on in the bus before he left.  It would still be awhile before Linda got home so I took the chainsaw to the west end of the yard, cut down the tree, de-limbed it, and cut it up into manageable size pieces.  I then cut up another tree of similar size that has been on the ground for a while and cut up some of the larger branches that I trimmed off the trees yesterday.

Linda got home while I was finishing the tree work and started fixing squash and a lentil/quinoa pilaf for dinner, both of which would take some time.  After cleaning the saw and putting it away I took one of the carriage boots from the bus driver’s seat and went to Lowe’s to see if I could find slightly longer replacements.  The old ones were somewhat rusted and some of the threads were in less than ideal condition.  The new Armstrong vinyl tiles are also a bit thicker than the old ones and I wanted to make sure I had bolts that were long enough to completely thread into the retained nuts.  It turned out that the bolts are metric, specifically M12-1.75×80.  Lowe’s had Grade 8 M12-1.75×90 bolts (10 mm longer than the 80s) so I bought four.  I also bought some thick M12 fender washers that were larger than the old ones.  While I was there I picked up a role of red electrical tape.

Dinner was excellent.  The squash was baked without butter (vegan) or brown sugar but was very tasty.  The pilaf had onions, garlic, and mixed greens and was very good.  We finished the Witch’s Brew wine from Leelanau Cellars that Linda used to poach the pears on Saturday.  The squash did not look that big, but neither of us was able to finish our half so we saved it for tomorrow’s lunch.

I checked e-mail after dinner and then we settled in to watch our Tuesday night TV programs.  We caught the weather report at 11 PM and then turned off the television and lights.  I turned down the brightness on my iPad display and worked for another 30 minutes before going to sleep.  I did not hear back from Phil this evening but I already knew he would not be here on Wednesday if the rain came as forecast as he had another job to work on that was better suited to working in rainy conditions than ours.

 

2015/10/17 (S) First Snow

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Last night we removed the dining table from the back of my car and put it on the bed in the bus.  We then removed the two rear seats and put them in the garage.  We wanted the back of the Honda Element empty when we got up this morning as we do not usually have time to spare in the morning before driving to South Lyon for breakfast with the South Lyon Area Amateur Radio Club.

It’s always good to see our fellow hams and today was no exception.  We arrived just before 8 AM and stayed for over an hour.  We left around 9:15 and drove to Chuck’s shop in Novi to get the box with the two remaining lower windshields for our bus.  Chuck was already there and helped us load the box into the car.  The box was sized to hold five windshields but only had two in it so it was light enough for us to move by hand.  I knew it would fit in my car as we had measured it on a previous visit and I had checked the dimensions against the car.  We set one end on the tailgate, lifted the other end, and slid it in.  We chatted for a while, and looked at a project Chuck is working in for new front window shades, before heading home.

Phil was not at our house when we got home but he had obviously been there.  All of the concrete, and many of the rocks and boulders, were gone from the driveway extension area so I presumed he had loaded them in his truck and hauled them away.

The Converted Coach Owners (CCO) Halloween Rally was going on this weekend and today was the main day for activities.  We had intended/hoped to go to the rally but the progress on our bus remodeling has slowed over the last couple of weeks for various reasons, all legitimate, and it was not in a condition to travel or be used.  It’s not that things are not getting done; they are, just not as fast as we would like or need them to.  Among other things I have not yet secured the refrigerator and pantry.  We thought about driving over in the car but it was over two hours one way and we needed to spend what time we had available working on the bus and could not justify being gone.  Thanksgiving does not look/feel that far away anymore.  It also seemed ill-advised to be gone while Phil is here digging up the yard.

My main bus focus for today was completing the installation of the built-in sofa.  We had already set the plywood seat board on a blanket on the bus kitchen floor so I had access to the inside of the base/storage box.  I did not need Linda’s assistance for a while so she worked on her counted cross-stitch project.  Before starting on the sofa, however, I took care of a few other minor things.

First I replaced the alkaline batteries in the TempMinder thermometers with Lithium ones.  I then reset the minimum and maximum temperatures for the two remote sensors.  Sensor #1 monitors the freezer and sensor #2 monitors the fresh food compartment of the bus refrigerator.  The directions for the TempMinder suggest using Lithium batteries if the remote sensors will be in cold environments.

Next I got a piece of scrap SurePly underlayment to see how it would fit in the rabbited wood trim on the lower outside wall of the hallway.  I inserted it fully into a corner and marked the edges with a pencil.  It is approximately 3/16″ thick and fit nicely without being too tight.  With a layer of veneer it should be just right.  When I removed it the depth of the rabbits appeared to be 5/16″ to 3/8″.  I think the underlayment will make a nice base for hardwood veneer.  I will cut the panels 1/2″ wider (22-1/2″) and 1/2″ longer (28″) than the 22″ X 27-1/2″ dimensions of the framed opening and allow them to “float” just like a frame and panel door.

My last mini-task was locating the 1/4″ walnut veneered plywood we removed from the old refrigerator and measuring it to see if we had pieces big enough to panel the damaged area on the wall by the co-pilot seat.  I was pleased to find that the remaining pieces are large enough for this application.

By now it was 12:30 PM and my phone reminded me that we had an RVillage Ambassadors webinar/meeting at 1 PM.  Linda heated up some Amy’s Vegetable Bean Soup and made hot lentil loaf sandwiches with ketchup.  Yum.  We got our first snow flurries of the 2015-16 winter season during lunch and they continued off and on through the afternoon.  We moved to Michigan in May 1976.  It snowed on October 15th that year and we had snow on the ground every day until early April 1977.  While that has not held up over the years as a “typical” southeast Michigan winter it was very different from what we grew up with in Missouri and formed our first and most lasting impression of our adopted state.

I retrieved the link for the Go To Meeting from the RVillage website and put it in my web browser.  1 PM came and went with no meeting.  The meeting notice said “Saturday, October 17 at 10 AM PST” but they had clarified that was actually 10 AM PDT, which is 1 PM EDT.  We decided that perhaps they really meant PST, which would be 2 PM our time.  We tried again an hour later, but no meeting ever commenced.

When I finally got to work in the bus on the sofa I removed six screws, three each from two angle brackets, and pulled the entire base assembly out from the wall, giving me complete access to the HVAC duct and wiring chase.  Much of the final installation of the sofa involved this duct.

Powered and manual sheet metal nibblers with the opening Bruce just cut in the OTR HVAC duct and the piece of sheet metal that was removed.

Powered and manual sheet metal nibblers with the opening Bruce just cut in the OTR HVAC duct and the piece of sheet metal that was removed.

The ends of the plywood seat rest on two boxes with open ends that also serve as plenums for air from the OTR HVAC system ducts.  I needed to cut out rectangular openings in the vertical face of the duct to allow air into the back end of these boxes.  I used a 1/2″ drill to create starter holes at the corners of the openings and then used a manual sheet metal nibbler and a drill-powered reciprocating nibbler, both of which I borrowed from Chuck a few weeks ago, to cut out the sheet metal.  The two tools work differently but they both worked well and I was glad I had both of them for this task.  The powered nibbler created a lot of small metal debris so I vacuumed the whole work area very thoroughly when I was done nibbling.

The right (forward) end of the duct also had an extra hole in it where I did not need or want one.  I removed an old sheet metal patch plate and cut a new one to cover the area I needed to close off.  I ended up having to pre-drill holes as I spun the heads off two of my cheap sheet metal screws.  I had a heck of a time getting the shafts out, but I got it done.  This was just one more example of why seemingly simple projects always take longer than they should.

Phil returned while I was working on the sofa and continued trenching in the French drain.  I stopped to chat with him briefly and Linda came out to let me know she was headed to the grocery store.  I then got back to my own tasks and let Phil get back to his.

The left support/plenum box with the circular register hole cut in the face plate.

The left support/plenum box with the circular register hole cut in the face plate.

The open fronts of the two plenum boxes are attached to the inside of the vertical front support, which is 3/4″ walnut veneered plywood.  To get the air out of the boxes and into the coach my design called for brown plastic 4″ round louvered diffusers.  They are considered “four inch” because the two inch long cylindrical pipe on the back will just fit through a 4″ diameter circular hole.  (A 4″ flexible duct, like dryer duct, will also just fit over the pipe.)  The visible part of the diffuser is actually 5-1/2″ in diameter.

The inside width of the plenum boxes is 4-1/4″ by design.  I needed to center a 4″ hole within that space so I had to locate the center point for my 4″ hole saw very accurately side-to-side.  I also wanted the hole centered vertically.  Using my small square I marked the vertical midpoint on the edge of the front plywood at each end.  I then measured in 2-13/16″ from the midpoint mark and used my spring-loaded center punch to mark the center of the hole.   [The 2-13/16″ dimension came from half the inside width, or 2-1/8″, plus the thickness of the plywood used to make the plenums, or 11/16″.]

A close up view of the nylon mesh screen material used to cover the opening in the HVAC duct to keep critters that might get into the duct from getting into the support/plenum box.

A close up view of the nylon mesh screen material used to cover the opening in the HVAC duct to keep critters that might get into the duct from getting into the support/plenum box.

I stood the boxes on their back ends so the front board was horizontal.  I straddled the front board with my legs to hold it and drilled starter holes with a #6 countersink bit.  I then drilled the 4″ holes with a 4″ hole saw using my 1/2″ Craftsman corded drill, being careful to have the pilot bit in the starter holes and drill perpendicular to the face of the plywood.  I have had this drill for 37 years.  It is very powerful and has several ways it can be gripped quite securely.  It is large, heavy, and lacks the convenience of a cordless drill but when I need to use a bit with a 1/2″ shaft and/or need the torque, this is still the drill for the job.  The hole saw created some sawdust so I vacuumed the whole area thoroughly when I was done drilling.

I was just finishing this work when Linda got back from the grocery store.  She put the groceries away and came out to see if I needed any assistance.  I already had the roll of plastic screen in the bus and she got the Gorilla Tape from the garage.  I cut pieces of the screen large enough to cover the two rectangular openings in the HVAC duct and used lengths of Gorilla Tape to secure them.  We then slid the base/storage assembly back into position, pushed it tight to the HVAC duct, and reattached it to the wood wire chase on top of the duct.  The two support boxes and the return air box have foam weather stripping on the back edges to seal against the duct.

We picked the plywood seat up off of the kitchen floor and set it back in place but did not secure it.  We left it out several inches from its original position and got a seat and back cushion from the bedroom.  We experimented with different spacings and finally agreed that we need to have the seat out 4-3/4″ farther than originally designed.  The current hinge board is 11/16″ plywood, 2-3/4″ wide by just under 78″ long.  This board is screwed to the top of the wiring chase and to one side of the 72″ piano hinge.  I will replace it with a piece that is 7-1/2″ wide by the same length.  I will also have to provide some additional support for the seat side of the piano hinge as in the original design had both sides of the hinge resting on top of the wiring chase on top of the HVAC duct.

The Tulip Tree behind our house in its full fall glory. This is the first photo to be posted in this blog taken with the new Sony a99v DSLT camera.

The Tulip Tree behind our house in its full fall glory. This is the first photo to be posted in this blog taken with the new Sony a99v DSLT camera.

That was the end of the interior bus work for today.  By the time we were done Phil had driven his front-loader onto his flat-bed trailer and secured it so it appeared he was wrapping up for the day.  I chatted with him about the project for 30 minutes before he left.  Earlier in the afternoon I had found my site plan drawings for the bus barn and agreed to stake out the driveway tomorrow so we could review it first thing Monday morning.

Linda had invited Meghan and Chris for brunch tomorrow but it was not a good weekend for them as the Michigan vs Michigan State football game was taking place in Ann Arbor.  Chris manages the Pizza House restaurant, and being away on football Saturday is not an option.  They will come next Sunday (31st) instead.

For dinner Linda made a nice salad of mixed greens with dried cranberries, sliced almonds, and diced onions dressed with raspberry vinaigrette.  The main course was pan-fried polenta with vegan puttanesca sauce.  It held its heat to the last bite and was very satisfying on a cold evening.  I opened a bottle of Cupcake Black Forest red wine.  We have had it before and, although drier than I prefer, it went well with the meal.

After dinner I got my flashlight and checked the bus for axle/hub seal leaks by looking under the bus from the opposite side to see the inside of the wheels.  I did not see anything to suggest a problem on any of the six positions and will text that information to Joe tomorrow for planning purposes as he would require a second day to work on the seals if that was needed.

We spent the last couple of hours of the day in the living room, with the fireplace turned on, reading, writing, and playing games while enjoying some red grapes for dessert.  Linda got a text from her sister-in-law, Mary, with a photo of her and Ron “standing on ‘the’ corner in Winslow, Arizona.”  Ron has been retired for many years but Mary only recently retired and they are on their first extended camping trip in their A-liner trailer and their first trip to the southwest U.S.

We went to bed around 10 PM.  Linda fell asleep quickly while I divided my attention between cooking shows on the Detroit PBS Create channel, a concert by Eric Clapton on PBS, and working on this post.

 

2015/10/08 (R) A Mighty Hose

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Linda was up before 6 AM to drive to the bakery ahead of the worst of the morning rush hour traffic.  I was aware of her getting up but fell back asleep.  She is very quiet as she goes about her preparations on such mornings, which I appreciate.

I got up around 8AM, fed the cats, and cleaned their litter tray.  I made half as much coffee as usual and measured out a bowl of granola, probably a little more than usual.  I took my coffee to the living room and turned on the fireplace, expecting to settle in with my cats and work on my iPad, but the iOS 9.0.2 update was available so I started the installation and read the last few pages of Number Theory and Its History by Oystein Ore.  I read from screens more than from paper these days, but I still like to curl up with a printed book.

Jasper used to sit next to me on the sofa in the morning but seems to prefer sleeping on top of one of the back cushions these days.  Juniper, who never used to pay much attention to me, has taken his place.  She has always sought out warm places to curl up but has always preferred Linda’s lap to mine.

My bus project for today was reassembling the plumbing to the two fan-coil heat exchangers that go in the bases under the two desk pedestals.  Yesterday I cut new holes for the supply and return hoses.  My first task was to remove the hoses from the bleeder valves and install barbed plastic plugs in the ends to prevent coolant from coming out.  I then pulled the hoses back and out through the new openings.

The area behind the desk where the heater hoses emerge from the passenger side OTR HVAC duct.

The area behind the desk where the heater hoses emerge from the passenger side OTR HVAC duct.

I worked on the hose for the right hand (rear most) heat exchanger first.  I positioned the base, routed the hose to the lower fitting, and marked where to cut it.  I put a plastic paint tray liner under the hose before I cut it but more coolant came out than I expected.  I got as much of it in the liner as I could and grabbed a bunch of paper shop towels.  I got the liner outside without spilling any antifreeze and poured the used antifreeze in a one gallon jug that I keep for just this purpose.  I used a funnel that is also reserved for use with antifreeze.

I took the cut off piece of heater hose outside, plugged end down, and set the open end in the tray liner.  We already had a bucket of soapy water in the bus as we had planned on hanging wallpaper yesterday.  I wrung out the sponge and then squeezed some of the soapy water on the floor and cleaned it up with paper shop towels.

The left and right desk bases and center cover/spacer set in place. The heater hoses are not yet connected.

The left and right desk bases and center cover/spacer set in place. The heater hoses are not yet connected.

With the mess cleaned up I slipped two hose clamps over the end of the hose and worked it onto the lower fitting on the heat exchanger.  If only it had been as easy to do as that description!  The 3/4″ i.d. rubber heater hose did not just “slip” over the 3/4″ o.d. copper pipe even with some residual antifreeze lubricating the inside of the hose and the outside of the pipe.  Indeed, it took considerable and simultaneous pushing and twisting to get the hose on.  It was also a lot harder than I expected to work with the heat exchangers installed in the bases, even without the desk pedestals in place.

I was interrupting my work as needed to take photographs and as I finished up the first hose the camera refused to trigger the shutter.  The LCD screen indicated that the compact flash memory card was full so I went to my office to offload the images from the last few days.  My other CF card was empty so I put that in the camera and set it aside.  I had not backed up my photos to the Network Attached Storage units in quite a while so I decided to take the time to do that.  While I was at it I backed up my blog posts from December of 2014 through July of this year along with several issues of The Gypsy Journal.

As long as I was at my computer I checked my e-mail accounts, logged into RVillage, and logged into my account at B&H Photo.  My new Sony alpha 99 and accessories were on their way from New York and due to be delivered by the end of the day tomorrow.  I am excited to finally be getting a new digital camera with a full frame (35mm) sensor that will work correctly with all of my old Minolta A-mount lenses.

By this point it was lunchtime so I cleaned up (antifreeze is definitely NOT good eats) and scrounged around the kitchen for something tasty but easy to fix.  My “go to” meal is usually roasted red pepper hummus and sourdough pretzel nibblers.  We had a little hummus left, which I finished, but I was still hungry so I made a bowl of popcorn.  I would probably not make a good bachelor.

I went back to the coach and contemplated attaching the other hose to the left heat exchanger.  While I was thinking about it Linda called to let me know she was on her way home.  It was 1 PM so I decided to wait for her to get home to help me install the second hose.  I had some phone calls to make and used the time for that.

I called Karen at Bratcher Electric to schedule the upgrading of our 60 Amp sub-panel in the garage to a 100 Amp main panel.  While I had her on the phone I asked if Mike would itemize the quote.  I also mentioned that they had picked up two or three whole house generator customers through my referrals and perhaps Mike could provide some consideration for that in the pricing.  Next I called Ferman Miller at Countertop Plus in Shipshewana, Indiana to check on the Corian desk top and table.  Ferman answered the phone and said he had called Josh this morning to let him know the pieces were ready for pickup.  I then called Josh to see what his plans were.

We originally agreed that he would pick them up and bring them to our house on his way to visit relatives in the northeast side of the Detroit metropolitan area.  His plans had changed and he won’t be visiting his relatives anytime soon.  He is leaving on Tuesday for a FMCA area rally in the Carolinas and will be gone for a week.  Before he leaves he needs to get something to a customer in Cleveland in addition to getting our stuff to us or deciding that we will have to drive to Shipshewana to get it ourselves.  One option is that we meet him somewhere on Sunday.  Ann Arbor is a possibility but Toledo or Defiance (Ohio) are more likely rendezvous points.

Linda got home around 2 PM and changed into her work clothes.  With Linda’s help I was able to avoid the mess I had with the first hose.  The second hose was even harder to get on than the first one but we managed to do it.  In part because of the arthritis in the joints at the base of my thumbs I do not have as much grip strength as I would like and often need.  The twisting and pushing was hard on my hands and the confines of the base and proximity of crisp wooden edges resulted in lots of small cuts.  This was not something I anticipated in the design and construction of the bases and the installation of the heat exchangers.

I took a break and drove to Northwest Plumbing Supply to see if they had a bleeder valve like the ones in our bus system.  They did not and had never do seen anything like it before.  The showed me a couple of things they did have but I did not buy anything.  I got a call from Brighton Honda that my car was ready for pickup so I headed home to get Linda.  She drove me to the dealership and then went on to Meijer’s for a few grocery items.

I drove to Lowe’s in Howell and was fortunate to find Lars in the plumbing department.  The store was not very busy and he took an interest in showing me various plumbing options that might allow me to replace the bleeder valve with something that would do the same thing while also giving me a way to add antifreeze to the system.  What I ended up with was 3/4″x3/4″X1/2″ copper sweat T and a 1/2″ sweat ball valve with a waste port.

Bruce works on attaching the heater hoses to the fill/bleeder valve T assembly he built.

Bruce works on attaching the heater hoses to the fill/bleeder valve T assembly he built.  (Photo by Linda.)

Back home I cleaned some 3/4″ and 1/2″ copper pipe with 120 grit plumbers sandpaper.  I cut two pieces of the 3/4″ pipe about 3″ long and one piece of the 1/2″ pipe about 1-1/2″ long.  I brushed the inside of all the fittings and test fit the pieces.  I then applied flux to all of the surfaces to be soldered, inserted the two 3/4″ stubs into the run fittings, inserted the 1/2″ stud into the bull fitting, and put the ball valve on the other end of the 1/2″ pipe.  I used the lever on the ball valve to mount the assembly in my bench vise.  I removed the waste port cap to protect the neoprene seal and opened the ball valve so as not to trap heat inside.  I then heated the T and the end of the valve and applied the solder.

I figured there had to be an easier way to get heater hose onto the heat exchanger and that Butch was the guy who would know what it was.  I called and he said antifreeze can obviously be used and works fairly well but that a small amount of dish soap would also work as a lubricant and not harm the antifreeze or the Aqua-Hot and its components.  As long as we were on the phone I caught up on their activities.

They were still there at the RV Park in Bouse, Arizona but only until the 15th of this month.  The terms and conditions of their employment as managers of the park had not turned out to be as described during the interview process and they are wrapping up after only a month on the job.  They will move their bus back to Quartzsite and spend at least part of the winter at Joe and Connie’s place where we both spent last winter.  I know it was a big disappointment to them that the situation in Bouse did not work out, but their situation in Q will be familiar, comfortable, and inexpensive, as well as convenient to the Quartzsite Gem and Mineral Club which they joined this past winter.

For dinner Linda made a blend of onions, garlic, mushrooms, and power greens and served it over a baked potato topped with Daiya cheese.  It was very yummy, and the potatoes kept the dish warm all the way to the end.  The weather had turned cloudy through the afternoon and we got the first raindrops during dinner.

The fill/bleeder valve T assembly with the heater hoses connected. The assembly is located between the bases at the floor and will be hidden by the center connector/cover.

The fill/bleeder valve T assembly with the heater hoses connected. The assembly is located between the bases at the floor and will be hidden by the center connector/cover.

I had really hoped to have the hydronic heating system reassembled today so we went back out to bus after dinner to hook up the heater hose that runs between the two heat exchangers.  This was actually two pieces of hose with my homemade bleeder/fill valve half way between the two exchangers.  Even with dish soap the two hoses were very difficult to get onto the heat exchanger fittings and the bleeder/fill stubs, but I got them on.  Linda took pictures while I grunted, groaned, and moaned and I took a few more when I was done.

It was 8:45 PM when we finally quit working, secured the bus, and went inside.  I cleaned my hands as best I could but I could not get all of the black from the rubber hoses to come off.  We sat for a while in the living room and had the last of the frozen chocolate torte that Linda made a couple of weeks ago.  We finally turned in around 10 PM and watched Rick Steve’s Europe, Travel in the Americas, and a couple of cooking shows while I worked on this post.

 

2015/09/29 (T) Bus Windshields

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Today was windshield day.  A week or so ago Chuck made appointments for both us to have windshields replaced on our buses by the local Safelite franchise.  Chuck knows Scott, who now has a management position with the company, and arranged the work through him.  The appointment was nominally from 8 AM to noon so Chuck was at his shop before 8.  We figured it would take a while for the crew to do his two lower windshields so I got up around 7 AM but did not have coffee or breakfast.  I finished yesterday’s blog post and then went through my final departure tasks starting at 8:30 AM.  I texted Chuck at 8:45 AM and pulled out of our driveway at 8:50 AM, figuring that was late enough to miss most of the morning traffic headed into the northwest corner of the Detroit metropolitan area.  Chuck texted back that I could take my time as the crew had not shown up yet.

The first raindrops came as I was pulling out of our driveway.  As I pulled out onto Hacker Road I had a clear view of dark clouds to the northwest.  Although my destination was 20+ miles to the southeast I headed north towards M-59.  The shortest route would have been south, and gotten me quickly onto pavement, but there are some low branches before the road ends at Grand River Avenue so I do not go that way.  From Hacker and M-59 the shorter route would have been east to US-23 and then south to I-96 but that interchange is a left exit, left entrance in the middle of an extensive construction zone; not the sort of thing I wanted to deal with in the bus.  So I waited patiently for a break in the traffic and then headed west on M-59 towards the storm clouds.  A guy heading east had to slow down while I pulled out a flipped me off as he went by.  I hope he had a nice day.

I encountered heavier rain as I traveled west for about four miles.  I turned south onto Latson Road and drove away from the rain, reaching I-96 about four miles later.  I headed east on the I-96 and had an easy drive all the way to Beck Road with only an occasional raindrop.  Even at this hour of the morning there were traffic slowdowns along the way but no parking lot traffic jams.  The Beck Road exit was easy to navigate going south and it was equally easy to position myself for the left turn onto Grand River Avenue.  About a mile and a half later I pulled into the parking lot for Chuck’s shop and phoned Chuck to let him known I was there.

I knew in advance how he wanted me to position my motorcoach but there were enough vehicles parked in various places that I wanted him to spot for me.  I lifted the tag axles, pulled up to the building, and then turned hard to the right.  I backed around to the driver’s side to get somewhat parallel to the building and then started angling towards the passenger side.  There is space next to the building in front of Chuck’s shop directly across from his large (bus size) overhead door.  My objective was to back around into that space and then pull forward steering hard to the left to get lined up with the door.  I have done this before and managed to do it again with Chuck’s assistance.  Our Prevost H3-40 VIP conversion is surprisingly maneuverable with the tag axle lifted off the ground.

There were two Safelite vans there when I arrived and Charlie and Eric were already busy working on Chuck’s lower windshields.  Chuck had backed his coach into the shop so I could pull in nose first and get the front end out of the rain if needed.  Since there were only two guys, and the removal and installation of one of these windshields is a two man job, I just parked my bus outside and shut it off.

I called Linda at home but did not get her so I tried her cell phone.  She was at Kensington Metropark walking with Diane.  She said we had heavy rain at home before she left and that it was moving towards the shop.  I could see the dark clouds to the WNW and it eventually rained bucketfuls, albeit for only a brief time.

A couple of years ago Chuck and I went together and bought five lower windshields from Prevost for our H3-40 VIP coaches, two for him and three for me, for the ridiculously low price of $125 each.  They were shipped to his shop in a big triple set of cardboard boxes with foam spacers on a pallet and have been sitting there waiting for us to find someone to install them.  Chuck decided to use both of his, in part because there were stone chips in the current ones, and in part because he is vacating his shop and needed to reduce the amount of stuff that has to be moved and stored.

The existing windshields on Chuck’s coach both cracked rather badly when they were removed, as in multiple dozens of fractures, but did not shatter.  Safety glass is a wonderful thing.  He was not planning on keeping the old ones but it was obvious that removing a windshield in order to install a new gasket with the idea of reinstalling the glass was probably not possible.  Charlie and Eric removed the old gaskets and then cleaned off the frames.  Chuck’s old gaskets had been slit at the corners by a previous installer, probably to make it easier to get the gaskets over the glass, but should not have been altered in that way.

Chuck had new gaskets and spline material so the guys got one of the new gaskets installed on the frame.  It looked like it would be too big but by the time they got it pressed fully into place it was a perfect fit.  They lubricated the gasket and set the new windshield in place.  After working the top of the gasket over the top edge of the glass they slid the windshield from the outside edge all the way towards the center pillar.

Chuck and I were both hungry and thirsty.  Since Charlie and Eric were working on his coach I took Chuck’s suburban to Panera for coffee, a muffin (for Chuck) and a bagel (for me).  I made the trip twice.  I was almost there when I realized that I did not have my wallet and went back to get it.

The guys finished installing Chuck’s windshields and went to lunch.  We did not leave as we had no idea how long they would be gone.  It turned out to be about an hour.  When they got back I had Charlie look at my two lower windshields.  The passenger side was cracked and definitely needed to be replaced.  The driver side had two small rock dings but they were not directly in front of the driver’s seat and not near an edge so I decided to only replace the passenger side lower windshield at this time.

I started up the bus, pulled the nose into the shop, and lowered the suspension to make it easier for the guys to work on it from the outside.  I pulled in far enough to make sure the front part of the roof was completely inside the building as it is lower than the rest of the roof and slopes forward.  I lowered the rear more than the front to make sure any rain that hit the portion of the roof that was outside the building ran to the sides and rear rather than forward and down the windshields.

To remove my windshield they removed the spline that locks the glass into the gasket and then managed to get the glass and gasket out as one assembly.  The glass already had a 10″ crack when they started and was fractured in 100 places by the time it came out.  They cleaned off the frame, which had a lot of crud on it, and then put the new gasket on.  The gasket for the lower windshields is reversible and is used on either side.  It is not rectangular, however, with the vertical edge by the center pillar being longer than outside edge where the glass wraps around into the A pillar.

With the gasket in place they installed the windshield by using large suction cups to pick it up, front and back side, and setting the bottom edge into the gasket with the right edge about four inches from the center pillar.  The passenger side mirror was in the way so I had to loosen one of the set screws and swing it out of the way.  They used a hard plastic stick with a rounded tip and edges to get the gasket over the outside of the top edge of the glass.  Using glass cleaner as a lubricant they then slid the glass towards the center and into the gasket channel.  The glass did not slide easily but Charlie and Eric were big, strong guys and it eventually was in place.  They then used the plastic sticks to get the gasket out from behind the glass and over the edge all the way around.  The last step in the installation was to put Sikaflex adhesive caulk between the frame and the gasket and between the gasket and the glass, all from the outside.  They masked off the frame to protect the paint but did not mask off the glass.  Gasketed glass installation was not something I knew anything about so it was informative to be able to watch every detail of this process.

They had our invoices with them but had to have the office redo mine and e-mail it since I only had one windshield replaced instead of the two we originally scheduled.  Chuck and I each wrote them a check.  Eric had us sign on his Note tablet and printed our receipts on a portable wireless printer.  It had been six hours since they arrived and they had spent five of those working pretty hard.  We gave each of them a $20 tip.

Charlie and Eric loaded up our three old broken windshields and left.  I then backed my bus out and parked it.  Charlie wanted it to sit for at least an hour before driving it to let the Sikaflex cure a bit.  Chuck locked up the shop and we went to Panera (again) for a late lunch.  We both had Black Bean Soup and Chuck had a half sandwich.  Barb called as we were finishing our meal and said she was her way to the shop so we headed back.  She arrived at the shop just ahead of us and inspected the new windshields on their coach.  I then showed her the work we have done on the interior of our coach.  We sat around in the shop talking while I waited for the worst of the rush hour traffic to pass before driving the bus back to our house.

I called Linda around 5 PM and then left for the drive home, reversing my route from this morning.  Traffic was heavy but moved along.  Linda heard me pull in the driveway and helped get me positioned.  It’s hard to sneak up on someone with a Detroit Diesel 8V92 engine.  Once I was parked I shut off the accessory air to the engine bay, disconnected the chassis batteries, and plugged in the electrical shorepower line.  Back in the coach I noticed that the refrigerator had come out of the alcove about 12 inches.  It had not budged on the drive to/from Edwardsburg and Elkhart but I will obviously have to secure it after all.

Dinner was reheated chili and Saltine crackers.  When Linda makes chili she always makes extra and freezes it to have on hand for easy heat and serve meals.  It is a one pot meal the way she makes it and is as good, or better, left over as it is fresh.

Ferman had called while I was gone and let Linda know that he had the Sandstone Corian he needed to build the small table for the bus so after dinner I texted Josh to let him know.  I then checked e-mail but did not respond to any.  We watched NCIS and NCISNOLA on the big TV in the basement and then went to bed.

 

2015/09/19 (S) Rally Wrap Up

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Today was the last full day of the FMCA Great Lakes Converted Coaches (GLCC) annual Surplus and Salvage Rally.  It started with strong storms overnight but they had dissipated by breakfast time.  The skies eventually cleared on brisk winds with a chilly northerly component and the high was forecasted to be 67 with some clouds.  The clouds turned out to be white, scattered, and fast moving and it turned out to be a lovely late summer day with a hint of fall in the air.

The breakfast provided as part of the rally was pancakes and sausage but Linda and I had our granola and finished up the berries.  We decided to stay around the campground and have an easy day.  Initially, however, we had some post-breakfast excitement.

Juniper caught another mouse.  It was another very small dark gray house mouse, obviously very young but old enough to wander away from a nest in search of food and water.  I got it away from her and into the paper cup that we kept for this purpose and put the paper bowl on top.  Linda took it back to the woods and set it free.

Even after catching two mice in the last 16 hours the cats continued to show great interest in the base of the bathroom sink cabinet.  The front of the toe kick space has one of the many brass colored expanded metal screens for the OTR HVAC ducts and several things were becoming clear to me at this point.  1) We had a nest somewhere in the bus; 2) the nest was likely in the base of this cabinet, or accessible from there, and 3) the baby mice were apparently small enough to get through the expanded metal grate.  I also suspected that something had happened to the mother mouse which is why the babies were leaving the nest.

Some of this was confirmed when I got down on the bathroom floor with a flashlight and was looking through the grate when a small mouse came out of the 4″ flexible duct.  I tapped on the grate and got it to turn around and go back.  I measured the rectangular opening.  Linda cut a piece of cardboard about 1″ larger in width and length and I taped it over the opening.

We were away from the coach visiting with Scott Crosby of http://BusGreaseMonkey.com and others before Scott left for home.  Scott and Tami Bruner came over too, followed by their friends/neighbors Misty and Gary who brought their GM3751 Silversides to the rally.  When we returned to our motorcoach it was immediately obvious that Juniper had caught, or at least cornered, something, probably another mouse.  Her posture and vocalizations are distinctive in the presence of prey.  What was odd was she was by the front of the new built-in sofa rather than in the bathroom.

I shushed her away and she left the area without much protest.  I did not see a mouse and walked to the bathroom to make sure our cardboard cover was still in place.  It was, so if there was another mouse it must have gotten into the living area of the bus through some other opening, perhaps the OTR HVAC air return under the sofa.  When I returned to the living room the mouse was climbing up onto the top edge of my slippers.  I did not see exactly where it came from but it could have been inside one of them to escape the cats.  I got the paper cup and bowl and caught it fairly easily.

I put on my Crocs, which we use as easy on/off camp shoes, walked back to the woods at the southern boundary of the campground, and set the mouse free.  It scampered under some leaves but its odds of survival were probably as small as it was.  The temperature was forecast to drop into the upper 40’s tonight and I heard a Great Horned Owl off in the distance.  Still, its survival odds in the bus were probably worse.  We had live trapped an adult house mouse under the kitchen sink when the bus was still at home, but that was a couple of weeks ago so there is no way it could have been the mother of these current juvenile mice unless it found its way back into the bus.  My assumption was that the mother was not around and the young mice were desperately trying to find food and water.  These circumstances made me a bit sad, but we simply cannot have mice getting into the living area and becoming play toys for our cats.  Ultimately we need to find a way to keep them out of the bus altogether but so far a solution to that problem has proven to be elusive.

The official rally lunch was leftovers after which folks divided up whatever was left.  Linda split the remaining salad lettuce with Vickie and took some bell peppers, onions, mushrooms, and bottled water.  I grabbed a mostly full 2 L bottle of diet Coke.

Marty Caverly stopped by to see the bus remodeling and stayed to chat a while.  Marty had spent the better part of a day at the Back-to-the-Bricks Rally last month getting Pat and Vickie’s cruise control to finally work reliably.  He spent most of this morning getting their air leveling system to work reliably.  Marty is an electrician who did a lot of work with electronics in his 40 years with General Motors and is the “go to” guy in our club for most electrical issues.

There was a lull in our social activities and Linda settled in to read while I worked at my computer transferring drafts of blog posts from e-mail to Word.  I edited a week’s worth from the third week of July and got them ready to upload but did not post them.  I will do that when we get home.  I used the MCD day shade while sitting at the desk to cut down the light while still affording me a view.  Linda forgot her iPad and was using mine to read one of the latest novels in Nick Russell’s Big Lake series.  She went for a walk which gave me an opportunity to work on this post as I write them using the Note app on my iPad.

We saw Pat and Vickie walking towards the office and figured they were making arrangements for next year’s Surplus and Salvage Rally.  They stopped at our coach on the way back with the signed contract.  The dates are September 21 to 25, 2016 and the nightly camping rate is $35 plus tax for 50A full hookup sites.  It’s pricey, but the campground is conveniently located in the heart of the Elkhart area with convenient access to many RV surplus businesses.  We also get the exclusive use of a meeting room with a full kitchen, and they always reserve sites for us that are close to the meeting room.  It should be a lovely time of year to have the rally, being the first five days of fall.  Unfortunately we will probably not be attending as we do not plan to be back from New England by then.

Meals for this rally usually include dinner on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, with Friday also being a business meeting, and breakfast on Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.  The only lunch is the “must goes” on Saturday.  Saturday dinner is traditionally out at a restaurant and the choice this year was McCarthy’s on the Riverwalk.  The Elkhart River splits as it comes into the city, joins back up with itself and eventually flows into the much larger St. Joseph River at two points.  McCarthy’s features some very interesting Irish fare but the ambiance is slightly upscale restaurant rather than an Irish pub feel.  Our food choices were very limited, of course, but we knew that before signed up to go.

We rode over with Pat and Vickie and sat with them at one end of the table.  I think we had 13 of the 23 attendees at dinner.  Linda had a Guinness and I had a lighter beer that had “cider” in the name.  We each had a house salad with a very nice balsamic vinegar dressing but no cheese and an order of French fries.  The service was OK but not outstanding.  I asked for Tabasco sauce and Vickie had to remind the waitress to get it.  I was over half done with my fries by the time it arrived.  The serving was small but the fries were good and we did not leave hungry.

Most of us went for a walk along the river after dinner.  The sun was already below the downtown skyline, however, and it was chilly.  None of us brought jackets so it was a shorter walk than it might otherwise have been.

Back at the campground Scott and Tami started a campfire in the fire pit by their rig.  Linda and I brought over our chairs, blankets, a bowl of grapes, and our glasses of wine.  Vickie brought her chair, popcorn, and a popcorn skillet designed for popping corn over an open fire.  Dan brought his chair and joined us.  It was a clear, crisp evening but the fire (and blankets) made it comfortable, the popcorn and grapes made it yummy, and company made it worthwhile.

Although relaxing in some ways, rallies are intense in other ways.  We have only been here 3-1/2 days but we arrived tired, ran around taking care of things, and when we finally relaxed the tiredness washed over us.  We gathered up our things and went back to the coach at 10 PM where we watched an episode of Grantchester on the local PBS affiliate, went to bed, and fell asleep.

 

2015/09/18 (F) RBus Anniversary

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The predicted thunderstorms came overnight with heavy rain and lots of lightning and thunder.  I was aware of the rain but Linda seemed to be more aware of the lightning.  Based on the radar just before going to bed the strongest storms passed north of us.  Even with furnaces and air-conditioners we are more intimately connected to the weather in our RV than we are in our house, especially during storms, but we like that aspect of the lifestyle.  If we wanted to live in a climate controlled bunker we would build one at the house.

Our bus at the GLCC Surplus Salvage Rally at Elkhart Campground in Elkhart, IN. We bought it six years ago today. We are the 4th owners as best we can determine.

Our bus at the GLCC Surplus Salvage Rally at Elkhart Campground in Elkhart, IN. We bought it six years ago today. We are the 4th owners as best we can determine.  The older GM buses behind ours are also members of the FMCA Great Lakes Converted Coaches chapter.

We bought our bus six years ago today.  It is an H3-40 VIP motorcoach that was manufactured by Prevost Car Inc. in Quebec, Canada in August 1990.  It is powered by a Detroit Diesel 8V92TA diesel engine manufactured in April 1990.  It went directly to Royale Coach in Elkhart, Indiana in September 1990 and the conversion was finished in October 1991.  Because of the timing it was titled as a 1992.

In Michigan vehicles have to be at least 25 years old to qualify as “historic” so we are still a couple of years away from that benchmark, but she is a grand ole gal none-the-less.  Technically historic license plates, which carry an inexpensive registration fee, are only supposed to be used on vehicles that receive limited use, such as in car shows and parades, but people routinely put them on everyday use vehicles to avoid paying higher registration fees.  We, however, do not intend to do that.  It’s the kind of thing that some bureaucrat in the future can decide to do something about and end up imposing retroactive penalties.  It’s just not worth the risk of having to deal with that hassle.

We spent an hour after breakfast figuring out the required dimensions for the Corian table that will go between the two captain’s chairs in the living room of the bus.  I then called Countertops Plus and left a message for Ferman Miller with the dimensions.  It turned out that the table needs to be 22″ wide and 38″ long and I doubt that he has enough material in his 96″ by 30″ sheet to make both the desktop and the table.  I will follow up with him on Monday if I do not hear back from him before then.

We left late in the morning to visit two of the surplus and salvage businesses on US-12 in Michigan.  Johnson’s is just west of White Pigeon and Bontrager’s is east of White Pigeon but not as far as Sturgis.  I found two switch plates at Johnson’s that might fit two small 12V DC switches I need to mount.  At Bontrager’s I found a 1-1/2″ Bristol blade valve to replace the one on our fresh water tank.  We also bought four packages of small 12V DC LED rope lights.  Each pack is 5 meters (16′) long and has 60 warm white LEDs per meter.  They are rated at 4.8 Watts per meter and are very bright.  My intention is to use them around the inside of cabinet openings in place of the incandescent light fixtures that are original to the coach.  The will give a brighter light and illuminate the entire inside of the cabinet rather than shining light from a single location.

We looked at a powered fresh water hose reel with a 40′ hose and a powered 50A shoreline reel with a 33′ cord.  They wanted $200 for the water reel and $400 for the cord reel.  Linda looked them up online using her phone.  The asking prices were certainly less than retail at Camping World, but not enough less to make me shell out that kind of money for something that might not get installed for a year or more, if I could figure out a way to install them at all.

We stopped at Martin’s on the way back to camp and bought two Amy’s frozen vegan lasagna entries for dinner.  The other rally participants were having regular lasagna and we wanted to fit in.  🙂  Salad was also being served and Vickie was making it without cheese, eggs, etc. so we could have some.

Pat and Vickie had a Nutone Food Center years ago and still had some of the accessories plus a replacement motor.  They brought all of it over to see if it would fit our unit.  It did, but was missing one piece, a right angle drive that was needed for some of the accessories.  Vickie was pretty sure they had it somewhere at home but would have to look for it after the rally.  They also did not have the food processor, which is the accessory that interests Linda the most, but it was nice to get what they had.  Linda can start checking EBay now that we know the other accessories fit our recessed power base.

I helped Pat with the wiring for an LED replacement bulb for a fluorescent light fixture.  They have 12 of these fixtures (with 24 tubes) in their 1987 Prevost XL conversion.  Pat found LED replacements that can be wired directly to the switched 12V DC supply, completely eliminating the use of the electronic ballasts.  It turned out that the pins at each end of the tubes were also electrically active and we had to cut all of the interconnecting wires.

Ed Roelle stopped by to find out what we were doing with all of the food equipment.  Apparently someone thought we were “giving it all away.”  Not true, of course; it belongs to the club and isn’t ours to give.  What we wanted was for different people to take the things that will be the most useful at the rallies they host.  Linda and I do not make it to all of the rallies, and next summer we will miss two of the big ones; Back-to-the-Bricks in August and Surplus & Salvage in September.  We plan to attend the Escapees Escapade Rally at the end of July in Essex Junction, Vermont, and then the FMCA rally in early August in Massachusetts.  We will then head for the Canadian Maritimes and work our way back down through New England over the course of the early fall.

Pat Caverly stopped by to see the bus.  Linda showed her around and then we all sat down to visit for a while.  After they left to help with dinner preparations I finished the posts for yesterday and the day before, e-mailed them to myself, and started working on today’s post.

Dinner was scheduled for 6 PM and most folks were gathered by then.  Rain looked imminent so I closed the three roof vents in our bus, gathered up the bag of chapter T-shirts and flags, and went to the meeting room.  I conferred with Pat, Vickie, Tami, and Linda and decided to hold the brief business meeting before dinner.  It took all of 10 minutes.  Dinner was salad and lasagna.  Vickie prepared the salad by keeping all of the ingredients separate.  That allowed us to build our salads using only things we eat, which we really appreciated.  Linda heated the frozen Amy’s vegan lasagnas that we bought at Martin’s for our main course.

Linda was helping clean up in the kitchen and I was sitting at a large round table swapping bus stories when Michele Henry of Phoenix Paint came in.  She was on her way home, which is not far from the campground, and knew from talking to Josh (at Coach Supply Direct) that we were here for a rally.  She stopped in to see if she could find our coach, which of course she could even in the dark, since she is the one who painted it.  Linda and I excused ourselves and went back to the coach with Michele, retrieving her kids from her car.  We showed her the interior remodeling and had a long chat.

While we were talking Juniper caught a small house mouse.  We knew there was one around because she had been focused on the bathroom most of the day exhibiting stalking behavior.  Something got my attention and when I went back to the bedroom it was immediately obvious, even in the dark, that she had a mouse on the bed and was “playing” with it.  I got a paper cup and went to the bedroom to try and catch it.  It was very small, clearly a very young mouse.  I made Juniper release it and it hunkered down on the floor by the HVAC duct.  When I put the cup down it started to go the other way but Juniper was there and it turned around and ran into the cup.  Although the cup was not big it was big enough, and slick enough, that the mouse could not climb out.  I put a paper bowl over the cup to make sure it did not escape and we continued to chat.

It started raining while Michele, Raven (her daughter), and River (her son) were visiting.  At one point the rain was very heavy and the lightning was intense and frequent so they stayed long enough for the storm to pass.  It was getting late and we were all a bit tired so they prepared to leave.  I took the bowl off of the cup and placed a plastic zip lock bag over the cup and zipped it shut.  Raven carried the cup and Michele said they would release the mouse about a mile down the road near an area of fields.

Linda turned the front TV on and we watched an episode of Gotham, which we will not have to watch again, and American Masters (on PBS).  The American Masters episode was on the photographer Pedro Guerrero.  Although known as perhaps the best photographer of Frank Lloyd Wright’s architecture, he had a far-reaching and distinguished career.  As always, it was a well done program on a fascinating individual who made important cultural contributions.  Linda was dozing at the end, went to bed, and fell asleep.  I tried to write for a while, gave up, and went to sleep.

 

2015/09/08 (T) Polyurethane

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I was awakened at 6:30 AM by heavy rain.  I was not sleeping comfortably and had to get up anyway, so I put on my lightweight robe and slippers and took my iPad to the living room.  Naturally the cats wanted to be fed so I took care of that and then settled in to put the finishing touches on yesterday’s blog post.  The rain lasted for about 20 minutes.  I e-mailed the post to myself at 7:15.  Linda got up at 7:30 AM so I made coffee but we deferred breakfast until later.

I was thinking about the house battery voltage issues Butch was having and the role of the Vanner battery equalizer in his (and our) house battery system.  I did another Google search on “battery equalizer …”, and selected “batter equalizer circuit” from the list.  One of the listings was for the original patent application by James D. Sullivan as assigned to Vanner, Inc. ( http://www.google.com/patents/US4479083 ).  (I found it interesting that Google has a special directory for patents.)  As I expected, it is a DC-to-DC converter and in its most common configuration it is designed to take charge from the upper portion of a series battery pack and supply it to the lower part of such a pack or to any loads connected across just the lower bank.

One of its features is that it looks at the voltage across the entire battery pack and uses a voltage divider network (two resistors in series) to generate a reference voltage that is compared to the voltage across the lower bank.  Differences as small as 0.01 volts result in the transfer of charge from the upper to the lower bank when the lower bank has the lower voltage.  As implemented for use with buses and other vehicles that have 24/12 dual voltage DC electrical systems the divider network consists of two equal resistors and the reference voltage is 1/2 the overall battery pack voltage.  The design can “balance” other configurations, in which the “upper” and “lower” banks do not have the same voltage, by changing the divider resistors to have the correct ratio.  I will call Butch again this evening to report what I found and see how things stand with them in general.

When we had consumed a sufficient amount of coffee to be alert enough to work intelligently and safely we went to the garage to finish assembling the left plenum/support box for the built-in sofa.  I forced mating pieces into alignment while Linda drove in the screws.  These parts dry fit perfectly so this should not have been a problem.  I blame the slight misalignment on the corner clamps that I used.  I was reminded, once again, that cheap tools are almost never a bargain.

We had breakfast at 8:30 AM; homemade granola with leftover mixed berries.  We also spilt a banana that was getting past ripe.  As we were finishing our meal I got a call from Steven Weber at Martin Spring with another question on the Webasto system in the Prevost Bus Conversion he is servicing.  He had isolated a cracked fuel pipe and needed to order a replacement.  I suggested Sure Marine Service but also mentioned Lloyd DeGerald and Darin Hathaway.

Linda needed to spend some time at her desk preparing for a 1 PM meeting with the I.T. department at the University of Michigan Ann Arbor so I took a shower and got dressed to work.  I gathered up the laundry, started a load, and then spent some time in the garage sanding pieces of the built-in sofa while Linda showered and got dressed for her meeting.  She planned to leave at 11:45 AM.  I left at 11:30 and went to Lowe’s to buy tack cloth.

Tack cloth is like sticky cheesecloth and is probably called that because it is “tacky” to the touch.  It is used to remove sawdust, drywall dust, and other little tiny particles from surfaces such as sanded wood just prior to the application of finishes.  While I was there I looked at inline water separators and inline oilers for use with air compressors supplying air to pneumatic tools.  I also looked at copper fittings to see if they had 90 degree elbows that I could use to modify the Aqua-Hot coolant lines that feed the two front fan-coil hear-exchangers.

Linda left before I got home.  I moved the laundry to the dryer and went back to the garage to work.  I was contemplating what I wanted to do next when Keith pulled up in his truck and trailer.  I chose to skip having the lawn mowed this week which will help Keith get the rest of his clients taken care of in his shortened 4-day workweek.  The grass has grown since last Monday but not that much and is still short and brown in places.  With rain in the forecast today, tomorrow, and Thursday giving it another week should be good for it.  I showed him the floor in the bus before he left.

I returned to the bus project and realized that I needed to stain the underside of the built-in sofa shelf as part of it might be visible through the notch in the vertical front panel at the floor.  As long as I was staining that I also stained the tops of the plenum/support boxes so they would blend with the two stationary pieces at either end of the seat.

With the staining done I came inside to make a few phone calls.  The first one was to Josh Leach at Coach Supply Direct to check on the details of the Corian countertop for the custom desk.  Josh said the Corian normally comes bonded to plywood which protects it from cracking in shipment.  I want to go ahead and cut the 3/4″ plywood top that will join the two pedestals together.  I also wanted to know if his Corian vendor could come out on the afternoon of the 14th to measure and possibly install the countertop by the end of the week.  His vendor turns out to be an Amish craftsman who does not “come out and measure” or “come back and install.”  Josh said he would check with the vendor to see if he would use my plywood base and also see if he had the Sandstone product in stock.

My next call was to Pat Lintner to check on dinner plans for the upcoming GLCC Surplus and Salvage rally.  I need to coordinate with Crimp Supply to have them provide catalogs for the attendees and perhaps speak to the group before dinner.  I got his answering machine and left a message.

My third call was to Jim Miteff (N8KUE) returning his call/message from earlier.  We had a long chat about RVing and Prevost bus conversions.  It’s a big topic and I sometimes forget that I have spent the last 10 years learning about it.  When I think back to the beginning of this adventure, however, I recall how exciting yet overwhelming it was initially.  I see Jim in the same place, but he is a very quick study and professional researcher so he will get past the overwhelming part fairly quickly.

While I was talking to Jim I heard a loud bang and then another one.  They sounded like it had come from within the house.  After the second one I got up to investigate.  As I peeked out the front door a Consumer’s Energy truck was backing out of the driveway.  I flagged the driver down and asked what was up.  He said they had detected a leak and that he had just fixed it.  I presumed it was at our meter but he wasn’t any more specific than that.  I thought it was odd that he did not knock on the door first to let me know he was on site, but I guess they have the right to service their infrastructure.  I have smelled gas on that side of the house occasionally ever since they installed it but dismissed it as a “purge valve” doing its thing.  We had the same issue at the old house and they kept telling me it was a “vent” mechanism on the meter.  I never belief that, but whatever.

I wrapped up my call with Jim, put in another load of laundry, and returned to the garage to apply polyurethane to as much of the built-in sofa pieces as I could.  Each piece has to be done in two steps and requires two coats, so that’s four applications that will have to spread out over a couple of days.

There wasn’t much else I could do, and I did not feel like working at my desk, so I hung up the dry laundry and then worked on my iPad in the living room.  Linda had made an appointment with Renee to have her hair cut at 4:30 PM.  She stopped at Meijer’s on the way home and finally arrived at 5:45 PM.  I went back to the garage at 6 PM and applied another coat of polyurethane.

Linda bought an Amy’s Roasted Vegetable pizza for dinner and made a nice salad to go with it.  I had some more of the Leelanau Cellars Apricot wine and we had the last two vegan cupcakes for dessert.  I tried calling Butch twice but his phone was either off or out of range.  I called Pat Lintner again and this time he was home.  Saturday dinner will be at a restaurant so that will not be a good time for Crimp Supply to talk to the rally attendees and pass out catalogs.  I will call them tomorrow and see what I can arrange.

I headed back to the garage yet again, applied polyurethane to all the surfaces that had not yet been coated, put the brush in the soapy water, sealed up the can, and closed up the garage.  I think I have just enough polyurethane left to put one more coat on the top surface of the shelf.  I plan to do that in the morning before I start anything else.

On the drive home Linda heard a weather forecast that thunderstorms were headed our way this evening with up to 1″ of rain, strong wind, and possibly small hail.  Linda headed off to bed at 8 PM to watch NCIS and I caught the last half of the show.  I turned the channel to Create on Detroit PBS and watched A Chef’s Life, a series about a wife and husband who run the Chef & The Farmer restaurant in eastern North Carolina, and then turned the TV off.

I checked the weather with my iPad and it appeared that system had fallen apart although there was still a reduced chance of scattered thunderstorms at 11 PM and again from 2 to 4 AM.  I turned the light out at 10:30 PM.

 

2015/09/03 (R) Floored

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I turned the lights out at 11:30 PM last night so I was starting to wake up at 6:30 AM this morning and finally got up at 7 AM.  We have had light to moderate fog the last few mornings which always coincides with very still air.  It is a calm, quiet time to gaze out over our own personal “misty moors” and appreciate where we are and the lifetime of work that got us here.

Linda was still sound asleep so I closed the bedroom door to shield her from the noise of the coffee grinder.  That was probably unnecessary as she was sleeping with her good ear down, but I did want to wake her prematurely.  I ground up 8 scoops of the Cafe Europe (reg) / Columbian (decaf) blend which yielded nine scoops of grounds.  I have figured out over time that to make 9 cups of coffee takes about 10 cups of water as that quantity of grounds absorbs and holds almost a cup.  (These are 6 ounce coffee “cups,” of course, not real 8 ounce cups.)  More importantly the strength of the coffee seems to come out right.

Once the coffee was brewing I washed out the grinder reservoir and wiped out the grinder.  It seems to hold coffee grounds as if they were magnetic and being relatively fine particles they get into all of the small nooks and crannies.  Why a coffee grinder has small nooks and crannies is one of those product design questions that suggest the designer(s) never actually used their product for its intended purpose.

My main reason for getting up early was that it was no longer comfortable to stay in bed.  My lower right back has been sore for over a week now and is worse when lying down than when working, much of which has been on my hands and knees.  My secondary reason for arising early was that I wanted to get an earlier start working on the bus today.  We need to finish the dry layout of the vinyl tile floor today so I can apply the adhesive tomorrow, with Linda’s help, before we have Madeline for the weekend starting Saturday sometime.

I assumed my usual position on one of the living room sofas with our male cat, Jasper, at my right side, and quietly enjoyed my coffee while doing some online research and starting this blog post.  Speaking of which, I am now (once again) over six weeks behind in uploading posts to our blog.  By the time we are done working in the evening and have had dinner I need what little time and energy I have left to write the draft post for that day.  Uploading them is a whole different process that also takes time and thought.  I am determined, however, to be caught up before we leave for the winter and to post daily while we are away.  Being behind is not fun for me, and posts that are 4 – 8 weeks old are probably not interesting to anyone who might read the blog.

I need a very specific trowel, an Armstrong S-891, to apply the Armstrong S-288 vinyl tile adhesive.  As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, The Home Depot and Lowe’s do not sell this trowel or one even remotely similar.  Lowe’s did, however, have a plastic spreader that has the correct notch size and spacing.  Someone in the floor department at one of the stores suggested we try Blakely’s Supply in Wixom so I plan to call them this morning.  Don at Lynch Carpet in Howell, where we got the tile and adhesive, mentioned another place so I may have to call them back and get the name of the business.

We’ve had the tile since early July so we could have taken care of this a long time ago but didn’t.  As much as I tried to “work ahead” with respect to the design of the project, procurement of materials, and contracting with the cabinet maker we did not attend to everything in a timely manner.  Exhibit #1 is the wallpaper, which had a 2-week lead time, and exhibit #2 is this trowel.  Overall we have done well keeping things moving along and in retrospect this will look like a well-planned and smoothly executed project, but right now I need something that I don’t have.  🙁

I called Blakely’s at 8:30 AM.  They do not carry Armstrong products but they did have a trowel that matched the specifications of the S-891.  They had one in stock so I asked them to hold for me.  With the Labor Day weekend almost upon us we decided to drive to Wixom and buy the trowel before busying ourselves in the bus.

The round trip would have taken an hour but we went to The Home Depot in Howell before returning to the house and bus.  This particular Home Depot has a tool rental operation and we wanted to see if they had a 100 pound floor roller.  They did.  In fact, they had two of them; $22/day (24 hours).  If I call before they close tonight they will hold one for me to pick up in the morning between 6 – 8 AM.

By the time we got home we were finally a little bit hungry and had our usual breakfast of homemade granola with fresh blueberries and banana.  Thunderstorms were forecast for today so we brought the saber saw into the bus so we would not have to walk outside to the garage to use it.

We resumed working in the bathroom and got all of the tiles for that space measured, cut, and fitted into place.  We then continued from the hallway into the bedroom and up the front side of the bed towards the driver’s side of the coach.  It seems that our pace has slowed yesterday and today but that’s not really the case.  What has happened is that all of the pieces have to be cut, some of them along four or five lines that cannot all be scored and snapped, and we are working in a much more confined space that makes it difficult to make accurate measurements.

By 3:30 PM we were part way down the foot of the bed and decided to take a lunch break.  Linda made sandwiches on toasted rye bread with vegan deli slices, onion, tomato, and lots of power greens.  She chatted briefly with our son about arrangements for this weekend and then we got back to work at 4:30 PM.

The rain that had been forecasted for most of the day finally arrived but did not affect our work as we had everything inside that we needed.  We worked until 7 PM and finished the floor tiles in the bedroom.  That left five or six pieces to be cut at the front where the main floor and cockpit meet.  My sister called and I said I would call her back when we were done.  We figured it would take at least an hour to finish these pieces.  We were tired and hungry and decided to defer this work until first thing tomorrow morning.  We shut off the air-conditioners, turned off the lights, and locked the bus.

While Linda prepared dinner I cleaned the cat’s litter tray, checked my e-mail, and replied to one from BCM.  Dinner was fresh steamed broccoli, whole grain bread, and mock chicken with orange sauce.  Another Gardein product, the “chicken” was very tasty.

I called my sister back after dinner and we had a long chat which wrapped up just before 10 PM.  Linda and I went to bed and settled in.  I was finishing up this post around 11 PM when it started raining.  From the sound it was quite a downpour but it did not last even 15 minutes.

 

2015/09/02 (W) Dry Fitting

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I turned the lights off at midnight last night so I was awake at 7 AM this morning and got out of bed at 7:15.  I fed the cats and then closed the bedroom door while I ground the coffee beans so as not to disturb Linda, who was still sound asleep.  I was having my first cup while finishing yesterday’s blog post and enjoying the company of Jasper, our male cat, when Linda emerged at 8:15, got a cup of coffee, and joined me.  Juniper, our female cat, was quickly in her lap.

Around 8:25 AM we heard a clap of thunder, which got the cats’ attention, and then it started raining.  Linda pulled up the weather radar on her iPad and there was a small but intense cell moving in our direction.  More thunder sent the cats scurrying for a safe hiding place but by 8:40 the storm had passed.

Having had a large, late supper last night we decided to skip breakfast and by 9 AM we were ready to get back to work on the bus.  Our goal was to finish dry fitting the Armstrong Alterna Luxury Vinyl Tiles by the end of the day.  We are at the point where we have placed all of the full 16″ x 16″ tiles so everything that is left has to be cut to fit.  In order to help make that possible I turned on all three air-conditioners and set the thermostats for 75 degrees F.

We started by cutting two pieces that had to follow rather intricate profiles, one by the right side of the refrigerator alcove and the other at the forward end of the kitchen cabinets.  We then filled in most of the edge pieces in the living room and kitchen, which is actually just one large space.  We continued down the hallway as we needed to “lock in” the locations of the tiles before moving into the bedroom.

We were finally a little hungry by noon so we stopped to have lunch.  Linda made a yummy fruit salad with strawberries, blueberries, peaches, and bananas blended with vegan blueberry yogurt.

Dry fit floor tiles viewed from the hallway looking towards the kitchen and living room.

Dry fit floor tiles viewed from the hallway looking towards the kitchen and living room.

After lunch we worked on the area at the rear end of the hallway where the entrances to the bathroom and bedroom are located.  Our original plan was to have the tile laid out with continuous grout lines but the reality is that the layout needed to be balanced and we needed to avoid tiny triangular pieces and skinny strips of tile.  After much deliberation and measuring we concluded that we would have to offset a tile as we came into the bedroom, placing the forward corner at the center of the adjacent tile edge.  We also had to employ a “slight of hand” by having a tile with other tiles on all four edges that was not, in fact, a 16″ x 16″ square.  It turned out to be 16″ by 14.75″ but that shape allowed us to maintain the grout lines. The difference is surprisingly subtle and I doubt that anyone will notice it.  Hopefully we won’t either after a while.

With those key decisions made we did an approximate fit past the end of the bed and around to the side at the rear of the coach.  Once we were satisfied that the tiles would lay out in a reasonable way along both sides of the bed and across the foot we resumed measuring, cutting and fitting the tiles from the hallway into the bedroom.

Cutting and fitting pieces has to be done with careful measuring and cutting and is slow work.  By 6:30 PM I no longer had sufficient light to work in the bedroom and it was clear we were not going to achieve our goal of finishing the dry fit today.  The lighting in the bathroom, which is mostly artificial, was good enough to keep working in there so we installed two more pieces.  One of them required us to remove a long narrow strip from an edge.  We used a hair dryer to gently warm the edge of the tile on the back side and then cut it.  It wasn’t exactly like cutting butter, but we were able to remove the narrow piece without using the saber saw.

By then it was 7 PM and we were done for the day.  We also wanted to have dinner before it got too much later.  Linda made a couple of large salads with all kinds of good things.  After dinner I started up my computer, checked e-mail, and replied to several.  I then drove to The Home Depot in search of an Armstrong S-891 trowel or something equivalent.  They did not have anything even close to what I needed so I went to Lowe’s. They did not have what I was looking for either but they did have a 4″ x 6″ plastic adhesive spreader that appeared to have the correct tooth size and spacing on one edge so I bought one.  It was $1.36 before sales tax.  (I probably spent that much in gasoline for the round trip.)

While I was gone Linda searched online for additional installation information and “how-to” videos.  She located the S-891 on Armstrong’s website so we finally knew what it looked like.  It’s a serious metal trowel with an open handle design and would be much easier to use than the plastic spreader.  If we had taken the time to deal with this on Monday we could have ordered one on Amazon and had it here tomorrow, but we didn’t.  I will probably call around in the morning and see if anyone locally has them.  If not, the plastic spreader will have to do.  I cannot wait until the middle of next week to glue and grout the tiles.

We watched an episode of Rick Steve’s Europe and then an episode of Music Voyager before going to sleep.

 

2015/08/30 (N) A Day of Rest (NOT)

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We had closed up the house and turned on the air-conditioning before going to bed last night and had it set at 72 degrees F to make sure it ran long enough to pull some of the humidity out of the air.  I awoke at 7:30 AM on this penultimate day of August hoping to be able to open up the house, which Linda prefers in almost any weather, but was greeted with fog and temperatures in the mid-60’s so I turned the A-C back to 70 to make it run for a while and move the air around.

Sunday is supposed to be a day of rest but not for us, at least not today.  I gathered up the laundry and started a load in the washing machine and was just starting to prepare our morning coffee, Kenya AA (not decaf), when Linda emerged.  She washed off some fresh blueberries and got our granola ready.  We were both dressed to work but enjoyed our coffee in the living room from 8:30 until 9 AM.

Our first bus project task was to trim the passenger side front piece of underlayment that we cut last night.  With that done I rolled the air-compressor out by the entrance door, uncoiled the air hose and connected it, unrolled the extension cord and plugged it in, oiled the air stapler, and connected it to the air hose.  I loaded the staples and, with Linda standing on the pieces to hold them flat, stapled them down.

The next piece of underlayment, which would finish the hallway, was a very tricky piece with lots of angles.  The problem in measuring a piece like this, in which sides may not be exactly parallel and angles not exactly 45 degrees, is finding a reference corner with two factory edges from which to measure everything.  I take the time to make and check the measurements by making a small, approximately to scale, drawing.

The cutting of these pieces involved a 7-1/4″ circular saw and a saber saw.  When using the circular saw we usually clamp a saw guide to the panel, allowing us to get a clean, straight cut that is almost as good as a table saw.  For shorter cuts on edges that will not abut other panels I use the saber saw without a guide and just follow the pencil line as carefully as my skill and eyesight allow.  I also have to use the saber saw for blind stop cuts, such as notches and tabs.

We took a break to have PB&J on whole grain bread and fresh apple slices for lunch.  As we were finishing lunch I exchanged TXT messages with Chuck.  He wanted to chat and called about 5 minutes later.  It turns out that he has an air suspension seat base and thought I might want it.  After getting a better understanding of what it is, and isn’t, I agreed that I wanted to see it.  It would be very cool if I could use it to replace the driver seat pedestal in the bus as part of putting in the new Flexsteel seat but I will have to check with Josh to see if that is possible.

The bathroom underlayment was next.  We considered various ways to install it and came to the conclusion that it would take three separate pieces for this small space.  The reason was deep toe kick spaces on opposing walls, angles and notches, and a drain pipe and water supply pipe for the toilet that project out at least eight inches from a third wall just an inch above the floor.  Those features made it impossible to get a single piece installed.  We might have done it in two pieces but I did not like the way I would have had to cut them.  These three pieces took quite a while to lay out, cut, trim, and staple down.

The bedroom was the next/last piece of the main floor jigsaw puzzle.  It was after 6 PM by this point.  We knew we would not get the bedroom done today but decided to try and get one more piece installed.  Most of the bedroom floor is taken up by the storage box that serves as the base for the plywood bed platform.  This box goes all the way to the driver side wall and has small Isles on the other three sides.  If not for end cabinets by the head of the bed and deep toe kick spaces in the cabinetry to the rear of the coach the underlayment would be a simple “U” shape.  The actuality it will take four pieces to complete this space.

The first piece was a simple shape, a rectangle with a large piece of one corner cut out.  As I have for every other piece I took the initial measurements but noted them on a freehand sketch rather than a scale drawing.  When I laid out the actual panel the numbers were not quite working out so I rechecked my measurements.  They appeared to be correct, which meant some of the right angles must be off slightly.  I modified the layout to make the panel a little longer than I thought it needed to be and made the cuts.  Inside the coach we were not able to get the panel positioned because of interference from a 4″ round HVAC duct and a door and handle on a lower cabinet (the end table).  I removed the HVAC register, which helped and then discovered a piece of vertical trim in the passenger side front corner.  The bedroom has less natural and artificial lighting than the rest of the coach and I had not noticed it before now.

Tired and a bit frustrated by this latest turn of events we decided to wrap up our work for the day and have dinner.  We accomplished a lot today but I had hoped (expected) to have all of the main floor underlayment done.  We will finish the bedroom first thing tomorrow.  That will leave only the entryway/cockpit to do and we will defer that work so I can start laying the new tile floor.

While Linda prepared dinner I checked my e-mail and then checked in to the South Lyon Area Amateur Radio Club information net at 8 PM.  I was just completing my second turn when Linda called me to dinner.  She made her own version of red beans and rice and served it with a glass of Cupcake Black Forest Decadent Red wine and a large piece of honeydew melon on the side.  The main dish was excellent, the wine was OK (a little dry for me), and the melon was not as ripe as we would have liked it to be.  Still, it was a nice meal.

We watched an episode (rerun) of Sherlock at 9 PM and then went to bed.  Linda played Scrabble while I worked on this post before falling asleep.

 

2015/08/29 (S) Up and Down

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When we arrived at the South Lyon Senate Coney Island just before 8 AM there were only five other SLAARC members there but we had 16 by the time the last two people showed up.  Linda (K8LMF) got to sit next to Linda (NF8C) for the first time in quite a while and they had a long chat.  All but one person stayed until 9:45 when we got up to leave and everyone else followed suit.

We were back home by 10:15 AM, changed into our work clothes, and got back to work on the bus remodeling project.  It was a very overcast and cloudy day with a high probability of rain that was forecast to be an all-day event.  That altered our plans a little in that we did not want the pieces of underlayment to get wet and our air-compressor could not be out in the rain as it has an electric motor.

Yesterday we marked and cut the underlayment panels in the driveway, laying them across 2x4s to create space for the circular saw blade.  In order to keep the project moving forward we decided to use the temporary “workbench” in the garage for this work.  Since the workbench was covered with drawer fronts that had to be moved we decided to take a little time to put the new handles on them and reattach them to the drawer boxes.  Sometimes it’s true that “there’s no time like the present” to get something done.

Linda has worked hard on cleaning and waxing the walnut drawer fronts and fixed cabinetry in our motorcoach.  The results so far are amazing and we are feeling like all of our work will be worthwhile as the interior of the coach is going to look very nice when we are done with this project.

We had cut the piece of underlayment for part of the hallway last night but needed to trim it to get it to fit correctly.  I think we took it out of, and back into, the bus at least four times, each trip requiring us to go up and down the seven steps in the entryway/cockpit plus the stool outside the door.  I do not know how many times we went up and down those steps today but it was a quite a few.  To add to our enjoyment and bus conversion physical fitness program we were usually carrying something and it was often heavy and/or large.

The next pieces of underlayment to be cut would fill out most of the living room.  I had planned to cut them a certain way but changed my mind after talking it through with Linda.  We took measurements and I made drawings that were close to scale.  We ended up using the full 48″ width of a 4’x8′ sheet and about 86″ of its length for the piece that fills the alcove where the built-in sofa and storage base will go.  It had two large corner cutouts, one to make it fit with two other installed pieces and the other to go around the base of the media cabinet that doubles as an end table for the forward end of the sofa.  After test fitting it we had to trim a couple inches off of a back corner because of a wire bundle and create a notch for several wires that ran through the floor just in front of the driver’s side HVAC chase.  We waited for a lull in the rain and took it back into the coach.

It fit just right but unfortunately there were defects in the subfloor, such as small gouges and depressed screw heads, that needed to be repaired.  Since we could not use the air-stapler today I did not have a good excuse for not patching the floor correctly so I worked on that while Linda resumed working on the woodwork.  The quart of “ready to use” floor patch was not as ready to use as I would have liked.  The directions said to stir thoroughly and when I opened the container there was a half inch of milky white liquid on top of somewhat drier and stiffer material with the consistency of fine wet sand.  The directions also said the open (working) time was about 15 minutes.

I set the timer on the microwave for 20 minutes, spent five of those trying to stir and mix the floor patch ingredients, and then tried to patch everything that really needed it in the allotted time.  I did not care for this material and wish I had used the Universal Patch and Skimcoat that I used everywhere else.  It was gritty and did not feather out or finish as smoothly as I wanted, but there was nothing to do now but wait for it to dry which would take three hours.

Linda decided to work in the house and eventually fix dinner while I worked in the bedroom (of the bus) trying to remove very old masking tape from the subfloor using a 1.25″ putty knife.  After an hour I had about half of it off but called it quits as my hands were sore.

For dinner Linda cooked a couple of ears of corn-on-the-cob, heated some vegetarian (vegan) baked beans, and cooked two vegan “burgers” topped with vegan cheese.  Mustard, ketchup, pickle relish, and four large leaves of romaine lettuce made for a tasty sandwich.  We each had a glass of the Cupcake Black Forest Decadent Red wine with the meal.  Dessert was fresh sliced strawberries with non-dairy (vegan) peach mango “yogurt.”  It was a tasty summertime meal.

After dinner I tried sanding the floor patches even though the directions said not to sand the dried material.  I used a very old piece of 120 grit sandpaper in my orbital sander and went over the entire area.  I vacuumed the whole area but I could still feel a residual grit on the floor.  I got Linda’s vacuum from the house and tried that.  I then got the Revel wet/dry mop and tried wet moping the area, but it was still gritty.  I was preparing to go over the entire area with the new 80 grit sandpaper but Linda managed to get it clean using the brush attachment on the house vacuum cleaner.

With the area cleaned up we put the piece of underlayment for the sofa nook in place and it fit very nicely but we did not staple it.  We redid our measurements for the passenger side front piece and made some minor adjustments to the dimensions on the drawing.  What I have tried to do wherever possible is to keep at least two factory edges with a common vertex (corner) and use that point and those sides as the basis for my measurements.

It looked like heavy rain was going to hit us from the west but must have tracked north of us.  We continued to get rain, off and on, but nothing heavy every materialized.  Working in the garage we measured and cut the last piece for today.  We made extensive use of the circular saw running it along a saw guide.  By the time we had the sheet cut there was a lull in the rain so we took it to the bus to test fit it.  The fit was close but needed minor trimming in the front outside corner.  By now it was 8:30 PM and we did not want to haul the sheet back out of the bus and into the garage to work on it.  That will be our first task tomorrow followed by stapling the three pieces that we cut today, weather permitting.

We turned in at 10 PM.  There wasn’t anything on TV that interested us, so Linda read for few minutes before falling asleep and I wrote until 11:30.

 

2015/08/25 (T) Turning The Corner

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It got pleasantly cool overnight and with the bedroom doorwall open it made for nice sleeping conditions.  Between being up a bit late last night and not wanting to get out from under the warm covers we slept in a few minutes longer than usual.  I put on my sweats, which I find very comfortable on a cool (or cold) morning, and made a pot of Costa Rican decaf coffee.  We had our usual granola for breakfast, took a few minutes to enjoy our coffee in the living room without our cats, who were off somewhere and probably up to no good, and then got to work.

In order to install the new seats in September we need to have the desk installed and in order to install the desk we need to have the floor installed and in order to install the floor we need to have the underlayment installed and in order to install the underlayment we need to have several things done.  First and foremost was finishing the patching and leveling of the subfloor, so that was my first task today.  While I pursued that Linda continued working on cleaning and waxing the walnut drawer fronts.  Given the limited work surface in the garage Linda can only work on three to six drawer fronts at a time depending on their size.  When she reached a stopping point with those and started working on the woodwork in the bedroom.

I have spent the last week patching, skimcoating, and sanding the entire area where the old tile was installed which I estimate to be about 80 square feet.  I went over it one more time this morning with 80 grit sandpaper on the orbital sander.  The sander has an integral dust collection bag so it did not get the coach too dusty.  I was satisfied with most of the job but still had some unevenness along the edges by the walls and especially in the toe kick spaces extending out about three inches from the cabinet bases.  That is because I did not get the last skimcoat as smooth as I needed to in those areas and the orbital sander cannot reach them.

 

I figured I would need to do one more application of floor leveling compound but did not want to open the second bag of mix for such a small job.  I decided to go the Lowe’s and buy a small pail of pre-mixed floor patching compound and the 3/4″ #8-32 machine screws we needed to install the new handles.  While I was there I noticed that they had 50 grit hook and loop sandpaper triangles designed to fit our Porter-Cable oscillating saw.  I was aware that we had a sanding pad attachment for the tool but had not considered using it until I saw the 50 grit paper.  I bought a pack and picked up some 120 grit as well.  I would also have bought 80 grit but they were out.  I had to go to The Home Depot for the machine screws as I wanted the same brass ones we had already purchased.

Back at the bus I decided to try sanding out the imperfections rather than filling them in with another round of patching and sanding.  I was, admittedly, tired of this phase of the work and anxious to be done with it so I could move on to next step.  August is slipping away and I am very aware of the date.  I was also not keen on creating more sanding dust inside the coach.

I don’t know why I did not try this tool sooner.  The design of the tool and shape of the sanding pad allowed me to work in the all of the areas the orbital sander could not reach and it worked very well with the 50 grit sandpaper.  The circular air sander can also reach these areas, and was the right tool for grinding down the old thinset and mastic, but the oscillating tool was the right one for this final smoothing.

When I thought I was done I vacuumed the floor and used the Revel Damp Mop to pick up any residual dust.  We then went inside to have lunch while the floor dried.  Linda heated up a can of Amy’s vegetable soup, made roll-up sandwiches, and served fresh black grapes and plums.  It beats fast food hands down.

After lunch I inspected the floor carefully and decided that the patching and leveling was done.  Although it was one task out of many, and there was no fanfare attached to the moment, I was very much aware that we had finally turned the corner.  We still have some minor disassembly to do, but from this point forward most of our tasks will involve putting the interior back together and installing new things.  All things being equal (which they never are) the building work should be more fun than the deconstruction work.

The major exception is the wallpaper.  We still need to remove the old paper, much of which is stained from old water leaks, and install the new paper, which Linda will be ordering tomorrow from Delux Drapery and Shades in Ann Arbor.  The critical pieces are the ones that go behind the desk and the built-in sofa.  Most of the rest of it can be finished later but we would prefer to have it all done by September 12th if possible.  The more stuff that gets installed the more awkward it will be to work on the walls.

With the floor leveling done the next impediment to installing the underlayment was getting the refrigerator out of the living room and into its alcove.  That, however, required three other things to be done.  First I needed to replace the electrical outlet with a recessed one.  Second, we needed to build up the base of the alcove and finally, we needed to install the pantry as we cannot get to the slides to mount them to the side of the alcove with the refrigerator in place.

The electrical outlet only took a few minutes to change.  With Linda’s help I used the template I made last Thursday to cut the base pieces from the 4′ x 8′ sheet of 3/4″ plywood we bought on Tuesday.  The bottom piece was the full width of the refrigerator alcove (34″ wide at the front and 33.75″ wide at the back) and 25.75″ deep.  We set it in place, checked the front setback, and screwed it to the subfloor.  The next piece was the same width as the first but 1/2″ deeper (26.25″).  We set it in place on top of the first piece and made sure the front edges were flush with the back edge extending 1/2″ farther back.  I used longer screws to go all the way through both pieces into the subfloor.

I was not happy with the way my circular saw blade was cutting and a few raindrops gave us an excuse to take a break.  We were working just outside the small garage bay and moved everything into the garage to keep it from getting wet.  I went to Lowe’s and bought a new 7.25″ blade with 60 teeth, which should give a very clean cut through plywood but still work on 2x4s and trim boards.  While I was there I checked their selection of driver bits again.  I was looking for a 3″ long No. 1 SR (square recessed) bit but they did not have any that long.  I found a 2″ bit for $2.48 but then I spotted a pack of seven 2″ long bits for under $4.  It had two #1, three #2 (the most common size), and two #3 bits from the same manufacturer as the single bit.  Can someone explain that pricing structure to me?  Apparently most of the cost is retail packaging.

Linda prepared large, wonderful salads for dinner.  She made her own dressing using balsamic vinegar, walnuts, raisins, garlic, and seasonings, and it was very good.  We finished the Pinot Grigio with the meal and then resumed our work.

I changed the blade on my saw and then we moved the wood and 2×4 supports back out into the driveway.  The new blade made very clean cuts confirming that changing it was long overdue.  The third piece of the alcove base was not as wide as the first two, measuring 28.25″ across the front and 28″ across the back.  (The alcove tapers in 1/4″ from front to rear along the right side.)  The depth was 26.75″ to match the refrigerator base depth, and a half inch deeper than the second piece.  I set it in place, snug to the right side of the alcove and flush with the front edge of the other two pieces, and checked for an even reveal along the left side of 5.75″.  Everything looked good so I screwed it down.

There are several reasons for this design/construction.  First, there is a large bundle of wires and two air lines that run across the floor of the alcove at the rear wall.  Using three layers of plywood allowed the top layer to be high enough for the base of the refrigerator to extend over the wire bundle and have its back about 1″ from the back wall (thus the reason for the recessed electrical outlet).  It will also leave about 1″ of clearance above the fridge, which is enough.  The second reason is that the 5.75″ width at the left, with only two pieces of plywood under it, is where the pull-out pantry will go.  But third, I will install a 24″ long 2″ x 2″ angle (steel or aluminum) on the middle sheet against the left edge of the top sheet to prevent the refrigerator from shifting to the left.  The front edges of the plywood base pieces will be covered (eventually) by a something, probably a piece of 3/4″ thick walnut hardwood, that will stick up above the top surface of the top piece just enough to keep the fridge from rolling out.  That piece, however, will have to be removable so I am still thinking about just how I want to secure the refrigerator case in the alcove.

Linda does her Vanna White impersonation, highlighting how the new pull-out pantry will look when it is installed. The pantry is in its extended position revealing the slides sections that will mount on the cabinet wall. The refrigerator is out so we can work in the alcove.

Linda does her Vanna White impersonation, highlighting how the new pull-out pantry will look when it is installed. The pantry is in its extended position revealing the slides sections that will mount on the cabinet wall. The refrigerator is out so we can work in the alcove.

We still had some light but with the heavy cloud cover it was darker than usual in the coach for this time of day (6:30 PM).  We rigged up a piece of twine to hang the work light and turned on as many interior lights as we could.  We then carried the pull-out pantry from the library (in the house) to the bus.  We brought all of the slides in as well, along with two pieces of 3/4″ plywood and a 4′ length of 2×4.

We set the two pieces of 3/4″ plywood in front of the left edge of the alcove flush with the two bottom base pieces.  We then set the 2×4 on flat (3.5″ side down) spanning the plywood inside and outside the alcove.  We installed the cabinet halves of the nine slides onto the pieces attached to the pantry and then set the unit in place with the bottom resting on the 2×4.  We moved the pantry in and out checking its position and considering where the slides needed to be attached to the alcove wall and exactly how we would do that so the front has an even reveal relative to the vertical front trim of the left alcove wall.

By this point it was after 8 PM, it was getting dark, and we were too tired to start something as critical as attaching the slides to the alcove wall.  We are behind schedule, but had enough sense to not push beyond our limits.  We closed up the bus, relaxed on the couch for a bit with our kitty cats, took some Advil PM, and went to bed at 9 PM.

 

2015/08/23 The West Side

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Today was not an ordinary day for us in the sense of our usual routines of chores and projects.  We were up at 7:45 AM, got dressed up more than usual, and had our usual granola breakfast but I did not make coffee.  We left at 8:45 AM and drove to our daughter’s house near Dexter.  We arrived at 9:30 and Brendan, Shawna, and Madeline pulled in right behind us.  We visited for about 20 minutes which gave Madeline time to get into the flow of being at Aunt Meghan and Uncle Chris’s house.  She was sitting on the couch with Meghan watching an animated video on Shawna’s iPad when we left.

We rode with Brendan and Shawna in their Subaru Outback.  Our destination was the Waldorf Pub Ballroom in Hastings, Michigan.  The reason for our trip was a Celebration of Life for Shawna’s father, Michael (Mick) James Lee, who passed away a little over a week ago from a non-cancerous but malignant brain tumor.

The quickest route to Hastings from Dexter is south to I-94 and then west to M-37, which runs northwest up to Hastings.  We stopped at the Panera in Jackson where Linda and I both got coffee and I got an “everything” bagel to go.  We arrived at the Waldorf at noon.

The gathering did not start until 2 PM but Shawna had agreed to come early to help with setup.  That left us with some time so we went for a walk up and down the main street before returning to the ballroom.  Shawna’s sister, Tracy, brother Rob, their mom, Carol, and Mick’s wife, Carol were there and we had a chance to visit briefly with them before everyone else started showing up.  I did not try to do a head count but there were at least 100 people there, and possibly 150.  Mick was a teamster and a lot of his social life involved his fellow truck drivers and was centered on their union local.  I think a lot of them were there.

Tracy had assembled a slide show with 180 images and put together a mix of Mick and Carol’s favorite tunes.  At 2 PM she read an honest, heartfelt, and warm remembrance of Mick.  Mick’s lifelong friend gave a similar reflection, followed by Mary Kay, the sister of Mick’s wife Carol.  A nice buffet was set out that included fresh fruit, vegetables, and small slices of toasted bread, so we had plenty to eat.  There was a full bar available but hot coffee (regular and decaf) and cold lemonade met our needs.

Heavy rains moved in just after 2 PM but moved through before we left at 4:30.  We went back down M-37 to I-94 and headed east.  Shawna and Linda were following our progress using the GPS feature of their phones.  There was an accident at the interchange with US-127 so Brendan exited at Airport Road and Linda navigated him through Jackson and back on to I-94 at Copper Road.  Shawna noticed a rainbow ahead of us and then Linda spotted a second, fainter one, with a larger diameter than the first.  We were able to see at least the main one, and usually both of them, all the way to the Dexter Road exit and part of the way to Dexter.  It was quite a sight.

We got back to Meghan and Chris’s house around 6:30 PM.  Madeline had a great day with her buddy Aunt Meghan but was keeping watch for our return and was excited to see her mom and dad and her Grandma Linda and Grandpa Bruce.  We left at 6:50 and on the way home decided to go the Los Tres Amigos restaurant on Grand River Avenue just east of Latson Road, arriving at 7:30 PM.  We had the vegetarian fajitas, and they were OK, but dining out allowed us to eat a little sooner without Linda having to cook.

After dinner we drove to the Shell station in Brighton and topped off the tank in Linda’s Honda Civic so she would not have to stop in the morning on her way to walk with Diane.  At home we watched an episode of Sherlock on PBS and then an episode of Rick Steve’s Europe.

 

2015/08/14 (F) Back-to-the-Bricks (Again)

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I was up late last night and thought I would sleep in this morning but the alarm on Linda’s iPad had other ideas and woke me up at 7:15 AM.  I got dressed and while Linda was getting ready I started downloading an update for Photoshop CC 2015 on my ASUS laptop.  These Adobe downloads are very large and very slow so I left it to run.

We did not have breakfast or coffee at home.  Linda made PB&J sandwiches and packed a bag of pretzel crackers, some fresh fruit, and some water in a cooler bag with some freezer packs.  The forecast was for very warm, very humid conditions so we closed up the house and turned on the air-conditioning.  We loaded the camera, raincoats, hats, folding camp chairs, an iPad, and some GLCC T-shirts and flags into the car and left around 8 AM for the GLCC/CCO Back-to-the-Bricks rally at the Fireman’s Park in Clio, Michigan.

We took Hacker Road to M-59 east to Old US-23 and stopped at the Kahuna Coffee shop.  We had seen the sign for this place but had never been there.  The owner was there and she was very nice.  She has a smaller version of the JavaMaster hot air coffee bean roaster that Jeff has at Teeko’s.  Her selection of green beans, however, was very different from Teeko’s with lots of flavored beans but none of the ones we usually buy.  Knowing that she gets her beans from the same place as Jeff, however, means we could probably order the ones we like if Teeko’s disappears.  She is friends with Jeff and is well aware of the probable impact of the Panera opening up across the intersection from Teeko’s.  But I digress.

This morning we were interested in coffee and bagels to go.  Kahuna had a better selection of bagels than Teeko’s but we got our usual choices; “everything” for Linda and cinnamon raisin for me, toasted with nothing on them.  They had Swiss Chocolate Almond coffee brewed so we tasted a sample.  It was very smooth, with no bitterness and just a hint of the named flavors, so we got two large ones to go.

We got back on M-59 eastbound and 100 yards later took the entrance ramp to northbound US-23.  US-23 merges with I-75 at the southwest corner of Flint and we continued north on the combined road until we exited at M-57 and headed east through Clio to M-54 and turned south.  A few miles later we turned into the Fireman’s Park on the east side of the highway.  It was 9:15 AM as I parked the car.

When I talked to rally co-host Marty Caverly last week only 14 rigs had RSVP’d for the rally.  There were over 20 rigs there when we arrived and five more showed up during the day.  A guy also brought a Country Coach Prevost XL conversion down from Saginaw for the afternoon.  He is trying to sell it and wanted to let the rally attendees check it out.

We made the rounds and said our “hello”s to everyone.  As has happened at past rallies where we have dropped in for a day many of the ladies took off to check out local garage sales.  Bill and Karen Gerrie were just pulling out but stopped to chat briefly.  Frank and Sandy Griswold’s Featherlite H3-45 conversion has windows that slide open rather than swing out like our awning windows so I asked Frank and several other people about screens for these.  Everyone had the same suggestion; that any local window and door business should be able to make them.  I was trying to get useful information for someone who had e-mailed me as a result of an article in BCM.

The roundtable discussion started at 2 PM and most of the rally attendees were back by then.  Pat Lintner, our GLCC national director, gave a pitch for the FMCAssist program, which is included as part of the annual FMCA membership and more than worth the annual cost of $40.  I announced that we had GLCC T-shirts and a few flags with us if anyone wanted to buy them.  I also announced that the Arcadia Rally website had disappeared but that Bill and Brenda Phelan are working to fix the problem and the rally is still on for December 26-31, 2015 with departure on January 1, 2016.

Ed Roelle had two topics for the roundtable:  1) “towing insurance” for our bus conversions, and;  2) causes and cures for hard water deposit buildup in the fresh water plumbing associated with an Aqua-Hot (Webasto diesel burner) heating and domestic hot water systems.  Most of us use, or have used, Coach-Net for our “emergency roadside assistance” coverage.  The plan includes towing but many of our members have switched to one of the three Good Sam ERS plans.  The top (platinum) plan is ~$140/year.

A couple of years ago Coach-Net decided they would not cover bus conversions more than 40 years old and alienated quite a few folks in the converted coach community.  They eventually reversed that position but the damage was done.  Others who stayed with them have had issues getting service or being charged ridiculous sums of money for simple things.  Coach-Net was officially endorsed by FMCA until recently, and is still endorsed by The Escapees RV Club, but FMCA has found a different provider for this important service.

We stuck around after the roundtable and continued chatting with folks in constantly shifting groupings.  The dinner meal was planned for 6 PM, and by 5:30 preparations were well under way, so we started saying our “goodbyes.”  We finally got our chairs back in the car at 5:50 PM and pulled out at 5:55.  There were very ominous clouds moving towards the rally site from the north as we started for home and a severe weather watch had been posted.

To get home we reversed our route taking M-54 north to M-57 west through Clio to I-75/US-23 south.  We stayed on southbound US-23 at the split with I-75 southwest of Flint and eventually exited onto M-59.  Instead of going west towards home we headed east and pulled into the Hartland Meijer’s to pick up something for dinner and get fresh ingredients for tomorrow’s dinner with Steve and Karen.

The weather we saw approaching Clio from the north was just moving into Hartland as we left the Meijer’s, so it was a rapidly moving system.  The storm clouds were very dramatic but we got back to the house and got the car unloaded before the rain came.  The wind gusted strongly for a while but in the end we did not get as much precipitation as we needed or thought we would.

For dinner we had vegan burgers with all the fixin’s, oven-baked French fries, and fresh strawberries.  It was 9 PM by the time we were done eating.  We were both tired from our long, but very enjoyable, day so we went to bed earlier than usual.

 

2015/08/10 (M) Keep on Buss’in

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We have a doe and her spotted faun that have been coming in the early morning to the deer block we set in our back yard the other day.  They were there again this morning and the block is close enough to the house that we got a good look at them through the bedroom doorwall.  They must be comfortable with the setting as the faun wandered off towards the western part of our property and the doe let it go while she continued to lick the block.  Eventually, however, the faun was out of sight and the doe headed off in that direction to find it.

We had cinnamon raisin toast and soy yogurt for breakfast, with orange-grapefruit juice to wash down the vitamins.  I used up the last of the Sweet Seattle Dreams half-caff coffee beans for our pot of morning coffee.  Keith usually mows our grass on Mondays and he came to the front door around 9:30 AM to ask if we wanted it cut this week.  That’s the first time he has done that this summer but it was an appropriate and timely question.  We have had very little rain the last couple of weeks so the grass had not gown much since last Monday and was a little brown in places.  We agreed to skip this week, which I think was what Keith was hoping I would say.  There was a high probability of rain starting around noon and I suspect he had another yard he wanted to cut before it started.

We have been very busy the last few days and I have not had time to do more than outline my blog posts.  Linda needed to work on an analysis for the bakery so I spent much of the day filling in the details of my recent posts.  Our days are very full and if I wait too long I cannot capture them accurately.

Linda looked up the information on the DTE Energy “Energy Efficiency” appliance recycling program.  I called the 866 number and was assisted by Reginald.  The earliest available pickup date was Friday, August 28 so I took that.  It took quite a while to arrange the pickup but Reginald appeared to get all the pertinent information and give me a confirmation code and a phone number to reach the truck on pickup day.

Once the refrigerator pickup was arranged I texted Chuck to let him know the details.  That prompted a return phone call and a conversation about refrigerators.  Having seen how our swap went on Saturday he and Barb are also thinking very seriously about replacing the refrigerator in their bus.  The rationale is the same as ours; the fridge is old, so it is noisier and less efficient than newer ones, and having it break on the road would be more than inconvenient.

Replacing a refrigerator in an RV, especially a residential unit in a bus conversion, is not like replacing one in a home.  Access is a major problem and there is not a lot of space to maneuver it or get more than two pairs of hands on it.  If they replace theirs here (in Michigan) their bus will be inside their garage/shop, the forklift will be available to do the heavy lifting, and trusted friends and family will be available to help.  And, most importantly, they won’t be living in it and dependent on the fridge for preserving their food.

Before the day got away from me I pulled up the PDF of the manual for the wireless keypad for the large garage door.  When I installed the new opener for the small garage door and reprogrammed the wireless remotes for our cars I inadvertently rendered the keypad inoperable.  Reprogramming it was simple enough once I had the procedure.  It’s the small, simple tasks like this one that become big burdens if not taken care of in a timely manner.

The predicted rain started around noon and was steady until 3 PM.  It was just the kind of rain we needed; gentle enough to give it a chance to soak in but hard enough to provide a useful quantity of moisture to the ground.  Six to 10 hours of this would have been even better but we were glad for what we got.

I had thought that we might mask off the inside of the coach today with painter’s plastic but with the rain and humidity, and plenty of other things to do, I decided to defer that until tomorrow.  During the afternoon Jarel texted me a couple of pictures and a brief status update on our custom woodworking projects.  Not surprisingly he is already well along on the construction of the pull-out pantry and has spray lacquered the pieces for the built-in sofa.

One of the photos showed one of the 1/8″ thick aluminum plates that will form the side rails for each shelf in the pantry.  He applied a brushed finish to the plate and countersunk the screw holes so the heads would not protrude beyond the surface.  Jarel did metal work at one time before he became a cabinet maker so he knows how to do this kind of stuff.  He is also meticulous and takes great pride in his work.  Given a choice I would always prefer to hire a craftsman who cares as much, or more, about the quality of their work as I do.

When I know I am going to have a long full day, such as this coming Wednesday, I will try to “write ahead” on my blog, basically outlining the plan for the day but obviously not filling in the details of things that have not yet happened.  Along the same lines, I often use future blog posts as a planning tool.  As things occur to me that I need to do I will note them in the draft of a future post.  If the thing actually gets done on that date I flesh out the details, and if not, I move it to a new date.

I think I did several loads of laundry today and spent some time editing and uploading blog posts during the evening, but as I am finishing this post later in the week I have lost the details and will just end here.

 

2015/07/28 (T) Mighty Dremel

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I got up at 8 AM.  I must have been sleeping soundly as I was unaware until then that had already gotten up.  She had gone for a walk and left me a note.  The high temperature today is forecast to hit 90 degrees F and she wanted to get her walk in early.  I fed the cats and checked the mouse trap in the pantry.  We caught another one overnight so I carried the trap back to the northeast corner of the yard and released it.

I made our morning coffee and had just settled in to work on my iPad while it brewed when Linda returned from her walk at 8:35 AM.  We enjoyed our first cup of coffee and then had breakfast.  She made a batch of her fabulous granola yesterday but we have to finish the previous batch first.

Today was the day to get back to work on the bus.  First I spray lubed the two overhead garage doors, both rollers and section hinges, and ran them up and down and back up.  I needed to open them anyway to get out the ladder and tools and sometimes it’s better to spend an extra minute while you are thinking about something and just take care of it.  Besides, I had no way of knowing if I would accomplish anything else today so at least the doors worked more smoothly.

This is where the "stop block" was located. The left screw came out but the right one did not. I had to grind it off.

This is where the “stop block” was located. The left screw came out but the right one did not. I had to grind it off.

In a very real sense our entire bus remodeling project hinges on getting the old refrigerator out and the new refrigerator in.  The refrigerator swap, in turn, hinges on being able to open the fixed window panel on the passenger side of the bus.  That panel is hinged at the top by a pair of rolled channels, one on the top back edge of the window frame and the other on the lower back side of a rail that runs almost the entire length of the bus.  Most of the upper body side panels are hung from these rails and secured at the bottom with latches or other fixed hardware.

The window frame in question has two latches that can be released allowing the frame to swing open and provide an emergency exit, except for the two “stop blocks” in the upper outside corners which are attached to the frame (with two screws) just below the rail.  As the name suggests, these blocks appear to stop the frame from opening more than about 10 inches. That would make emergency escape difficult but it makes it impossible to remove a refrigerator.  We know these frames will open farther as someone posted a photo of an H3 on one of the Prevost bus websites with this same frame open almost 90 degrees (horizontal).

As I have described here before I successfully removed the left block and the left screw from the right block a couple of weeks ago but have been unable to remove the right screw from the right block.  Early in my attempt to remove it I stripped the Philips head and things just got worse from there.  I borrowed an impact screwdriver from Chuck, which successfully extracted the left screw but the right screw would not budge.  I eventually bought and used three different screw extractor sets and broke two drill bits using one of them.

The Dremel with a cutoff wheel installed. The stop block was unusable by the time I got it of.

The Dremel with a cutoff wheel installed. The stop block was unusable by the time I got it of.

I borrowed a soldering gun and Dremel Kit from Chuck on Saturday and finally got around to using them today.  The idea of the soldering gun was to heat the screw causing it to expand and then contract when it cooled.  This will sometimes cause screw threads to separate from tapped holes.  In this case the block was already turning relative to the shaft of the screw but the screw was not turning so I hoped the heat might free it from the threaded hole in the frame.  To find out, however, I needed to create a slot in the shaft that would accept a flat blade screwdriver, in particular the large bit that is part of Chuck’s impact screwdriver kit.  Enter the Dremel.

In order to create a wide enough slot I put two cutoff wheels on the arbor.  The block is at the top of the window frame so standing at the highest safe step of our 8-foot step ladder I was at a comfortable height for holding the Dremel vertically and cutting a horizontal slot.  The cutoff wheels are about the size of a quarter so the slot extended well beyond the screw head, or what was left of it, into the block.  Using the Dremel was a last resort and I knew that once I made that decision the block was going to get destroyed.

The Dremel cutoff wheels cut through the block, which is aluminum, very easily and did not have any trouble with screw or the broken drill bits.  The drill bits eventually loosened to where I was able to extract them with pliers.  I tried several different screwdrivers in my newly created slot but to no avail.  I sprayed WD-40 around the block and screw using paper towels to catch the overspray and clean up any runs.  I kept cutting the block until I was able to pry it off of what remained of the screw.  With less than a quarter inch of the shaft left I cut a slot in the end and tried to unscrew it but the tangs just broke off.  I tried unscrewing it with pliers but it would not budge.  The protruding stub would interfere with opening the frame 90 degrees so I used the Dremel with a cutoff wheel to grind the shaft down flush with the frame.

All the "stuff" I used to attack 25 cents worth of aluminum because of corrosion.

Some of the “stuff” I used to attack 25 cents worth of aluminum because of corrosion.

Linda came out to help at this point.  I repositioned the ladder and then we unlatched the frame on the inside.  Linda pushed it out while I supported it from outside.  It opened farther than it had before but we did not try to raise it to a horizontal position.  The frame/glass is very heavy and we did not want to risk having it come loose at the hinge. We closed the frame and latched it.  I took a few pictures and then put all of the tools away.  The weather was very warm and humid and that was enough outside work for today.

We had hummus, pita chips, and black grapes for lunch.  After lunch I spent a few minutes in my office checking e-mail and then typed up the minutes from our July SLAARC meeting.  I then started working on the design/drawings for the built-in sofa.

I have a very long list of things to do but the furniture design remains a priority as I need to make sure Jarel has all the information he needs to keep moving forward on the custom cabinetry.  Although I will be assembling the sofa Jarel will be cutting all of the pieces.  I will be using a long rip of a full sheet of plywood and a long piece of 3/4 x 3/4 walnut hardwood as an edge band for the horizontal platform.  In order to give Jarel a cut sheet I needed to design the unit.  I also needed to design it so I knew it would fit when assembled.

I took an occasional break to chat with friends on the two local ham radio repeaters that we tend to use but otherwise stayed on task until late afternoon.  I had pulled a book on cryptology from our personal library and started reading it.  I took a nap before dinner and continued reading afterwards.  Fascinating stuff, cryptology.

 

2015/07/18 (S) RV Shopping

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Madeline was awake at 7 AM and Linda got her up shortly after that.  I slept in until 8 AM.  They had already eaten breakfast by then so I made coffee and had cinnamon raisin toast.  Metropolitan Baking Company makes a very tasty cinnamon raisin bread.  We all sat in the living room while Madeline played with various toys and I worked on finishing yesterday’s blog post.

Linda and Madeline left at 10 AM for the Howell Library.  The plan was to let Madeline play in the children’s area, which has a lot interesting things to do for children her age.  After selecting some books and DVDs to bring home they were headed to Meijer’s to do some grocery shopping.

I continued working on my iPad until Mara came in the house.  We had a chat about blogging and I showed her the Feedly app on my iPad.  She has attended workshops put on by The Geeks On Tour and has their training materials.  I think Blogger is probably the right tool for her and Picasa is probably the right way to manage her photos.  They are both Google products so they work well together and they are free to use.  There are downsides to that, especially for professionals, but for most people it’s a great solution.

Mara and I left around 11:45 AM and drove to General RV in Wixom.  This was my first visit to their new facility and it is nice.  The parts department is larger and better stocked than the old one and is bright with natural light from large south and west facing windows.  We were asked several times if we needed assistance but we were never pestered.  They did not have any of the white Dicor self-leveling caulk we were looking for but one of the employees checked their stock and brought out six tubes.  Mara bought four of them along with a new Norcold refrigerator roof vent cover, a small roll of Eternabond tape, and some concentrated RV wash/wax.  I picked up eight brown circular adjustable air vents for the bus.  The ones in there now are black but I think the brown will look better with the new floor tile.  We won’t really know, however, until we install them.

We drove to Lowe’s in Howell where I bought two pieces of 12″ x 18″ thin galvanized steel plate and three rolls of 3M double-sided tape suitable for outdoor use.  The plan is to put one of these on the roof of Mara’s motorhome and possibly put the other on the roof of our bus to allow the use of the magnetic base cell phone antennas that came as part of the weBoost Drive 4G-X cellular booster systems.  Once the steel sheets are affixed to the roof I will caulk around them.  First, however, I will just set the sheets up there and see what sort of difference the system makes.

We stopped at O’Reilly’s auto parts store and Mara bought some 10, 15, and 20 Amp mini fuses.  These fuses have a small LED that glows if the fuse opens.  They were more expensive than the regular ones, but that is a very handy feature and I may stock up on these the next time I need to buy fuses.

Back at the house Linda informed me that when the storm blew in it pulled the sun umbrella out of the table on the deck.  We put the glass top back in the table and re-installed the umbrella.  This has happened a couple of times and we have been lucky that the glass top has not broken.  Mara returned to her rig.  She had left her patio awning out but it was not damaged.

Linda got Madeline up from her nap at 3 PM and read her a story about flying in an airplane.  Madeline then played with her toys for a while.  Around 4 PM Madeline wanted to bake a cake.  Linda was planning on this anyway but it was nice that it was Madeline’s idea.  They got busy in the kitchen and I sneaked off to my office for a while.

Madeline had dinner at 6 PM so I came up from my office while she ate.  Meals are a social time and I was ready for a break anyway.  After dinner Linda helped Madeline get cleaned up.  I slipped back down to my office while they watched an Elmo DVD, but by 7 PM I was done working on the pantry design for the evening and went back upstairs.  Linda was reading the airplane ride book (again), after which Madeline played (with) the organ after which they drew for a while and then played with the Play-Doh.  Madeline is a busy girl.

I was just getting ready to go ask Mara what temperature to preheat the oven when she came to the house with an armful of ingredients for the pizza.  She has a recipe for a wheat-free (gluten-free) pizza dough that she wanted us to try.  It calls for cheese and eggs so to make it vegan Linda had her buy Daiya mozzarella shreds and gave her egg replacer to use.  The other ingredients include almond meal, chickpea flour, golden flaxseed, onion powder, garlic powder, sea salt, olive oil (EVVO), and water.

It took another 25 minutes to get Madeline to bed but once Linda had her tucked in I opened a bottle of Nebiola wine from the St. Clair Winery in Deming, New Mexico.  I often write that I am not a fan of red wines and continue to not like dry wines with lots of tannins.  The Nebbiolo, however, is one of the nicest wines I think I have ever tried.  That probably means it is too sweet for most red wine drinkers, but I did not find it to be sweet; I found it to be smooth and complex.

We ordered a couple of things from Amazon on Wednesday and they showed up yesterday.  When I unboxed the Notier capacitive touch screen precision stylus I was surprised by what I found.  It’s a 2-part housing that unscrews and the cover screws onto the other end of the bottom part, which is needed for comfort and balance.  The stylus tip is small but has a 1/4 in clear plastic disc on the end.  It was on sale for $11 and I decided right away I would not return it.  Besides, I had not actually tried it yet.  So I finally tried it while the pizza was cooking.  It is an amazing little device!  It is, indeed, very precise and works with a delicate touch so I will have to re-calibrate my “typing” style, but it just goes to show that you never know until you try.

I lost track of time but it was somewhere between 9:30 and 10 PM when the pizza was ready to eat.  It was, however, worth the wait and might be the best vegan pizza I have ever had.  The recipe is definitely a keeper.  We each had a chocolate cupcake (with sprinkles) while we finished our wine.  We then adjourned to the living room and talked until almost 11 PM.  It was a very full day for all four of us and everyone was tired but satisfied.  It’s nice having family and friends here.

 

2015/07/17 (F) A High Pressure Situation

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We closed up the house yesterday and turned on the air-conditioning as the forecast for today was upper 80’s with humidity to match and the forecast for tomorrow is a high of 90 with very high humidity.  Linda did not sleep well again last night but that had nothing to do with the air-conditioning.  The sites where the dermatologist had removed things itched, which did not help.  Nonetheless, we were both up by 8 AM and, as usual, I made coffee and we had granola.  I prepared a travel mug of coffee and left at 9 AM for Chuck’s bus garage in Novi.  Brendan, Shawna, and Madeline were due to arrive at 10 AM and I wanted to be back as close to that time as possible.

As I was working on the design for the pull-out pantry yesterday it became very clear that I needed more accurate measurements of various details of the new refrigerator in order to make sure the doors could open and the pantry could slide in and out.  It was a good thing that I checked as the measurements were not exactly as published and the specifications did not show exactly where the doors were hinged or how much clearance they needed to swing on the hinges.  Now I know, and it is a bit more than I originally allowed for, so it was a good thing that I checked.

I got home at 10:15 AM and the trio was already there.  Mara emerged from her rig a few minutes later and joined us.  Brendan and Shawna stuck around for a while but not long enough to get Madeline down for her 1 PM nap.  They had been talking to her all week about staying with Grandma Linda and Grandpa Bruce and she was prepared.  She was busy playing with Linda and did not seem concerned when her parents left for a music festival in Chicago.  They will retrieve her on Monday.

Our older grand-daughter (and Madeline’s cousin), Katie, arrived around noon so Madeline had one of her buddies here.  Madeline enjoyed her lunch and voluntarily laid down for her nap.  Katie signed up to sell Cutco cutlery and accessory products and asked if she could come practice her sales pitch on us.  We had agreed to let her do this, of course, and Mara joined us by her own choice.  The selling involved a lot of demonstration and use of a few of the knives in side-by-comparison with our existing knives, some of which were already Cutco brand.  Linda ordered a pair of kitchen shears and a santoku trimmer knife.  Mara also ordered a pair of shears and Katie was able to throw in a birdsbeak paring knife which Mara will get as Linda has one.  They agreed to just split the cost of the total order in half.

Mara was anxious to work on the roof of her Bounder and it needed to be cleaned before it was caulked.  It was a hot, humid afternoon and pressure washing the roof seemed like the perfect use of such an otherwise miserable day.  I got out the pressure washer and hose and got it hooked up.  Mara put on her bathing suit and we both climbed up on the roof of her motorhome.  I adjusted the spray nozzle to a fan pattern that would clean from 12″ away without damaging anything, showed her how I would approach the job, and left her to do the work.  Actually I sat in the shade on the porch, offered helpful advice, and occasionally moved the pressure washer.

Madeline finished her nap while we were working and came outside several times with Linda to see what we were doing.  She and Linda walked around the back yard and saw geese and a snake.  They also saw a young deer from our bedroom doorwall.  Our home in the country is a different and exciting place for her as it is for us.

When Mara was done spraying off the roof I sprayed off the sides of the rig to rinse off the dirty water that had run down the sides.  Mara then put out the patio awning and I sprayed off both sides of it as well.  When we were done we got the hose off of the grass and put the pressure washer back in the garage.  Mara was very pleased with what she accomplished.  Not only did she get something done that needed to be done but it was another thing she took care of herself instead of paying someone else to do it.  I get that.

I worked some more in my office and then came upstairs for dinner.  Mike (W8XH) had called and confirmed that Steve (N8AR) was expecting us at 8 PM.  I left at 7:30 PM and drove to Steve’s place southwest of Howell.  Mike and I arrived within a couple minutes of one another and were there for a little over an hour.

Steve is a PhD electrical engineer who worked for Bendix and was involved in communications projects for space programs.  He has a lot of test equipment that you will not find in most ham shacks and he knows how to use it.  In this particular case he used his Hewlett-Packard Network Analyzer to do two-port radio frequency through-measurements of my two Morgan Manufacturing lightning arrestors.

The first thing Steve noticed was that the center contact on one of the N-female connectors was spread open a bit.  Unfortunately any spread is “a bit” too much.  At radio frequencies these contacts need to be tight.  We crimped the contacts back together as best we could so we could proceed with the testing, but Steve strongly suggested that I replace them with high quality parts.  As expected, based on my operating experience, the M-302N V/U arrestor did not look good when tested.  Steve captured the resulting return loss graph and put it on a thumb drive for me.  I will e-mail it to Morgan with a cc: to KF7P Metalwerks and request a new one.  If the new one isn’t any better I will request a refund.  I should not have to rebuild stuff like this and the poor performance may be a design flaw rather than a manufacturing defect.

When I got home around 9:30 PM Linda and Mara were still up and chatting away in the living room.  I joined the conversation until they both decided to retire for the evening.  I spent a few minutes in my office after that taking care of e-mails and then went to bed.  I wrote for a while but was too tired to concentrate and went to sleep.

 

2015/07/14 (T) Red Chili Wine

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Storms moved through the area overnight with more lightning and thunder than rain, or at so it seemed.  The storms were triggered by a cold front, behind which we had a cloudy day with periods of rain.  Linda was up at 7 AM and read quietly until I got up at 8.  I made a full pot of coffee (Cafe Europe half-caff blend from Teeko’s) and then joined her in the living room.

Linda was checking Dr. Michael Gregor’s speaking schedule and saw that he will be at Wayne State University in December and will be one of the keynote speakers for the 2016 Holistic Holiday at Sea vegan cruise.  We have not heard him speak in person, and will not be here in December, so that would be another reason to go on the cruise again.  By 9:45 AM Mara had not emerged from her rig so we went ahead and had breakfast.  Linda then went for a walk and I went to my office and worked on the design of the custom desk for the bus.

Mara finally emerged at 10:30 AM and we chatted for a while until Linda got back.  Our chat was briefly interrupted by a call from Mike (W8XH) on the Novi repeater so Mara got to see ham radio in operation.  My reception was weak and noisy and according to Mike my transmitted signal wasn’t any better.  The only thing that has changed since we tested this late last week is that I got the repaired M-302N VHF/UHF lightning arrestor back from Morgan Manufacturing yesterday and re-installed it.  Mike is going to help me do some more testing, but I am rapidly coming to the conclusion that these units are defective by design and I will have to replace them with something else.  I am disappointed to say the least.

It was another cool, cloudy, rainy day, just the kind of day for staying inside and getting stuff done.  Linda and Mara both had things to do and settled in at the dining room table to work.  Mara has been focused on planning her upcoming travels and spent much of the day making reservations.  Linda worked on the bookkeeping for our GLCC chapter and SLAARC ham radio club (she is treasurer of both).  She also renewed our Coach-Net emergency road service and our Harvest Host membership, which had expired, and probably took care of a lot of other things that I don’t even know about.  Except for an occasional break I worked on the custom desk design until 6:30 PM.  On one of those breaks I needed to measure something in the bus so we gave Mara the inside tour.

When I came upstairs Mara was taking advantage of the unlimited hot water available in our guest bathroom to have a nice long shower.  We know from personal experience what a luxury it is to take such a shower when living in an RV.  Linda had started preparing our dinner so I opened the bottle of Hatch Red Chili wine.  This wine, from St. Claire Winery in Deming, New Mexico is one of the more unusual wines we have ever had but we really like it.  It is a slightly sweet red wine with no tannin, a hint of chili flavor, and heat in the back of the throat on the finish.  We had vegan mock Italian sausages with sautéed onions and red peppers and the wine went well with it.  I had mine on a hotdog bun with mustard.  Mara had another serving of her beef stew, which she is trying to use up, and Linda put out a plate of whole, fresh strawberries.

One of the nice things about having visitors is that meals take longer to eat as we linger at the table in conversation.  Mara returned to her rig around 9 PM to have some quiet time with her cats before going to bed.  Linda decided to watch a couple of TV programs and I went back to work on the desk design.  I called it quits around 10:45 PM and went to bed to work on this post.  The overnight low is forecast to drop into the upper 40’s which should make for excellent sleeping.

 

2015/07/04 (S) Another Fourth

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Linda was up at 7 AM and grabbed a shower as Madeline is usually awake by 7:15 and up between 7:30 and 7:45.  Madeline tends to wake up hungry so Linda likes to have breakfast ready to go.  I was up by 7:20 and also grabbed a quick shower.  When Madeline was finally ready to get up she let Grandma Linda carry her into the living room and hold her in her arms for a while.  When she was ready to sit up Linda brushed her hair and then Madeline returned the brush to the master bathroom.  Linda got her changed into her day clothes and then we all had breakfast.  Linda and I had our usual coffee, orange juice, and granola with fresh berries plus some vegan sausage links.  Madeline also had the sausage links and berries but her main course was toaster waffles with a little bit of real maple syrup.  Yum.

One of the swans at the Brighton Mill Pond.

One of the swans at the Brighton Mill Pond.

After breakfast Madeline wanted to go look for chickens so she and Grandma Linda went for a walk.  When they got back I learned that they saw three chickens, a duck, some bunnies, and a chipmunk (ground squirrel).  We then read a couple of stories and built a fort in the living room.  We talked about going to the Mill Pond in Brighton to see/feed the ducks but there was some sort of running event this morning, a parade at 10 AM, and then a rubber ducky race at the Mill Pond following the parade.  It is the 4th of July, after all, and most communities have celebratory events going on all day and into the evening, ending with fireworks displays.  That sounded like a crowd to me, with the attendant parking hassle, but we figured the crowd might have thinned sufficiently by 10:30 AM to make the experience a good one and decided to chance a visit.  Linda made PB&J sandwiches and packed some grapes and cookies.

Madeline sitting at a picnic table at the Brighton Mill Pond playscape.

Madeline sitting at a picnic table at the Brighton Mill Pond playscape.

We parked in the lot behind the La Marsa restaurant, which is far away from the Main Street part of the Mill Pond, and walked down the boardwalk to the playscape.  There were a lot of people gathered around the Pond for the rubber ducky race and quite a few children at the playscape with their adult chaperones.  Madeline explored the entire playscape with great enthusiasm.  By the time she was done it was 11:30 AM and she was hungry so we had lunch at one of the picnic tables under the shade of a big tree.

After lunch Grandma Linda stood in line with Madeline to use the bathroom.  We then walked around the Mill Pond and paused to cover our ears while the emergency sirens were tested, this bring the first Saturday of the month.  We had a leisurely stroll back to the car and I had a nice chat with a fellow photographer along the way.  He is a local artist/writer with a deep interest in the Mill Pond and the wildlife that calls it home.  He wrote down his website URL for me: http://Words4It.com.  I checked it out when we got home and it is a valuable resource for anyone interested in the flora and fauna of the Brighton Mill Pond.

The various shades of green with a few orange flowers caught my eye while strolling the boardwalk at the Brighton Mill Pond.

The various shades of green with a few orange flowers caught my eye while strolling the boardwalk at the Brighton Mill Pond.

Back at the house Madeline had some soy yogurt and fresh berries before taking her nap.  I don’t know if she fell asleep and woke up or never completely fell asleep but around 2 PM I heard her fussing.  When I checked on her she said she needed to go to the bathroom.  Linda had fallen asleep but that is a duty she takes care of so I woke her up.  Madeline took care of her business, laid back down, and fell asleep.  Linda stayed awake.

With Madeline asleep I took the opportunity to go to my office and check e-mail.  There was one from Scott at QTH.com indicating that the SLAARC website had been copied to the QTH web servers and was ready for testing.  I think that meant the GoDaddy DNS had been changed to point to the QTH installation but I don’t think the domain name registration had been moved yet.  I will need to clarify that with Scott on Monday.  I also had an e-mail from Gary at Bus Conversion Magazine with the draft of the June 2015 issue attached.  This issue has part 3 of my 4-part article on the 2011-12 exterior renovation of our Prevost H3-40 motorcoach.  I replied that I would proofread it and submit corrections before I go to bed tomorrow night.

Madeline takes the high road and Linda takes the low road on the Brighton Mill Pond boardwalk.

Madeline takes the high road and Linda takes the low road on the Brighton Mill Pond boardwalk.

Although Linda is much more physically active with Madeline than I am I was feeling the need for a nap and laid down at 3 PM.  I heard Madeline get up around 4 PM and I finally got up at 4:15.  Linda enlisted Madeline’s help preparing dinner while I took pictures.  The first task was shucking the whole ears of corn.  Next, Linda let her put them in a large pot of water, add a little bit of sugar, and stir.  While the pot started to heat up on the stove Madeline helped prepare the strawberries by washing them.  Linda then got the vegan burgers ready to grill (inside on our stove top griddle) and prepared the garnishes.  Madeline does not get to help with things that are sharp or hot.  Soon enough it was time for dinner and we all enjoyed our corn-on-the-cob and vegan cheeseburgers. For dessert we had some more of the chocolate cake that we made yesterday with fresh strawberries.

We spotted this young bunny along the boardwalk at the Brighton Mill Pond.

We spotted this young bunny along the boardwalk at the Brighton Mill Pond.

After dinner I cleaned up the dishes and we went out on the deck to sit in the chairs and enjoy a near perfect Michigan summer evening while we watched the bunnies eating grass.  Around 7:15 PM we watched another Sesame Workshop DVD.  This one was on Shapes and Colors.  It was over by 8 PM and Madeline started getting ready for bed which was a very jovial affair.  First the potty, then jammies, then tooth brushing followed by finding blankies, “bebes” (pacifiers), and stuffed animals, all the while laughing and giggling.  Linda finally got her to sit quietly and read her a story which calmed her down enough to go to bed.  If her thoughts drift to her mommy and daddy she will get weepy—it’s part of being two and a half—but we have been successful on this visit keeping her engaged enough to avoid anything more than some occasional brief tears.

Madeline washes the strawberries.

Madeline washes the strawberries.

We split the remainder of a bottle of Leelanau Cellars Winter White wine we had opened some time ago but had vacuum sealed and it was still fine.  Linda finished the dishes and loaded the dishwasher while I filled in the day’s details on this blog post.  Both cats came out of hiding and sought our attention.

We have been hearing fireworks, and/or gunfire, for many weeks now and today was no exception.  Two nights ago someone in the neighborhood was firing off, or shooting, something until well after midnight.  There were more fireworks tonight, as expected, and the activity intensified after 9 PM as dusk gave way to night.  The cats were not completely relaxed about the noise but seemed to tolerate it.  As far as we know Madeline slept through all of it as she is a very sound sleeper.

 

SLAARC Field Day 2015

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Here are 45 photos from the South Lyon Area Amateur Radio Club’s participation in the 2015 American Radio Relay League (ARRL) Field Day 24-hour operating event.

2015/06/28 (N) Field Day Teardown

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I was up at 7:15 AM and showered.  The rain finally cleared out leaving blue skies but with scattered white clouds still blowing across the region on brisk winds out of the NNE.  Linda was up by 8 and got the fresh fruit ready for our breakfast cereal while I made the coffee, which we enjoyed in the living room to warmth of the natural gas fireplace.  I did not expect to be using the fireplace this time of year but we have the furnace turned off, and are still getting overnight lows in the 50’s, so the fireplace is an effective and charming way to alleviate the slight morning chill in the front of the house.

In spite of the weather the food tent stayed up and open for business.

In spite of the weather the food tent stayed up and open for business.

I finished up the draft of my blog post for yesterday and started on this one while I drank my coffee.  By 9:45 AM I was ready to install the #6 green coated ground wire I bought last night.  I also decided to switch out the coax from the cable entry box (CEB) to the ham shack.  Linda had made a grocery list and left to do the shopping.

Outside I opened the CEB and disconnected the current VHF/UHF coax and let it slide back into the sump pump room (SPR).  Inside I removed the suspended ceiling tile in the northeast corner of the ham shack and routed the ground wire over the wall into the SPR.  I fed it through an existing cable tie on the bottom of one of the floor joists and through the outer wall into the CEB.  I had an unused copper ground lug and used it to connect the ground wire to the lower right mounting stud for the CEB copper backplane.

Back inside I uncoiled a length of 50 ohm coax that I borrowed from Mike (W8XH) and followed the same path as the ground wire.  Outside at the CEB I installed an N-male/SO-239(F) adapter onto the PL-259 connector on the end of the coax and attached it to the N-female socket on the lightning arrestor.  I was finished working in the CEB, closed the cover, and went back to the basement.

I decided to install the 36″ copper ground bar on the wall behind the ham shack desks just below the 120 VAC outlet strip, which required me to move the desks away from the wall.  I attached the end of the ground wire to one of the studs by spreading the strands and placing them under a washer and wing nut.  I need to get another copper lug to do this right.

Steve (N8AR) operating the 6m opening from the radio in his car.

Steve (N8AR) operating the 6m opening from the radio in his car.

I had a five foot length of braided tinned copper strap and used it to connect the ground terminal on the Go Box to the ground bar.  I spread the braid apart to make a small hole near each end, slipped the holes over the studs, and clamped them under washers.  This was a temporary arrangement for testing purposes.  I need to configure a length of #10 copper wire with a ring terminal on one end and a make spade connector on the other but did want to take the time to do that today.

With everything hooked up I called Mike (W8XH) to see if he was available for a quick radio test.  He was still at home and about to leave for the SLAARC Field Day site but gladly delayed his departure long enough to help me test the new configuration.  The result was a better send and receive signal on 2m, both direct and through the South Lyon K8VJ repeater, with an S3 received signal strength with the pre-amplifier turned on.  The direct signal was also a little better on the 440 MHz band but my received signal from the Novi repeater was still weak and noisy and my transmit signal was still not strong enough carry the repeater.

I had planned to leave around 11AM for the SLAARC Field Day site but wanted some lunch before I left.  I had just made a sandwich and was gathering up my equipment when Linda got back from her grocery shopping.  By the time I left it was past noon.

I was interested in our ham radio club’s participation in this year’s ARRL Field Day event but neither Linda nor I had had any need or desire to operate radios.  I worked all day Friday on the setup of the towers and antennas and helped a bit last night with the emergency teardown of the VHF/GOTA canopy.  The 24-hour Field Day operating window closed at 2 PM today but some of the teardown began before that time and I wanted to be there to help.

SLAARC members enjoying lunch outdoors at the Field Day site.

SLAARC members enjoying lunch outdoors at the Field Day site.

Some teardown was already underway when I arrived at the SLAARC Field Day site and lunch was also just being served, so everyone took a break to get something to eat except Steve (N8AR).  He was sitting in his car making contracts on the six meter (6m) band using the mobile radio in his car.  He had connected it to the 6m beam antenna on top of the big tower.  The 6m band is known as “the magic band” because it will suddenly “open” and allow very clear communication over great distances and then just as suddenly close.  It had apparently opened up this morning from the Mississippi River to the East Coast and south into the Caribbean.  One of our members made a contact with someone in the Dominican Republic.  While I was watching and listening I heard calls coming in from South Dakota and New Mexico.

This is the fourth year that Marianne Roney, the wife of one of club member Ed Roney (KD8OSM), has taken care of the Field Day meals, which include lunch and dinner on Saturday and breakfast and lunch on Sunday.  The meals are $5 per person per meal, which is a bargain for the variety and quantity of things she prepares and provides, except that there is typically very little we can eat.  She would make special provisions for us if we asked (she did the first year) but it is extra work for her and we are still left with not being able to eat most of what is available, so we do not purchase meals.

Operating stations are often staffed by two people, one operating the radio (left) and the other logging the contacts (right).

Operating stations are often staffed by two people, one operating the radio (left) and the other logging the contacts (right).

As the operating event was drawing to a close the computer in the 40m tent shut down.  The computers are not used to operate the radios, but are connected to them and are used to log the contacts using the N1MM Logger+ program.  The program reads key information about frequency and mode from the radio so all the logger has to capture are call sign, operating category, and section.  (Club member Larry, K8UT, is a member of the N1MM Logger development team.)  Every radio was paired with a laptop computer running this program, and the computers were all linked together via Wi-Fi.  As a result, the operators/loggers at each station could see all of the contacts that were being made regardless of which station made the contact and each computer contained a complete list of contacts.  The program also flags “dupes” (duplicate contacts).  In a contest situation this allows the operator to see that they have already worked that station on a particular band and mode and not spend time working it again on the same band and mode as duplicate contacts do not contribute to the contest score.

Just as it had started 24 hours earlier, at 2 PM it was all over without any fanfare.  The radios and computers were shut down and then the AC power generator was shut down.  Cords were unplugged, coiled, and staged near the vehicles they would eventually be loaded into.  Radios and computers were carefully disconnected, boxed (in some cases) and carried to the vehicles of their respective owners.  Tarps were pulled from the tents and folded and then the tents were collapsed and folded.  Four of use took down the 40m crossed dipole (inverted V) antenna and then took down the small support tower and disassembled it.  A larger crew eventually lowered the bigger tower, which required a winch, until it was resting in a step ladder.  This was necessary because of the two beam antennas at the top of the tower.  They removed the 6m and then the 20m beam antennas and then lowered the tower to the ground.  Part of the crew disassembled and packed the two beam antennas while the rest of them took the tower apart

A path map from Eric's (K8ERS) cell phone of the early morning 6m band opening.

A path map from Eric’s (K8ERS) cell phone of the early morning 6m band opening.

We were essentially done with the teardown by 4 PM.  The teardown is always much faster than the setup and yet it was very relaxed and went very smoothly.  In spite of weather challenges all day Saturday and overnight into Sunday, and the disappointment of not having all of our stations on the air due to losing tents to the wind, we had a beautiful last day for the event and teardown.  Blue skies, white puffy clouds, cool temperatures, lighter breezes, and low humidity combined with a sufficient number of competent, helping hands, made for easier work for everyone.  The group stood around reflecting on the event and everyone was in a good mode, a sure sign that the 2015 ARRL Field Day had been a success for the South Lyon Area Amateur Radio Club.

I was the last one to pull out, right behind Steve who was towing a fully loaded enclosed trailer with a lot of the club’s equipment in it and on it.  We chatted via the South Lyon repeater on the drive home, our last radio work for the day.  I was home by 5 PM and just relaxed until dinnertime, tired from the sun, fresh air, and work.  For dinner Linda made a potato and spinach curry dish that she found in her Indian cookbook.  She also steamed some asparagus that she bought at the Howell Farmers Market this morning.  We had a quiet evening of reading, writing, and games before turning in at 10 PM.

 

 

2015/06/27 (S) ARRL Field Day

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At 5 AM I was vaguely aware of the sound of rain.  The cats were chasing each other through the house so I got up to make sure nothing was amiss, such as another mouse.  They were just having a bout of morning friskiness.  I added a little food up to their bowls, which drew their attention, and went back to bed.

My Amateur Radio vanity license plate. There were a LOT of these in the parking lot at the SLAARC Field Day site.

My Amateur Radio vanity license plate. There were a LOT of these in the parking lot at the SLAARC Field Day site.

I finally woke up and got up about 8:15 AM and got dressed in a suitable manner for today’s American Radio Relay League (ARRL) Field Day event.  The temperature was in the mid-50s, overcast and raining with blustery winds; not exactly the nice summer day we were all hoping for.  Some of the members of the South Lyon Area Amateur Radio Club (SLAARC) were gathering for breakfast at the usual place (Senate Coney Island) at the usual time (8 AM) but we obviously did not join them today.

I went to my office to retrieve my Sony DSLR and decided to turn on our Icom IC-7000 ham radio.  I had it tuned to the SLAARC (K8VJ) repeater in South Lyon when Keith, KD8YYJ, announced his presence.  He was driving from the west side of Howell to Wixom and seeing what repeaters he could hit.  We chatted for 10 to 15 minutes and I invited him to stop by the SLAARC Field Day site at the South Lyon Township James F. Atchison Memorial Park.

I worked all day yesterday as part of the SLAARC Field Day setup crew.  There was more setup to do starting at 9 AM this morning but the setup mostly involved radios, computers, Wi-Fi networking, and power.  I was not in any humor to rush off into the clammy weather conditions, and Linda was up by this point, so we had breakfast.  She found some Silk brand ‘yogurt’ at Meijer’s last week so we had that.  It was OK.  It is a creamy style yogurt, which is not my preference, but it was tasty enough.  Bananas, cinnamon raisin bread, and juice rounded out the meal.  Linda even made the coffee.  I turned on the natural gas fireplace to ward off the chill in the living room where we lingered and enjoyed our morning brew.

The SLAARC Field Day operating stations use wirelessly networked computers (left) running N1MM Logger+ to record the contacts that are made. HF transceiver to the right.

The SLAARC Field Day operating stations use wirelessly networked computers (left) running N1MM Logger+ to record the contacts that are made. HF transceiver to the right.

I finally left for the Field Day site around 11 AM.  The operating event started at 2 PM but the first of four meals was lunch today at noon and I wanted to capture photos of the rest of the setup and the lunch event.  It was raining lightly when I arrived and continued to rain until I left at 2:15 PM.  In between arrival and departure I took some photos and helped out a little bit, but there were plenty of people there taking care of what needed to be done.

Mike (W8XH) brought his Icom IC-2820H dual band mobile radio and several lengths of 50 ohm coax and we transferred those to my car.  He then walked me through the various menus and functions his new Yaesu FTM-400DR/DE radio, a dual band (VHF/UHF) 50 Watt rig with digital voice capability and a color touch screen display.  A group of SLAARC members recently purchased a Yaesu DR-1X repeater that works with the new Yaesu digital voice and data modes in addition to the traditional FM mode and are testing it as a replacement for the current, and very old, K8VJ repeater.

Mike’s IC-2820H is available for $350 but the FTM-400DR has a $100 rebate through the end of June, bringing the price down to $500.  As much as I would like to have a VHF/UHF radio in my car I am looking at one of these radios to install in the cockpit of the bus so we can use it going down the road.  The long-term plan is to put the Icom IC-7000 HF/VHF/UHF radio in our towed vehicle and get the Hi-Q 80-6 antenna mounted and operational in addition to the Diamond SG-7900 VHF/UHF antenna that is already on the Honda Element.

For base station use I would like to get an Elecraft K3s or Flex SDR rig.  The K3s has become the rig of choice among the members of the SLAARC who are serious about working HF and contesting.  Either of those are radios that could be fairly easily moved from the house to the bus when we travel.  Antenna options in the bus could include running coax to the Hi-Q on the toad and/or a “flagpole” HF vertical that is mounted using the towbar receiver or a base stand that goes under one of the tires.  An antenna switch would allow the use of the VHF/UHF antenna that was already installed for the cockpit radio.  All of these “base station” options would obviously be for stationary use only.

[Photo 3 – HC]

The ARRL FIeld Day event showcases the ability of amateur radio operators to set up equipment in the field on short notice and keep it on the air for 24 hours, no matter what. The weather turned bad for the event. The portable generator is under the tent in the right foreground.

The ARRL FIeld Day event showcases the ability of amateur radio operators to set up equipment in the field on short notice and keep it on the air for 24 hours, no matter what. The weather turned bad for the event. The portable generator is under the tent in the right foreground.

I uncoiled the coax cables that Mike lent me to see how long they were.  There was a 5 foot piece that was too short for what I needed, and a piece that was approximately 40 feet, which was longer than I needed.  The third piece was at least as long as the 40 footer.  I “tagged” his coax with small white cable ties so I could identify them later and return them to him.

I did not want to mess around switching coax cables in the rain so I unboxed Mike’s Icom 2820 and got it set up to use with my existing antenna and transmission lines.  I spent a little time with the manual and then powered it up.  It was already configured from when Mike used it in his ham shack so I did not need to do any setup to use it.  I monitored both the South Lyon 2m and Novi 440 MHz repeaters and was able to “hear” both of them, although the South Lyon signal was much better (stronger, quieter, clearer) than the Novi.  A couple of SLAARC members were on the South Lyon repeater taking care of Field Day business.  I waited a suitable amount of time after they were done and called for Mike (W8XH) and he came back right away.

We repeated the testing we had done last night.  The performance with the 2m South Lyon repeater seemed to be much better but the performance on the 70cm Novi repeater was the same or worse with a fading component to the noise.  I think we were on the air 15 to 20 minutes.  Based on the test results from last night and this afternoon I think I have two separate issues that are probably interacting; the IC-7000 needs to be grounded and the 25 feet of coax from the cable entry box (CEB) to the radio (Go Box) needs to be shorter and much higher quality.  I need to install the ground bar on the wall behind the ham radio desks and then purchase a suitable length of ground wire and run it from the CEB to the copper ground bar.  I will also need to get a 15 foot length of 50 ohm LMR-400 coax from Scott (AC8IL) with an N-male connector on one end and a PL-259 connector on the other end.

Linda prepared our dinner at 5 PM.  She made corn-on-the-cob and “cowgirl steaks,” a new (to us) vegetable protein product she found at Meijer’s.  After dinner we drove back to the SLAARC Field Day site to socialize with club members at dinnertime.  The weather at our house was still rainy with light-to-moderate winds and occasional stronger gusts.  We arrived at the Field Day site to find a flurry of activity and strong, steady winds out of the north with continued sporadic rain.

Jim (KC8WMW) stays dry as he works the GOTA (Get On The Air) station in one of the tents.

Jim (KC8WMW) stays dry as he works the GOTA (Get On The Air) station in one of the tents.

The small red tent that was originally supposed to be the VHF tent was nowhere to be seen and at least eight people were engaged in trying to control and fold up the large canopy that the club purchased yesterday at Costco to serve as the combined VHF and GOTA tent.  We quickly learned that the small tent, which was not being used, had collapsed and the large tent, which was unoccupied but full of radios and computers, had come unstaked and blown over in the wind.  Those who were not helping with the equipment canopy were gathered in the food canopy.  I pitched in on the equipment canopy rescue and Linda took the camera and joined the folks in the food tent.

After gathering up all of the pieces of the canopy and getting them back in the trailer some of the team added extra ropes and stakes to the windward end of the food canopy and both the 20m and 40m tents.  Another part of the team, including me, got Marty’s (KB8JIU) satellite tracking equipment out of the screen room, which had been draped with solid plastic tarps to keep the rain out, and then took the room down, disassembled the legs, folded it up, and stuffed it in the trailer.  The red tent was stuffed under a picnic table that was in the screen room so I grabbed that and put it in the trailer.  The support pole for one end of our off-center-fed dipoles was bending over to the south more than we liked.  Steve, N8AR, tied a rope around the existing rope, which was inline with the antenna and being used to keep it taught.  He slid the second rope up the first one as far as he could get it to go and then pulled it out to the northwest (the antenna was oriented east-west with the tension rope running east off of the east end).  He pulled it out until the support pole was reasonably vertical and I staked it down.

The winds really howled out of the north driving the rain before them. This shelter (from Costco) did not survive along with another tent and a screen room.

The winds really howled out of the north driving the rain before them. This shelter (from Costco) did not survive along with another tent and a screen room.

So the bad news was that some of our Field Day setup had not survived the weather which had not even reached severe conditions.  The good news was that our generator was still producing power, all of our towers and antennas were intact and functional, we had our two key stations on the air, and our food canopy was full of people and hot food.  Not the Field Day everyone had hoped for, but a great opportunity for teamwork and camaraderie and a learning experience to be sure, even if it was not the kind of lesson we wanted to learn.

We left around 7:30 PM and went to the New Hudson Lowe’s, which was very close to our Field Day site, where I bought 18 feet of AWG 6 stranded copper wire with a green sheath.  As soon as the weather improves I plan to run this from the CEB to the ham shack and use it to connect the ground bar in the shack to the copper backplane (ground plane) in the CEB.  I will then connect the ground on our Go Box (Icom IC-7000) to the ground bar and see if it helps with my noise issue.

Back at the house Linda wanted to watch an episode of NCIS Los Angeles, which we can now do thanks to our new OTA TV antenna.  We then watched an episode of Christina Cooks, Christina Perillo’s vegan cooking show from a decade ago.  These are still relevant and useful episodes and we especially enjoy them having seen and met her and her husband Robert on our two Taste of Health Holistic Holiday at Sea vegan cruises.  Linda read and I wrote for a while before lights out and off to sleep.

 

2015/06/23 (T) Grounded

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As I wrote in yesterday’s post we did not turn off the lights last night until almost 1 AM because we were keeping a close eye on the weather moving across the lower portion of Michigan’s Lower Peninsula.  Although strong to severe storms were still forecast from 1 AM to 5 AM they either did materialize at our exact location or we slept through them.  We had the house closed up and the air-conditioning on, so that cut down the sound level of outside noises.

A cold front had pushed through by sun up and we woke to a cool morning with blue skies and noticeably lower humidity.  We did not have any trees, or even big limbs, come down and there was no damage to our brand new roof.  The forecast yesterday was threatening enough, however, that in the morning we took the potted plants, and as much of our outside lawn furniture as we could find room for, inside including our sun umbrella and trash cans.  I planned to be gone most of the day, and Linda was leaving mid-afternoon to go to dinner and a movie with Diane Rauch, so our first chore was to put all the lawn furniture, plants, and other outdoor stuff back outdoors.

This week is mostly being devoted to ham radio with the ARRL Field Day as the crowning event this weekend.  My specific focus for most of the week, however, has been the “communications tower” adjacent to the east wall of our house.  As described in previous posts we installed a cable entry box (CEB), mounted the cellular booster in the basement, mounted the inside cellular antenna, and ran coax cables.  The antennas will (hopefully) be mounted on the existing 40 foot tower tomorrow, cabled into the CEB, and cables run from there to devices inside the house.  With any luck by the end of the day tomorrow we will have decent cellular service inside the whole house, the ability to watch OTA TV programs on two different TV sets, and finally be able to connect one of our radios in the ham shack to an antenna.  Today, however, was planned to mostly address other things.

I had an appointment with our dentist at 10:20 this morning and left at 9 AM.  I planned to stop at Chuck’s bus garage and check that the key he lent me worked, but I needed gas for my car.  I did not have time for both and did not really have a choice; I would have to check the key some other time.  I ordered two cables yesterday from Scott (AC8IL) at Adams Electronics.  Later in the evening I was unsure if I had specified the connectors correctly so I called and left a message.  I called again this morning to make sure the message got through.  It did, and my original connector specifications were correct.

I arrived at the dentist’s office about 10 minutes before my appointment time.  I called Rick Short at Isringhausen USA to make sure he was going to be in before I drove two hours to Galesburg, Michigan after my dentist appointment.  I got his voice mail a left a message.  “ISRI” makes very high tech air suspension driver’s seats that are used as original equipment in motorcoaches, semi-tractors, heavy equipment, and locomotives.  I would really like one for our bus, but it is not proving easy to get.

Dr. Steve and his assistant, Leslie, made molds of my upper and lower teeth and a bite impression.  The molds will be used to make a mouth guard that I can wear while I sleep.  Dr. Steve has a strong suspicion that I am clenching my teeth and the mouth guard will reduce or eliminate the irritation it causes.  I will have to ask if I can wear it during the day too as I am occasionally aware of clenching my teeth while I awake.

I had not heard back from Rick by the end of my appointment so I called the main number at ISRI and talked to the receptionist.  It turned out that Rick was not in today and she transferred me to Jeff Woodworth.  Jeff was willing to meet with me but thought it would be a better use of my time to wait until Rick was available.  My next opportunity to drive to Galesburg will be Thursday and I will likely go as the ISRI seat is holding up our ordering of Flexsteel seats through Coach Supply Direct.

I stopped for coffee and then re-routed for Chuck’s bus garage in Novi.  The key to the garage worked perfectly.  I called Linda to let her know about the change in plans and headed for home.  There is too much to do at the moment to waste much time so I installed the #4 AWG bare copper ground wire I bought yesterday at Lowe’s.  I mounted an offset copper wire lug using the center support stud for the copper back plane in the CEB.  I replaced one of the plastic hole plugs with a rubber plug with a small hole in the center.  The hole I chose in the bottom of the CEB allowed the ground wire to come straight up into the lug.

Another view of the cable entry box on the east end of the house by the 40-foot tower.

Another view of the cable entry box on the east end of the house by the 40-foot tower showing the bare copper ground wire that runs to the ground rod and then to one of the tower legs.

Outside the CEB I routed the ground wire around to the existing ground rod and secured it using the new clamp I bought yesterday.  There was an old ground wire connected from a clamp on the tower to the ground rod.  I removed that wire along with some coax and control wires that I had clipped when we removed the old satellite dish.  I then attached the new ground wire to the clamp on the tower.  While we were at it Linda trimmed back a small bush that was growing between the tower legs and I pulled leaves, grass and other stuff out from around the Day Lilies that we transplanted last year around the tower base.

With the CEB grounded we looked at how we might get a video cable up to the TV/monitor in our bedroom.  The wall where the TV is mounted has a hot water baseboard radiator that comes almost to the trim on the door wall.  That end of the radiator has a copper pipe that goes through the floor into the basement and it was easy to locate the pipe in the basement.  I determined that there was enough space behind the pipe to safely drill a hole but I had to drill it from the top side at an angle.  A 5/8″ wood boring drill bit created a hole just big enough for the molded F-connector on the end of the cable to pass through.

We fed the video coax cable above the suspended ceiling in the ham shack area to the location of the hole.  I then fed the cable up from the basement as Linda pulled it up into the bedroom.  We adjusted the amount of cable in the bedroom to allow the wall mounted TV set to move through its entire range of motion.  The other end of the cable was then routed into the sump pump room.

By the time we finished pulling this cable it was 3:30 PM and time for Linda to leave to pick up Diane.  They were headed to Royal Oak for dinner and a movie as the movie they wanted to see was only showing at the Royal Oak Main Theater.

While I was out during the morning Lynch Carpet had called to let us know our Armstrong vinyl tile was available for pickup so after Linda left I closed up the house and went to get it.  The 12 boxes of tiles, container of vinyl adhesive, and container of vinyl grout were all neatly arranged on a small pallet and tightly wrapped in shipping plastic.  Rather than break this down and load each thing individually they used a fork lift to set the pallet in the back of my Honda Element.  The rear suspension settled at least two inches when they transferred the full weight of the pallet to the floor of my car.

When I got back to the house I backed the car up to the garage.  I cut the shipping plastic loose and unloaded the tubs and boxes of tiles.  I put the pallet on the garage floor and then neatly stacked the boxes of tiles on it to keep them off the floor.  Each box contained 14 tiles measuring 16″ by 16″ for a total area of 24.89 square feet.  The Armstrong Alterna tiles are a “luxury vinyl” product, and are about 1/8″ thick.  Even so, the boxes were heavier than I expected so I decided to weigh one.  It tipped the scale at just under 42 pounds.  That meant the entire pallet weighed close to 500 pounds, and, ignoring the weight of the cardboard box, that is about 3 pounds per tile.

When I drew out the design I determined that I would need 158 tiles, some of which would be partial.  Figuring conservatively at 150 full tiles equivalent, and ignoring the weight of the underlayment, adhesive, and grout, the floor tiles will weigh about 450 pounds.  I have no idea what the carpet and ceramic tile that I have removed weighed but the tiles were heavy.  I also have no idea what the furniture weighed that we have removed but also have no idea what the new furniture will weigh.  The intent was that the new floor and furniture would weigh less than old stuff but we will see.

I traded phone calls with my dad and we finally got to talk for a half hour starting at 4:30 PM.  He turned 90 this past Sunday.  Mike Fearer from Bid-Rite Concrete called at 6 PM and arrived about 10 minutes later to discuss the foundation for our 70 foot ham radio tower.  I had printed off a page from the Universal Tower website showing their tower base.  I also downloaded and printed their base and tower installation instructions.  I had a set of these to give to Mike so he would have some idea of what the project is about.  We looked at the proposed location for the tower and access for his dump cart.  We also talked about the base, a rebar cage, a form around the top of the hole to allow the concrete to be slightly above ground, and a jig to make sure the base is level and the tower is plumb.

He said he was interested in the job and would work with me and Phil Jarrell (the excavator) to get it done.  Rather than bid the job he would just do it for time and materials.  He also said the current price of concrete was about $100 per cubic yard.  We will need about six (6) cubic yards to fill the required 5′ x 5′ x 6′ (deep) hole.  He thought he might be available the middle of next week but I don’t think I could have everything pulled together that quickly.

After Mike left I went to Lowe’s and picked up five 40 pound bags of topsoil, a 1-in/2-out signal splitter (rated for 5 MHz to 2.4 GHz), and a plastic snap cover channel for hiding the video cable we ran up into the bedroom from the basement for the TV set.  I then went to the Meijer’s supermarket just across Grand River Avenue for soy creamer but they did not have what I was looking for.  As long as I was there I had a salad for dinner at the in-store Subway.

While I was sitting there I called Mike Sharpe (W8XH) to confirm that he was available tomorrow to help with the antenna installations on our 40 foot tower.  I mentioned that the only thing I lacked was a standoff with a pulley at the end of it for hoisting stuff up to me.  He suggested that something like that was essential and I agreed, so I headed back to Lowe’s to see what I could figure out.  What I ended up with was a three foot long 7/16-14 threaded rod, a pulley that had a closed eyelet on top (and was big enough for the 3/8ths rope I bought), some 7/16ths washers, and some 7/16-14 nuts.

When I got back to the house I unloaded the topsoil near the part of the east yard that needs to be filled in, took the other stuff inside, and then assembled the threaded rod pulley system.  I secured the pulley on one end of the rod using two of the nuts, one on either side of the eyelet.  I threaded a nut onto the other end, put on two washers, two nuts, two more washers, and another nut.  I ran the first two nuts, with two washers between them, part way down the rod.  I left the second pair of nuts, with washers between them, near the end of the rod.

I took the assembly out to the tower and adjusted the position and spacing of the two pairs of nuts and washers so they would bracket two of the horizontal tower members.  In use I will secure the rod to the tower at each pair of nuts/washers using plastic cable ties.  This arrangement will put the pulley at least 18″ from the tower which should be far enough out that we can hoist the DB8e OTA TV antenna to the top of the tower without it banging into the tower or hanging up on something.  This antenna is the largest thing we need to hoist up. The old TV antenna is considerably larger and heavier, but it is coming down via gravity.

There was a message on our answering machine from Linda’s sister, Sr. Marilyn, who lives in St. Louis.  She was listening to the news earlier today about the storms that went through our part of Michigan and wanted to make sure we were all OK.  By the time we finished talking it was dark and I was done working for the day.  Linda called shortly thereafter to let me know she was on her way home and I mentioned the call with Marilyn.

I finally opened the box with the vertical omnidirectional outside antenna for the cellular booster system and discovered that I should have opened it sooner.  The mounting bracket was designed to be mounted to a vertical surface, such as the side of a house, not a tube, such as a tower leg.  I did not want to postpone tomorrow’s tower work so I will have to get up early and figure out a way to adapt the existing bracket so I can mount the antenna to the top of the tower.

My initial thought was that an aluminum U-channel of the correct size might solve the problem very nicely.  I could drill two holes in the bottom of the “U” to match the two holes in the bracket.  I could then drill three pairs of holes through the sides of the channel.  The antenna would be bolted to the bottom of the channel.  With the open part of the channel held against a vertical tube I could secure it with three long plastic cable (zip) ties.  Conceptually it should work and be easy to fabricate, but will take time which I won’t have a lot of in the morning.  We have to get the two coax cables from Scotty (AC8IL), drop off my car at Brighton Honda for its 100,000 mile service, and be back in time to have the mount fabricated and all of the antennas and tools ready to go by 10:30 AM when Mike shows up.

Linda got home at 9:45 PM, earlier than she thought she would when she left.  She and Diane ate at Luigi’s and had a very nice meal.  They also enjoyed the movie.  We had a big day on tap for tomorrow and we asleep by 10:30 PM.