Tag Archives: driveway extension (Phil Jarrell)

2015/11/16 (M) Tiling the Cockpit, #3

Linda planned to go to the bakery today but decided yesterday to stay home and help me instead. Based on the 10-day forecast this looks like our last decent weather day to work on the bus and we wanted/needed to make the most of it.

We had breakfast at 8 AM (granola with blueberries and a banana) and had a cup of Stash China Black tea. I had a text message from Kristine Gullen regarding getting together with her and Jim on Saturday and replied in the affirmative. We finished our tea by 8:30 and got to work.

I really wanted to finish tiling the cockpit of the bus, or at least as much of it as we could. That meant cutting and fitting tiles for the stair treads and risers and the two side walls of the entry steps, gluing them in place, and then grouting all of them. We needed to mount the table if possible and I also needed to build a new step for the platform. That was a lot to get done in one day and even before we started I doubted that we would get it all done.

When we opened the bus we were surprised to find that the tiles on the walls of the platform had slipped all the way down to the floor tiles. Obviously I should not have removed the spacers right after installing the tiles and should have to left them in place for any horizontal grout spaces on vertical surfaces. Oh well, not much to do about it now.

Keith called to see if he should come and mulch the leaves one last time. The weather the last few days had been very nice, unseasonably warm and dry. Today was also a beautiful day but the forecast going forward was for much cooler and wetter conditions, so this was an ideal day for our last lawn mowing of the 2015 season.

We measured and cut the tiles for the face of the platform and out to the door. At that point I evaluated what I needed to do to complete the job. Basically, I needed to cut all of the tiles for the entry steps and walls and then install them from the bottom up. Every piece of tile was going to be smaller than a full 16″x 16″ tile and custom cut so even though the square footage was not that much there would be more pieces than usual and it was obviously going to take quite a bit of time to get all of the pieces ready to install. I thought we could be ready for adhesive in two hours but Linda figured it would be at least three. It also meant working with the door open which would make it difficult to keep the interior as warm as we needed.

Phil showed up with his excavator and a dozen bales of straw. I knew the excavator was for a different job as he did not have anything left to do at our place that required it. He was here to finish covering the topsoil and grass seed with the straw. We took a break to go talk to him and confirmed that he was done with the driveway and French drain projects except for the straw. He staged the bales where he needed them but said he had to leave to dig a perk test hole at 1:30 PM and would be back mid-afternoon to finish spreading the straw around.

Linda suggested that we go ahead a grout all of the tile we had already installed. I was more emotionally invested in completing the tile work than Linda but had to agree that this was the prudent thing to do. Until the tile was grouted we could not reinstall the accelerator, the steering column shroud, the seat bases, and the seats, so grouting the tile was clearly a critical path item and that is what we did. It was after noon by the time we finished so we took a break for lunch. Phil had taken off by this time to go dig the test pit.

Lunch was grilled vegan Italian sausage on a bun with mustard and relish and black grapes on the side. Keith finished up mowing the yard while we were enjoying a cup of Rooibos tea. We paid him and chatted about next year. I gave him our approximate timeframe for returning home from Florida and asked him to go ahead and start mowing next spring whether or not we were here. We have had Keith take care of our lawn since we bought our house in the country and he has been very good about doing that when we are away and allowing us to catch up with him when we get back.

By the time we got back to work on the bus it was after 1 PM and I had to concede that we were done working on the tile until next spring except for cleaning them, which had to wait until tomorrow as the grout has to cure for 24 hours before final cleaning. With that decision made we considered what else needed to be done and in what order.

The first order of business was painting the two front seat bases black. We spread out painter’s plastic on the driveway and taped it down. We set the bases there and then masked off the top portion with the swivel bearings and mounting bolt. We wire brushed the bases to remove rust and then went over them with a sanding sponge. I used a cleaner/degreaser and water to clean them and then gave them a coat of black rubberized undercoating paint.

The next order of business was getting all of the tools and materials that we no longer needed out of the bus to give us room to work on other things. On Saturday I re-installed the bump out on the walnut cover for the passenger side HVAC duct. The duct needed to have two 4″ holes drilled in it to match the holes in the metal duct, so that was the next task. I measured very carefully and transferred the measurements to the face of the cover with equal care. Even so, I was off slightly and had to use the sheet metal nibbler to enlarge the bottom of each hole. At least I had a relatively straightforward way to fix this problem; I am not always so lucky.

With the holes enlarged we put the cover in place. The 4″ round plastic registers fit through the wood into the duct but not all the way due to two tabs. I trimmed the tabs off using the Porter-Cable oscillating saw and trimmed a little bit off of one of the outer mounting flanges to make it fit flush. I drilled holes through the two mounting holes on each register using the #5-6 self-centering drill bit and secured them with #6-5/8″ SR screws. We then removed the two temporary black plastic registers from the front of the built in sofa. I trimmed the tabs off of two new brown ones and installed them using the same procedure as the first two.

In the grand scheme of things getting the cover in place and the four registers installed was a small task but it needed to be done and stood in the way of other things. The cover has been stored on top of the two front seats, which have been lying on their backs on the kitchen floor of the bus for weeks. We plan to re-install the seats late tomorrow afternoon.

Two more small, but critical, tasks were securing the pull-out pantry and the refrigerator. I have assumed for quite a while that we would secure the pantry for travel with some form of sliding latch but had not thought about it in any detail. We also needed to secure the refrigerator but I had not thought about this in any detail either. As we pondered the pantry latch it slowly became obvious that we did not have enough wood for a strike plate to receive a pin and we did not have two unobstructed surfaces that were in the same plane, which would be required for the kind of latch I had been thinking about.

As for the refrigerator, one of our bus nut friends secured their unit by running mounting bolts (machine screws) through the floor of the cabinet above the fridge and threading them into the unused tapped holes provided for the upper door hinge (if it was reversed) . After looking at it for a while we realized that we could attach a section of small angle to the inside of the right alcove wall with the other side just against the face of the fridge case but not over so far as to interfere with the door gasket. My measurements indicated that a 1/2″x3/4″ angle would be just right. It looked to me like two 12″ pieces, one by the freezer door and one by the bottom of the fresh food compartment door, would be more than adequate to keep the refrigerator from rolling out as it cannot shift sideways or twist due to the aluminum angle on the left/hinge side at the floor.

About this time Phil returned in a red pickup truck. He finished distributing the straw and loaded three unused bales into the back of his truck. He pulled up in the main drive and we invited him into the bus to see what we had been working on all summer. It is always a pleasure working with Phil. If/when we build a barn we will have him do all of the site prep and finish grading. He will figure out the final cost for the driveway extension and French drain and send us an invoice.

Linda prepared an easy but tasty dinner consisting of a nice green salad, mixed frozen vegetables (corn, peas, and carrots) suitably reheated, and mac-n-cheese that was both dairy-free and gluten-free. After dinner we went to Lowe’s and The Home Depot. At Lowe’s we bought a 1/16″ thick 1/2″x 3/4″ aluminum angle and three 8 foot lengths of brass colored nose edging but did not find a latch that we liked. At The Home Depot we bought some screws for securing the handle on the front of the pull-out pantry and a solid brass door stop to keep the pantry in place. The door stop folds up when not in use and should work to keep the pantry closed while traveling.

Although the new Panera on the southwest corner of Grand River Avenue and Latson Road was finally open for business we stopped at Teeko’s Coffee and Tea on the northeast corner of that intersection. Jeff was there and took our order for eight pounds of coffee beans. We got two pounds each of Ethiopian Yirgacheffe, regular and decaffeinated, the Seattle Blend (regular), and the Sweet Dreams blend (decaffeinated). They will roast the beans and then let them outgas for a few days before vacuum sealing them in half-pound portions. This allows us to take them with us in the bus and keep them very fresh until we are ready to use them and to change what we are drinking more often.

We got home just after 8 PM and took our iPads downstairs to use while we watched our Monday evening CBS TV programs. We caught the weather forecast and then headed to bed. It looks like we will have two more days with unseasonably high temperatures near 60 degrees F but with intermittent rain and then a serious cooling trend with highs this weekend barely above freezing. Our time for working on the bus and being in Michigan is definitely running out.

2015/11/13 (F) Road Trip

Leave a reply

I set my alarm for 5:30 AM and got up when it went off. I got dressed quietly, fed the cats, refilled their water fountain, and took my allergy pill and B-12 vitamin. I used a plastic bag to pack a change of underwear and socks, a basic oral hygiene kit, my iPad, my checkbook, and my phone charger cable. I loaded my travel bag and walnut pieces into the car and then checked the mousetraps in the pantry. One of them had two mice in it. It was still pitch dark outside so I drove to the end of the new driveway, parked with my headlights pointing across the road, took the trap to other side of the road, and released them. They went scurrying off into the thick undergrowth of the woods and I drove back to the house. I left the trap on the front porch and went inside to wash my hands.

I finally left on my road trip to Indiana at 6:20 AM. I needed fuel so I headed south on Hacker Road and stopped at the Shell Station on Grand River Avenue at I-96. There is a Dunkin Donuts co-located with the station so I got an extra-large coffee and was on my way. I decided to head east a couple of miles on I-96 and then south on US-23 to Ann Arbor where I picked up I-94 west. I took I-94 as far as I-69 and then headed south. Somewhere along this segment I realized I had forgotten the box with the two swivel ring bearings. That meant I would not be stopping at Coach Supply Direct in Edwardsburg, Michigan to return them, which would save me time but necessitate getting them back to Josh another time and/or another way.

The change in plans would loosen up my schedule a bit but I still had four stops to make and was anxious to make time. I stayed on I-69 south into Indiana and then took the Indiana Toll Road (I-80/90) west. Traveling west there is one travel plaza between I-69 and the SR-19 exit. I stopped there to use the restroom and get another cup of coffee. Back in my car I called Josh to let him know I would not be stopping by his shop today in Edwardsburg. I then called Linda to update her on my whereabouts and change in plans. She said she would take care of getting the box with the swivel ring bearings ready to mail.

The weather was overcast, drizzly, cool, and windy when I left this morning. The winds were out of the west so I had a crosswind or a headwind for the entire trip down. By the time I reached Indiana I had driven out from under the cloud cover. The temperature remained very cool but the sunshine was refreshing.

My first stop was A-1 Upholstery in Elkhart, Indiana. Much to my surprise Terry had used the exact same fabric for the filler cushion that we had her use for all of the other ones, so it was a perfect match! I got a call from Josh while I was there and called him back as soon as I left, but got his voice mail.

My next stop was at Pat and Vickie Lintners’ house, about three miles from A-1 Upholstery, to pick up a critical accessory piece for the built-in Nutone multi-function kitchen appliance. We have a functional power base built in to our kitchen counter in the bus but only had the blender attachment. Vickie gave us a number of other attachments at a rally back in September but many of them required a right angle tower adapter. She had found the adapter a few weeks after the rally.

From Pat and Vickie’s I backtracked to the main north-south road, went south back over the St. Joseph River, and headed west on Old US-33 (Lincolnway). I got a call back from Josh and he said to stay on my current road all the way to the Mishawaka bypass and then head south to US-20. From there I was on familiar road as I headed west to US-31 south. Michele Henry from Phoenix Paint had called while I was at Pat and Vickie’s and I let it go to voice mail. I called her back when I was done talking to Josh. They had both called me with some recent scuttlebutt about a service facility in Elkhart where friends of ours had some major remodeling work done on their vintage bus, but it was also a chance to catch up on things in general and helped pass the time as I drove.

I stopped in Argos for fuel and called Bill Tharpe with an ETA of 12:30 PM. I then called Jarel to let him know I would be there by 1:30 PM. Butch had driven me past Bill’s place once some time ago so I had a fairly good understanding of where it was and what it looked like; not that I needed it. Given the address my Garmin 465T GPS unit took me right to Bill’s place on Mexico Road south of Mexico and north of Peru. Sounds like I was in Central America.

Bill was outside waiting for me and we unloaded the antique SUN Electric Distributor Tester from my car and into Butch’s truck, which Bill had for the winter. He was headed to his building in Wabash, where he has a paint booth, to repaint the truck so we did not chat for very long. Besides, I still had one more stop and it would take at least a couple of hours.

A couple of miles on down Mexico Road I headed west on US-24 towards Logansport and arrived at Jarel Beatty’s cabinet shop at 1 PM. Jarel was not expecting me until 1:30 so he was in the middle of cutting dados in side panels for a tall cabinet. When he finished that task he switched to a regular blade in his table saw to work on my pieces.

We selected the most suitable pieces of walnut from among the ones I brought. He ripped two pieces, one 2″ wide and the other 2-1/16″ wide, and crosscut them to 19-11/16″ long. He then ran them through his shaper to round off the edges. He changed the blade on his table saw, reset the depth of cut, and set the fence to cut off the amount of material I had marked with blue painter’s tape on the bump out for the passenger side HVAC duct cover. With the sawing done he sanded the two new pieces and then sprayed them with a Sherwin-Williams pre-catalyzed lacquer. He let the first coat dry for 15 minutes and then lightly sanded it with 220 grit paper to knock down tiny bubbles and splatters. He then applied a second coat. It was remarkable to see how it changed the appearance of the wood. Jarel described it as being like “putting water on a rock” and I thought that was an apt description.

After another 15 minutes the pieces were dry enough to be transported without damaging them. I wrapped things up with Jarel, including finally remembering to get all of my drawings back, and was ready to leave at 3 PM. The GPS said I would be home by 7 PM, quite a bit earlier than I expected when I left this morning.

I had smooth sailing until I encountered a major traffic jam on I-96 eastbound just east of US-127 on the southeast corner of Lansing, Michigan. It took 45 minutes to go three miles and I was sitting at about 1/8 tank of fuel. Ugh. There turned out to be multi-car accidents in two separate locations about a mile apart plus a car stopped in the right lane that appeared to have run out of fuel. What a mess.

Once I was clear of the accident area it was clear sailing once again. I stopped at the Marathon station at the Fowlerville exit (#127) for fuel and checked out the truck pumps. Although there were lots of semi’s parked there for the night I was disappointed to find that the back lot was in as bad a shape as the Mobil Truck Stop at exit 117. Still, the round trip from our house would be 20 minutes shorter and it was an alternative place to get fuel. The closest place to our house where we can fuel the bus is actually the Marathon station on Grand River Avenue at I-96 in Brighton, which has truck pumps around back, but we have some low branches in the southbound lane of Hacker Road just before we get to Grand River Avenue, so we tend to avoid that route and that stretch of Grand River Avenue is often very busy and not someplace I want to be with the bus unless it is later at night.

I checked the mousetrap in the pantry when I got home and we had caught yet another mouse. I unloaded the car and then took the mouse trap to the end of the new driveway and released it across the road as I had done with the previous four. As I walked down the driveway it was obvious that Phil had been here with his bulldozer, which Linda confirmed over dinner.

The “parking pad” area is now presumably level but it was definitely not flat as it had deep marks from the bulldozer treads and ridges where the gravel had not been completely smoothed out. The top inch or so also seemed very loose. I don’t think Phil is done working on the project as he still needs to spread straw over all of the topsoil that he placed, graded, and seeded the other day. I suspect that he still needs to compact the gravel one last time with his track loader but I won’t know for sure until I can talk to him.

Dinner was chili and crackers; simple but delicious. It had been a long day but I had taken care of four things in one trip, three of which were directly related to the bus and two of those of a somewhat critical nature. We were both off to bed not long after dinner. Tomorrow was our weekly ham radio breakfast so we would have to be up early to get there on time.

2015/11/11 (W) Two for One

Leave a reply

We had late morning dentist/hygiene appointments today so Linda did not get up early to go to the bakery and we slept in and got up at 8:30 AM. We showered and dressed and finally had granola for breakfast at 9:15. She made this batch of granola yesterday and it was very yummy.

Since the mice have recently been defeating our simple live traps I cleaned our more complicated one yesterday and set it up last night with a broken open peanut butter pretzel for bait. When I checked the trap this morning it had two brown field mice inside. They were anxious to get out and I was glad to oblige. I set them free in the southwest part of our property on the other side of the road. The last I saw of them they were headed south into dense cover and away from the house.

Our appointments were at 11 AM in Dearborn. Linda left at 9:45 and I followed about five minutes later. We took separate cars since she had to go to the bakery following her appointment. Before I left I checked on the state of charge of the house batteries in the bus. There were at 95% SOC. I turned the charger off last night to let the battery bank drain down a little. I turned off the Broan cube heater and the three toe-kick heaters and then shutoff the AC power coming into the coach. I checked that the inverter was working, which it was, and left for my appointment.

We both had good checkups but Linda will need a crown in the spring. A tooth with an old filling had weakened and needs to be capped. The dental assistants/hygienists have started taking blood pressure readings as part of modern dentistry’s role in monitoring and promoting overall health. I don’t know how accurate the wrist cuff machines are but my blood pressure was 121/59 and Linda’s was 128/67, which are excellent readings if they are even close to being correct.

On the way home I stopped at the new Menard’s on Wixom Road just north of I-96. I was looking for 1/2×2″ fine thread carriage bolts but all they had were coarse thread in longer lengths. As long as I was there I picked up a 6-pack of work socks and two more of the good live traps like the one we already have.

Back at the house I called Terry at A-1 Upholstery to confirm that our spacer cushion for the bus sofa was ready and that she would be there Friday morning. Her response was affirmative on both counts. I then called Josh to verify that he would be at his shop on Friday morning and he said he would. I need to stop there on the way to A-1 Upholstery and return two swivel seat ring bearings.

The new gravel driveway extension and RV parking pad. Phil, on the left side of the driveway by the nearer utility pole, rakes out the topsoil he placed along both sides of the driveway.

Philip Jarrell from Precision Grading was here working on the driveway extension when I got home. After my phone calls I changed into my work clothes and went out to chat with him for a few minutes. Phil had brought another load of screened topsoil and was using his track loader to place it along the sides of the driveway extension and at the west end of the property where the French drain begins. He rough graded it with the track loader and then raked it out by hand and spread grass seed. He will bring straw bales with him on a subsequent trip to cover the soil/seed but he wanted to get the seed down before he left as we have rain and wind forecast starting late this evening and through tomorrow into Friday.

I finally got to work in the bus at 2 PM. My objective was to get the SurePly underlayment installed on the passenger seat platform floor. I lightly sanded the floor patch compound I spread around last night and vacuumed up the particles. I then mounted the head of each of the new carriage bolts to a thick plastic washer using 3M Heavy Duty (double-sided) Mounting Tape. I slid the heads into the two mounting channels with the washers under them so the washers held the bolts up off of the bottom of the channel and forced the square collars up in the open slot of the channel where they could not turn when a nut was tightened on them. This was a critical step because once the underlayment and tile are down I will not be able to get to the heads of these bolts.

With the bolts in position I got the piece of SurePly from the garage. I was starting to slip it into position when I remembered that I installed an angle bracket yesterday but had not cut out a small piece of the underlayment to fit around it. So I took the piece back to the garage, cut out the necessary space, and took it back to the coach. I am starting to wonder how many hours I would have saved by having a proper shop set up right outside the front door of the bus.

[ Photo 2 of 2 – HR – The SurePly underlayment on the co-pilot/navigator platform floor showing how it fits under the outside wall panel and over the four mounting bolts for the seat. ]

The SurePly underlayment on the co-pilot/navigator platform floor showing how it fits under the outside wall panel and over the four mounting bolts for the seat.

The underlayment slipped under the switch panel by the outside wall and dropped over the four mounting bolts just like I planned it, so taking most of yesterday to carefully cut and drill the piece paid off in the end. That felt good, especially in comparison to how yesterday felt.

The weather today was lovely, reaching a high of 58 degrees F with sunny skies and I am sure that added to by general sense of well-being. Our part of Michigan is under a high wind warning starting this evening, however, with maximum gusts of 55 to 60 MPH possible. It’s a good thing we have a whole house generator because those kinds of winds cause power outages.

I decided to screw the underlayment to the bus floor rather than use staples. Again, I did not want to get the big air-compressor and staple gun out, but I also wanted to use the screws to pull the underlayment down tight to the bus sub-floor. I was about 50% done when I saw that Phil was putting his track loader back on the trailer. I thought he was packing up to leave so I went out to talk to him briefly. I went back to the bus and got another 25% of the piece screwed down before I ran out of screws. I was using primarily 1″ #6-SR self-drilling screws with some 1-1/4″ of the same kind. Once again my work was halted short of completion by the lack of some small part.

Phil was finished and on his way at 4:15 PM and by 4:30 I was headed to Lowe’s. Linda texted me that she was leaving the bakery and I had a nice QSO with Tom (K8TAF) while running my errand. Lowe’s only had one pack of the 1″ screws, quantity 100, but I thought that might be enough to get me through tomorrow. I also bought a pack of 100 1-1/4″ screws.

For dinner Linda cooked a couple of yams, heated up a couple of vegan sausages with sautéed onions and red peppers, and steamed some fresh green beans. Yum, yum, yum. After dinner we sat in the living room for a while using our iPads. At 8 PM we watched a few nature and science programs on PBS. Jarel called to confirm when I was coming down to Logansport, Indiana and said that Friday would work. Linda is headed back to the bakery in the morning so she went right to sleep after we were done watching TV.

2015/11/10 (T) A Rainy Day

Leave a reply

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.

2015/11/09 (M) Clever Mouse

Leave a reply

Madeline coughed quite a bit last night and we were up several times to check on her, so we did not have the best possible night’s sleep. We got up to stay at 7:30 AM and Madeline got up about 15 minutes later. I made our morning coffee while Madeline helped her grandma wash blueberries and make vegan blueberry pancakes. We had a lovely breakfast with orange juice, pancakes with real maple syrup, and blueberries, raspberries, and bananas on the side.

I check the mouse traps in the pantry every morning. A couple of days ago I found one of them broken with the food gone and some mouse poop left in its place. The pantry doors had been left open overnight so I figured one of the cats had discovered the trap (we use live traps) and tossed it around until the door fell open and the mouse escaped. I threw it away since it was broken. This morning I discovered that the food in the other trap had been replaced by mouse poop but the trap was upright with the door closed and was not broken. The pantry had been closed all night so I knew the cats had nothing to do with it. Apparently we have a mouse that has figured out how to defeat the traps. We are not going to set kill traps so we will have to see what else we can find.

We lingered in the living room for a while enjoying our coffee by the fireplace, listening to Madeline play (with) the organ, and watching her play with some of her toys. She made her futon into a car and took her two “bunnies” for a ride. By 9:30 AM I had finished my coffee and changed into my work clothes. It was just below freezing when we got up this morning, but it was a bright, sunny day with no wind, so it would be a comfortable enough day for working on the bus once I turned up the thermostats and warmed up the interior a bit.

My focus today was to get the SurePly underlayment installed on the floor of the passenger seat platform and maybe the two walls. I also wanted to get the outside wall panel trimmed off so it will fit around the tile and needed to build a new step with an open front, but I did not expect to get to those tasks today. First up, however, was getting the small patch I worked on yesterday to fit better and be secure.

I trimmed both ends of the underside of the main patch and recut the side/support panel. I trimmed the side panel several times before I was satisfied with the fit. I used heavy-duty double-sided tape to hold the top patch and side panel to the metal structure underneath. I used a 1-1/2″ stainless steel self-drilling wood screw to secure the top to the vertical piece of 3/4″ plywood that forms the face of the passenger seat platform, and a shorter screw to secure the side panel to the same piece of plywood. I then attached a temporary plate of SurePly over the side panel to the edge of the top plate to hold the side in alignment with the top.

The metal under this patch is rounded leaving a small space between the top and side pieces where they meet. The vertical plywood front face is also beveled leaving a void. I used Door and Window Trim Spray Foam Insulation to fill these areas. This foam has a lower expansion than most spray foam insulation. I did not overfill the voids but put enough in that it expanded out past the edge. I will trim it off flush tomorrow when it is cured. The foam adheres to anything it touches and is rigid enough to be somewhat structural so it should stabilize and secure the patch. Once I trim it and cover it with underlayment it should be good as new.

Madeline’s Aunt Meghan, who is also her buddy, came to visit and play with her today. She arrived at noon and I took a break to visit and have lunch. After lunch Madeline, Meghan, and Linda went to the Brighton Mill Pond Playscape and I resumed working on the bus. They were gone for several hours.

Floor patching compound being applied to the co-pilot/navigator platform.

Before I could put a layer of underlayment on the passenger seat platform I needed to use floor patching compound to fill in some low spots and create a smooth taper from the plywood to some metal edging. But first I removed all of the screws that secure this edging and counter-bored the holes so the screw heads would be flush. As often seems to happen when I am working on something like this some of the screws were rusted and I did not have appropriate replacements. I then have to make a trip to Lowe’s, which is what I did, and bought a small quantity of three different size flathead wood screws. I stopped at O’Reilly’s Auto Parts to see if they had the large metal or nylon washers that are used with the swivel base for the front chairs. They didn’t, but once again suggested that I try Howell Hardware in downtown Howell. I have received that suggestion from people at several different stores so guess I need to check the place out.

When I got back home I finished installing the new screws. The floor patch compound takes a minimum of three to four hours to dry, sometimes much longer, but after two hours it was dry enough for me to use a sanding sponge to smooth out some ridges and feather some edges that needed it. It was clear, however, that I wasn’t going to be able to accomplish what I set out to do today. And so it goes; I need to do the work correctly which means doing all the things that need to be done in the order that they need to occur. Everything takes time and things that have to dry, set, or cure do so on their own schedule, not mine.

Phil had shown up around 3 PM so I went out to chat briefly with him and then went inside to change clothes. He had a partial load of topsoil left from a job earlier today and dumped it on the other side of the street by the 3rd driveway culvert. He used his front loader to place it along the south side of the new pull-through driveway extension and moved the small pile from the west end of the property to the north side of the driveway.

I still had plenty of daylight and wanted to make some good use of my time so I started thinking ahead to the layout of the tile in the cockpit. I measured various parts of the cockpit and although the number of square feet is small compared to the main floor the layout will be more difficult. As with all tile layouts it needs to be “balanced” while avoiding small pieces. Linda and I agreed that the pattern in the cockpit does not need to match the main floor, which is laid out diagonally, so that opens up options for how to lay out the tile.

The main landing is less than two tiles wide (front-to-back) so the best layout for that area is with a grout line dividing it in half, but that might not work well in the driver’s area. The driver’s area presents the additional problem of a steering column, brake pedal/valve, an accelerator pedal with its electrical cable that goes through the floor. The “holes” in the tile to accommodate these things have to be created using two notched pieces so they can be installed around the protrusions. I also need holes for the seat base mounting bolts and power cable for the 6-way power base. Those can be actual holes but I do not want grout lines to fall at the edges of the base. I also have to be cognizant of the walls, which are getting tiled. The distance along the face of the passenger seat platform is close to 65″. The tiles are 16″ squares so four tiles with three 1/8th” grout spaces is only 64-3/8″. See, it’s complicated.

The other thing I pondered and measured was the new step between the passenger seat platform and the main floor. Again there are several parameters: (1) We want the finished (tiled) height to split the distance from the tiled platform to the tiled main floor exactly in half; (2) we want the finished depth to be half the finished depth of the platform, and; (3) we want an open front so we can store shoes under the step. The total rise will be just under 14″ so the step rise will be a little less than 7″. Subtracting about an inch for wood and tile will leave a 6″ high space for shoes. The platform is 29″ deep so splitting that in half results in two treads of 14-1/2″, plenty deep for shoe storage. I considered having the step angle across the platform, being deeper by the driver seat and shallower by the passenger seat. While it would add an element of aesthetic interest it would greatly complicate the construction without adding any practical utility, so I rejected that idea.

As I considered the construction of the new step I was also thinking about the fact that there is a hole in the front end of the passenger side HVAC duct. The hole opens into the space behind the switch panel on the wall next to the passenger seat and just aft of the entry door but there is nowhere for the air to go from there. The hole is easy to see but not easy to reach so I estimated it to be three inches in diameter which is approximately seven square inches in area.

One possibility is to install a 4″ diameter circular louvered duct in the switch panel. It would be large enough in area, could be rotated to direct the flow in any desired direction, and has internal shutters that could be closed down to reduce or cut off the air flow. The main downside is lack of space behind the panel but I could cut off the tube behind the locking tabs. Another downside is that the cats sleep under the passenger chair while the bus is moving and the direct airflow might be uncomfortable and/or annoying for them.

Another possibility is to create a narrow duct along the back wall of the platform the same height as the new step and tie it in to the inside of the step, allowing the conditioned air to come out the open front. That will involve a bit more woodworking and complicate the tile installation, but could be added later, so I will probably opt for the round louvered register for now, if I do anything.

When I was done pondering the HVAC possibilities I put the seat pedestals back on the landing, locked up the bus, and went inside to change clothes. Meghan left while I was changing clothes so I did not get to say goodbye. Apparently Linda thought I was taking a shower and would be a while. Since we needed to get Madeline back to her house well before her bedtime we decided to head to Ann Arbor and have dinner there. I deflated and rolled up her portable toddler bed while Linda and Madeline gathered up her clothes, books, toys, and other things. I loaded the car while Linda got her dressed to travel. I checked in with Phil to get a status update and let him know we were leaving. We were on our way at 4:45 PM.

The drive down was OK as the really heavy traffic was headed north out of Ann Arbor. We tried to keep Madeline awake by reviewing all the fun things she had done since she got to our house late Friday afternoon but we were not successful. As I exited M-14 eastbound onto US-23 southbound I could see that traffic was stopped not far after the Plymouth Road exit so I left the highway and headed west on Plymouth Road to Huron Parkway. From there I headed south, paralleling US-23 to the west. At Washtenaw Avenue I turned east, and after a short distance turned left into the small shopping plaza where Elevation Burger was located.

I order a grilled cheese sandwich and Mandarin oranges for Madeline. Linda and I had vegan burgers and fries and Linda shared her fries with Ms. M. Madeline was slow to wake up but perked up when her food arrived. That girl likes to eat! 🙂 After dinner we made the short trip to Madeline’s house and arrived at 6:30 PM. Linda got Madeline into her pajamas while I brought all of the stuff in from the car and turned up the thermostat.

Madeline was wide awake and full of energy so she played with her kitchen toys and tools and had Grandma Linda read her four stories. I dozed off for a little while and then spent some quality time with Gus the cat. Gus loves people but tends to keep his distance from Madeline who is just a bit too energetic and enthusiastic for him.

Brendan and Shawna’s flight was due in to Metro Airport at 6:50 PM and he texted Linda at 6:51 that they had landed. They were home before 8 PM and got to spend time with their very awake, excited, and active daughter. We left at 8:30 and stopped at Biggby Coffee on Washtenaw Avenue. Rain was moving into our area from the south but had not yet arrived and the drive home was uneventful. We were home by 9:15 PM and headed straight to bed where we watched Scorpion and NCIS-LA. Linda came down with a cold while Madeline was here and went to sleep as soon as NCIS was over. I watched Travelscope on the Create channel and left the TV on while I worked on this post. It was another long, busy day during which I made forward progress on the bus.

2015/11/05 (R) POR-15

Leave a reply

Linda was back at the bakery today, so she was up early and gone before I even thought about getting out of bed. Having her homemade granola as our standard breakfast means I can feed myself under such circumstances with very little time spent on preparation and cleanup. I made a cup of Stash China Black tea instead of coffee; it’s quicker and cleaner. I like tea, and only started drinking coffee at age 50, but this morning the choice was motivated by ease and quickness of preparation and minimal cleanup as I was anxious to get busy working on the bus.

My focus today was getting the areas in the cockpit where I cut out the old water-damaged plywood ready for the installation of new wood. That meant getting POR-15 applied to the areas of rusted metal in the cockpit and spray painting over it with black rubberized undercoating paint. I also wanted to start cutting and fitting the wood pieces that I will use to patch the floor. I finished building a pair of sawhorses and set them up in the driveway just outside the large garage door so I could measure, mark, and cut wood at waist height. I was working on one of the pieces when the whole house generator came on at noon, ran its exercise cycle, and shut down 20 minutes later. Shortly thereafter I heard the rumble of a big truck coming down the road and a few seconds after that Phil’s truck and trailer drove past.

Phil drove to the west end of the property, turned around, and parked down there. He brought his Takeuchi front loader and used it to spread the large pile of topsoil around the part of our yard where the French drain starts. He filled in low spots and graded everything off to blend in nicely. He then worked his way up the drain line towards the culvert that goes under the road. When Phil was done moving dirt around he spread grass seed and loosely distributed three bales of straw. That gave him a good idea of how much more straw he would need.

I eventually took a break and walked down to chat with him in the middle of all that work. He finished moving some dirt and also took a break for lunch. He will have a load of screened topsoil delivered as soon as he can to use on both sides of the new gravel driveway. He also clarified that the 40 foot parking pad portion of the driveway is probably not flat/level as it is not finished yet. When he places and grades the topsoil his equipment will tear up the driveway a bit. He will then use his bulldozer to finish the driveway, making sure the pad is flat and level. That was a relief as I thought he was done and I was fairly certain the pad was not flat or level.

By 2:30 PM I finally had the areas of rusted metal prepared and masked off with painter’s plastic. I applied the POR-15 with a foam brush. In spite of being careful I got some on my hands and in retrospect should have worn disposable gloves. The only way to get this product off of things, including skin, is with the POR-15 solvent, which I had failed to purchase. Once dry it is permanent, so my right hand is going to look like I just changed the oil on the bus until the old skin gets replaced with new. The drying time for the POR-15 is 2 to 6 hours. The afternoon high temperature was 72 degrees F so I figured I would check at 4:30 PM. The directions said I could paint it while it was still tacky as long as it set enough not to transfer.

Linda got home around 3:30 PM and changed into her work clothes. Phil was still here working but we left him alone. The weather forecast for overnight and into tomorrow was for rain, possibly heavy, so we did not want to cause any delay in Phil’s work. I had cut and fit four pieces of wood earlier. We put painter’s plastic over the sawhorses and laid them out bottom sides up. Linda put 2×4 blocks under them to get the edges off of the plastic and I coated them with Thompson’s Water Seal. I am doing what I can to protect this new wood from water damage.

I needed to finish masking off the cockpit with painter’s plastic before spraying the black rubberized undercoating paint so Linda helped me with that. The plastic is very thin and much easier to handle with two people. While we were doing that Phil drove past. We took a break and walked down to west end of the property to see what Phil had accomplished today. Back in the bus we had the area masked off to my satisfaction by 4:45 PM.

The base of my thumbs were bothering me (arthritis) so Linda shook the paint can for the required three minutes. Although the light was fading due to the hour of the day and the cloud cover, I was still able to see well enough to spray the paint where needed. That was the end of our work for the day, except for cleaning up, and I was satisfied with what we had accomplished. We put some painter’s tape over three areas where we thought water might be getting in and then started putting everything away.

The wood pieces we treated with Thompson’s Water Seal were still wet so I picked them up from underneath and carried them into the back of the garage. Linda brought the blocks in and set them on the floor and I put the pieces back on top of the blocks. The directions said to allow at least 48 hours for drying but I plan to flip them over and coat the other side tomorrow if possible. We are running out of time and I cannot wait two days to seal the other side and then another two days for it to dry. We put the various tools away, removed the plastic from the sawhorses, and moved the 2×4 stringers and the sawhorses into the small garage bay. It was 5:45 PM when we closed up the garage and it was getting dark, a clear reminder that summer was behind us and winter was approaching.

We relaxed for a while before dinner. Linda made a nice salad and reheated the whole wheat linguini she made the other night. We opened the bottle of Frey Natural White wine to try it. I liked it even less than their Natural Red, if that’s possible. It was very dry and since I do not care for dry wines I was not able to judge its other qualities. Linda did not care for it either, and she tends to be OK with dry wines, so I suspect it is just not a very good wine. I suggested she find a recipe that calls for white wine and use the rest of it in the dish.

One of our favorite TV shows is The Big Bang Theory. It has moved to Thursday evenings this season, so we went downstairs to watch it. The problem is that once we are in front of the TV set we tend to stay there. I use the time to multi-task and work on my blog post for the day, so it’s not a complete waste of time. Besides, we do not consider being entertained a waste of our time. I am enjoying working on the bus, and although some aspects of the work appear humorous in retrospect, I am rarely laughing while in the middle of it. I like things that make me laugh, and The Big Bang Theory is a very cleverly written show that is well acted and very funny.

2015/11/03 (T) The Penultimate Cut

Leave a reply

I heard noises in the kitchen at 7 AM and thought the cats might be up to something. I got up and discovered that Linda was just leaving the house. She is normally out the door between 6:15 and 6:30 AM but did not set her iPad alarm last night. I stuck my head out the door and said “good morning” as she was getting in the car.

I had my usual breakfast of granola with fresh blueberries and brewed a half pot of Sumatra Mandheling half-caffe coffee. I was enjoying my cup-a-joe by the fireplace when Linda called to let me know there was a story coming up on Michigan Radio (WUOM) at 8:30 AM about an underground landfill fire in Bridgeton, Missouri. Bridgeton is where my sister, niece, future nephew, and grand-niece live and I had just heard about this fire for the first time on Sunday evening while talking with my sister.

I got the leaf blower out at 10 AM and spent a couple of hours blowing as many leaves out from under bushes and away from the house into the yard as I could. Keith arrived at 10:30 AM and followed his usual mowing pattern starting with the west half of the property. The lawn in the immediate vicinity of the house is the last area he cuts which gave me enough time to get the leaves out into the yard where Keith could mulch them.

Most of our trees have dropped most of their leaves by now and Keith’s mower did a pretty good job of mulching most of them. Before he left we discussed having him come back one more time. The grass has quit growing so my preference is to wait two weeks but that will depend on the weather. Keith will check with us next Monday and we will decide what to do at that time.

Mike (W8XH) is planning to come over tomorrow after breakfast and help me work on the tower and our Hi-Q 6-80 antenna. I have been collecting materials that I need and took a little time to see if they would work with the tower. I also took the Diamond X-300N antenna down as I planned to put it on the tower in place of the X-50N that is currently up there. My materials were not working quite the way I had hoped they would so I headed to Lowe’s to see what else I could find. I also planned to drop off the used oil and filters from the bus at O’Reilly’s Auto Parts store.

At Lowe’s I found clamp sets designed for mounting antenna masts and bought a pair. O’Reilly’s parking lot was still closed off. It looked like it had been re-blacktopped and they were painting the stripes for the parking spaces. This was my second attempt to get rid of the waste from yesterday’s bus maintenance. I will try again tomorrow; with any luck the third time will be the charm.damage

The area beneath the co-pilot/navigator seat. Not a pretty sight, especially when racing against the clock to get the coach finished for the upcoming winter season.

I finally got back to work on the bus at 2:30 PM and removed the front passenger chair pedestal base. The entire area under the base, between the side-to-side seat mounting channels, was rotten so I cut out the water-damaged wood. Just below the wood I found rusted metal which appeared to be delaminating. Metal does not do that so I presume there was a layer of sheet metal on top of a metal housing. The main structure of the bus is welded stainless steel but mild steel was obviously used to create compartments. Ugh.

After cutting out the damaged wood the remaining piece towards the outside was loose but would not come out. I removed a couple of screws from the 1/4″ walnut veneer side panel and pried the top out with a small screwdriver. This panel has a lot of switches mounted in it and a lot of wires behind it so I could only pull it out about four inches. That was enough to see a 3/4″x3/4″ piece of blocking screwed to the floor to catch/secure the bottom edge of the panel. It also enough to see a very large nest made of tiny bits of shredded paper.

The cavity behind the panel to the right of the co-pilot/navigator seat was apparently a great place for a mouse to build a nest.

I left the nest alone for the moment and removed two screws from the block that went into the piece of wood I need to remove. It appeared that a drain line for the front air-conditioner went through the floor near the outside edge and possibly some wires. I left the nest for Linda to see and will resume working on this tomorrow.

Linda made vegan grilled cheese sandwiches for dinner and served them with some of the leftover broccoli soup and sliced fruit. We each had a small glass of the Frey Natural Red organic/vegan wine.

After dinner I called Phil to see what his plans were for this week vis-a-vis our driveway and French drain projects. I got his voice mail and left him a message. When we left on Saturday afternoon he was just finishing up placing and compacting the gravel in the driveway but said the west end of the yard needed to dry out (again) before he could finish working down there. Hopefully the new drain will help speed that process along.

The floor area under the driver’s seat in the bus with all of the rotten wood cut out.

Phil uses a self-leveling laser level system to measure elevations. Not only has he assured me that the new 40 foot parking area is level, he has demonstrated it with his system. Still, it does not look level, especially from certain points of view, and it does not feel level when driving in it, although that may also be an optical illusion. We have a transit level and I plan to use it to check the pad, but it requires two people, one to hold the measuring stick and one to look through the telescope and record the readings. That means I need Linda’s assistance, which means this will have to wait until the weekend. Perhaps by then I will have the cockpit in the bus repaired. It’s also possible that Phil will have returned and completed the job, I which case I may have him help me use the transit as a check on his laser system.

We watched our usual lineup of Tuesday evening TV shows while Linda checked in on her online word games and I worked on this post.

2015/10/23 (F) Fetching Antique

Leave a reply

Linda was back on schedule this morning; up at 5:45 AM and off to the bakery at 6:15. I got up around 7:30 AM, ground beans for a small pot of coffee and made breakfast. Breakfast was oatmeal that I made myself from quick cook oats with raisins, dried cranberries, and pecans. I forgot to add cinnamon and brown sugar but I did add a small amount of vegan butter, sugar, and non-dairy coffee creamer. I like to cook my oatmeal until it is very thick and then loosen it up slightly with these additions.

After breakfast I checked the thermometers in the bus refrigerator and recorded the temperatures. They seem to be all over the place and I am really starting to question the accuracy, and thus the usefulness, of these relatively inexpensive “consumer” devices.

Around 10 AM I was getting ready to drive to Canton when I got a call from Chuck. The pair of motorized MCD duo shades had arrived the other day and he was having difficulty installing them. I offered to stop by his shop after my errand and he said he would be there.

I called Clyde to make sure he would be home and then headed to Canton to pick up the antique Sun automotive distributor tester. Clyde’s house was easy to find; an old residential area tucked away behind what is now a heavily developed commercial strip along Ford Road either side of I-275. He helped me load the tester into my car and then we chatted for a while. He had a very rare and beautifully restored (customized) 1948 two-door Pontiac boat tail sport coup; all black with two chrome strips, one down each side. I am not a “car guy” but I appreciate a work of art when I see one.

I drove to Chuck’s shop in Novi to see how the windshield shade installation was progressing. The pocket between the upper windshields and the cabinets was too narrow on the outside ends to allow the shades to tilt enough to engage the clip in that end and then swing up and latch on the other side. After struggling with it for a while we went to lunch at the Panera nearby.

Back at his shop we pondered the installation problem until I finally had an insight. The upper windshields slope away from the overhead cabinets, creating more horizontal space at lower heights. I suggested that using a 2″x2″ board as a spacer might lower the mounting bracket just enough to allow it to tilt into place and have enough space to lock it in and release it if needed. Chuck had a scrap piece of 2×2 that we used to see if my idea might work. Chuck thought it would work so he locked up the shop and I headed for home while headed to The Home Depot.

Back home I checked the thermometers in the bus fridge. The readings just did not make sense so I brought the LaCrosse base unit and remote into the house to get them away from the TempMinder components. I researched methods and equipment for measuring temperature in freezers and refrigerators looking for something that would be more accurate and precise than our current technology but I did not find much.

The more accurate temperature measurement instruments that are available for under $100 all use wired probes rather than wireless remote sensors. The best ones have the probes sealed in small glass bottles filled with a liquid such as alcohol, oil, or glycerin. These remain liquid at normal freezer and refrigerator temperatures and surround the temperature probe with enough thermal mass to prevent it from responding too quickly to changes in air temperature such as occurs when the door is opened or the fridge compressor and fans are running. In effect the probes more accurately reflect the temperature of things stored in the refrigerator rather than the instantaneous temperature of the air near the sensor. The wires for the probes are typically relatively fine and do not prevent the door seals from closing completely, at least in the short term. A permanent installation, however, seems ill-advised.

I was researching flash units and other accessories for our new Sony alpha 99 camera when Phil showed up mid-afternoon. I set my research aside and went out to chat with him and watch what he was doing. He had a full truck load of sand from another job that he dumped at the west end of the property and then moved it into some of the low spots, of which there are many. He used his front loader to finish removing topsoil from the new driveway area by the third culvert and load it into his truck. He filled the truck and dumped it at the west end of the property. He then used his bulldozer to grade out the area of the driveway where he had just removed all of the topsoil. Finally, he used the front loader to compact the sand driveway base.

Phil was going to come back on Saturday but he is at the point where he needs stone (21AA road gravel) that he will not be able to get it until Monday. He is also finishing up other jobs that involve inspections and won’t be back here until at least Tuesday. I need to trim the lower branches on some of the trees to get them out of his way, and out of Keith’s way when he mows the grass, so I will probably do that on Monday, leaving Saturday and Sunday to work on the bus while Linda is available to help.

Phil was still working when Linda got home so I left Phil to finish up and went inside. I was tired and took a short nap while Linda fixed dinner. She made a nice salad and risotto with celery and dandelion greens; a first for us, and very tasty. We also did a taste test of the California Olive Ranch EVOO versus the Philippe Berio EVOO that Linda normally uses. We used Italian bread that she brought home from the bakery. I was able to detect a very subtle difference in the taste but had to not use the crust of the bread as the poppy seeds provided their own distinct taste. The COR product was the top choice of a tasting panel at Cook’s Illustrated magazine and reasonably priced at just under $10 a bottle but I did not find the taste superior to the PB product.

After dinner I went to my office and checked e-mail. I took care of some things related to the November 2015 issue of BCM. We had confirmation e-mails from Molly Pinner for our 56th Escapade Volunteer assignments. I also had one from Kate with links to camera harnesses at B&H Photo and a second with links to a recent interview on AM1700 with the organizer of the Pop-X art exhibit in Liberty Plaza and photos she has taken of guests at the station and musical groups at SxSW and other venues.

I talked briefly with Mike (W8XH) via the South Lyon 2m repeater using the Yaesu FTM-400 radio. Our ham shack was working just fine so apparently there was no Info Net this past Sunday. I called Butch to let him know I had the distributor tester and chatted with him about the refrigerator temperature monitoring problems I am having. It was then off to bed, as we have to be up by 7 AM to get to our weekly ham radio breakfast in South Lyon.

2015/10/21 (W) Electrifying

Leave a reply

In spite of being out later than usual last night Linda was up early and off to the bakery at 6:15 AM. I got up at the same time and made coffee so Linda could take some with her. Neither of us slept well as we had larger meals, with richer food, and later at night than usual. I wasn’t hungry but I like to start my day with coffee and it seems to help keep me regular. TMI, perhaps, but there it is. I had to get up anyway to prepare the garage so the electricians from Bratcher Electric could get to the areas they needed to work on. But first I put a load of laundry in the washing machine.

We had a light but steady rain last night starting around midnight. Phil was hoping for rain over the next few days as the sand base for the driveway will compact much better if the sand is moist. We have a 70% chance of more rain during the day today and into the evening but by tomorrow a cold front is supposed to push through with much cooler and drier conditions behind it. I hope the sand gets wet enough to stay moist until Saturday when Phil returns.

Jeremy and Pete from Bratcher Electric showed up at 9 AM. I walked them through the job and then left them alone to work except for the occasional photograph and questions. The questions were for my own understanding of the work.

I needed to mix the “GoLightly” prescription for Linda and get it in the refrigerator to chill. The instructions said to use lukewarm drinking water. I drew a large pot of our RO water, heated it on the stove, let it cool to what I judged to be lukewarm, added it to the jug, shook it well to mix, and put it in the fridge. It should be plenty cold by the time she gets home this afternoon.

I was not going to get involved in my own construction projects while Jeremy and Pete were here. At some point towards the end of their work they were going to have to turn off the whole house generator and disconnect the main service coming in from the utility pole so they could safely tie in the new disconnect that feeds the panel in the garage. I went ahead and turned off the HP Color LaserJet printer, the two NAS units, and all of the computers except one that was installing updates, and I shut it down when it was done.

While the electricians worked I did some more photo product research. Based on what I found on the Quantum Instruments, Inc. website they do not make anything that works with the Sony alpha camera bodies, including the SLT-a99v. Thus it appears that there is no point in repairing (replacing) one or both of my Quantum Turbo battery packs. I tested my Sunpak DX-8R ring flash the other day so I know I can trigger it but I do not know if I can control it. My Metz 45CT-4 can operate off of AA batteries but I have not had time to test it with the a99. Like the ring flash I expect that the a99 will be able to trigger it but I doubt it can control it through the lens (TTL). If it can then I would have a reason to repair/replace at least one of my Quantum Turbo battery packs.

What all of this means in the short term is that I am going to have to buy a Sony “on-camera flash” designed specifically to work in an integrated way with the a99 body. Further research revealed that there are only three choices: the HVL-60AM, the HVL-43M, and the HVL-20 (?) I downloaded the manuals for the 60 and the 43 models and glanced at them, but they are as long as the manual for the camera body. The 60 has an optional battery pack, but it just holds six AA batteries in addition to the four in the flash unit. I looked at reviews on the B&H website and they were mixed for both the 60 and the 43. The 60 is more powerful but is very large. The 43 is smaller but less powerful and lacks the connector for an auxiliary battery pack. The biggest knock on both were the mechanical attachment to the camera and an over temp feature that seems to erroneously shut the unit down after just a few quick flashes.

The small box upper left is the new 100 A main disconnect for the electrical panel in the garage. The large box upper right is the automatic transfer switch and the large box below it is the 200 A service entrance disconnect.

After the electricians were gone I heated up a can of Amy’s Red Lentil soup and had some hummus and pretzel nibblers. I put another load of laundry in the washer and then went in search of an RV outlet box.

Lowe’s had an Eaton box with either a 30 A or 50 Amp single plug and no disconnect or circuit breaker. The 50 A version is what I installed three years ago for the pull-through drive in front of the house. What I had forgotten, apparently, was that the largest opening on the bottom of this box was smaller than 2″ but I could not determine if it was 1-1/4″ or 1-1/2″. Lowe’s did not have the adapters I needed so I went to The Home Depot. They did not seem to have what I needed either so I went to City Electric Supply. CES had a better selection of adapters and also had RV panels with circuit breakers. The panels were much more expensive so I did not buy one but I had them set up the pieces to adapt from 2″ conduit to 1-1/2″ pipe thread. I then went back to Lowe’s and bought the 50 A outlet box.

Back at the house I spent some more time in the bus fiddling with the remote temperature sensors in the refrigerator but otherwise did not accomplish much. Linda got home late in the afternoon but was not able to eat anything because of her colonoscopy tomorrow morning. I was on my own for dinner but do not recall what I had as I am finishing this post a couple of days later. Linda had to consume half of the GoLightly (1/2 gallon!) between 6 and 8 PM. I worked in the garage for a while removing the knockouts from the bottom of the RV box. That was when I confirmed that the hole was sized for 1-1/4″ conduit, not 1-1/2″. I worked in my office at my computer for the rest of the evening. We both went to bed before 10 PM as Linda had to get up at 3 AM and drink the other half gallon of GoLightly between then and 5 AM and I had to be up at 5:45 AM so I could get her to HFHS Columbus Center in Novi by 7:15 AM. Sometimes the scheduling of medical procedures just leaves me shaking my head.

2015/10/20 (T) Pop-X Pickle

Leave a reply

It’s a good thing there are still five weeks until we depart for Florida; there are a lot of unfinished items that need to be taken care of on the bus and around the house/property before we go.

When Phil is here my attention tends to be on what he is doing. He really knows his stuff, and is an excellent contractor to work with, but since he is not working from drawn plans there are inevitably questions and discussions about just exactly what it is I want and whether that is the best idea or even doable.

Phil had ordered a load of sandy soil for delivery first thing this morning and the “train” (double trailer) showed up not long after he did. The sandy soil he wanted was not available so he got clean sand instead. The train driver of the backed it over our third culvert and into the part of our yard were Phil wanted the material dumped. That took a lot of skill and was impressive to watch. I took a few photographs but video was really required to capture what was happening. The Sony SLT-a99v does video in several different modes but I am just beginning to learn how to use it as a still camera and did not want to mess around with shooting video. Besides, I am not a videographer; it’s a completely different way of thinking than being a still photographer.

Phil digs the trench for the electrical conduit from the SW corner of the garage to the far side of the driveway extension where he also dug a hole for the post that will support the RV outlet box.

With the material on site Phil was at the point where he needed to dig the trench for the RV electrical feed. That meant I had to quickly make some final decisions. I had an 8 foot 4″x4″ treated post and the PVC conduit pieces I needed to go from the post under the driveway to the other side but not enough to go all the way to the garage. If I only put conduit under the driveway I could cap it, let Phil bury it, and then dig it up later and finish trenching from there to the garage. I would not do that by hand, however, so it would mean having Phil come back next year just to dig this little trench. Although I could have him dig the foundation hole for the ham radio tower at the same time that still did not make any sense to me. Among other considerations I would have to fill the trench in by hand after I ran the cable.

Another option was to still use conduit just under the driveway but go ahead and run direct burial cable like we did two years ago for the pull-through driveway in front of the house. I would need three (120VAC) or four (240/120VAC) large wires (or equivalent service entrance cable, each at least 80 feet long to get from the outlet box location in the post to the riser pipe on the garage and through the wall into a circuit breaker box. Not only would I have to get the wire, which would be expensive, I did not have the outdoor outlet box or other parts I needed, so it would take me quite a while to go buy everything. I also did not know exactly where/how I would feed the circuit. (I had some ideas about that but they depended on just what the electricians do tomorrow.)

The most expeditious, and least expensive, option was to get more conduit and additional fittings and run the conduit all the way from the post to the southwest corner of the garage. I left at 9:30 AM for Lowe’s as Phil started digging the trench and the hole for the post.

At Lowe’s I picked up five more 10′ pieces of 2″ PVC conduit, a 45 degree elbow, another 90 degree elbow, a right angle entry box, and a bag of 2″ conduit clamps. By the time I got back to the house Phil had the post set in place and most of the trench dug. I got all of the conduit pieces laid out on the ground and got the PVC cement, a hack saw, and the rope and weight.

Since Phil could not do anything else on the driveway until the conduit was installed he helped me install it (or vice-versa). We joined 10′ sections to both ends of one of the 90 degree elbows and then dropped the weighted rope through it. We then set the elbow and one of the straight sections in the trench with the elbow at the base of the post and the other straight section going straight up the post where I secured it with two clamps. We proceeded to drop the weighted rope through additional straight sections of conduit, applied PVC cement to the ends, and put them together. The conduit had to be inserted about 3″ into the mating piece and twisted as it went in. I was glad Phil was there to help with this as I did not have the grip strength to do it by myself. (I don’t have a lot of physical limitations but the arthritis in the base of my thumbs makes itself known in specific situations.)

When we got near the southwest corner of the garage we measured and cut a section of straight pipe to get us to a turn in the trench. Because of a decorative grass plant the trench could not go directly to the desired location on the west side of the garage and had to go between the grass plant and a nearby small evergreen bush and then turned towards the garage. We installed a 45 degree elbow to get around the corner and it ended up in the center of the trench. When I said Phil knew what he was doing I meant it. We again measured carefully and cut a short section of straight pipe to get us to a 90 degree elbow that would turn up and bring the conduit out of the trench and up the side of the garage. I measured and cut the vertical riser section and we cemented it into the elbow. We now had a complete run with conduit coming out of the trench vertically on both ends.

Phil back fills the trench for the electrical conduit from the corner of the garage to the RV electrical post.

While Phil used his excavator to scoop and push dirt back into the trench and tamp it down I closed off both ends of the conduit. At the garage end I removed the gasketed cover from the entry box, cut a short piece of 2″ conduit, and put it in the fitting hole on the back side. Next I brought the weighted rope up through the bottom fitting hole of the box and used Gorilla tape to secure it inside the short back pipe. I put a cap on the other end of the short back pipe and then put the entry box on top of the riser sideway. I coiled up the extra rope, taped it inside the box, and put the gasketed cover back on. I did not cement any of these connections. When permanently installed the gasketed cover will point away from the wall and the hole in the back will have a longer piece of paper 2″ conduit cemented in and going through a hole into the wall of the garage.

At the post I used a Rigid brand pipe cutter, designed specifically for cutting large plastic pipe and conduit, to cut off the vertical riser at a convenient height above the top of the post. I threaded the rope through a 3/8″ hole in the center of a 4″ disc of 3/4″ plywood and tied a big knot in it. I modified the 2″ cap by drilling three adjacent holes lengthwise from the bottom up and cutting out material with a hacksaw to make a slot. With the rope hanging over the edge of the conduit I lined up the slot in the cap with the rope and put the cap over the end of the conduit.

Since I decided to not have Phil build the area leading up to the planned barn location I wanted to pull all of the unneeded yellow plastic stakes out of the yard and put them away. Re-staking the layout, however, is a time-consuming task so I put 10″ metal (iron) spikes at the locations of the front corners of the barn and the center point for the curved transition into the driveway. I drove them flush with the soil so Keith would not hit them with his mower but we can find them later with a metal detector.

With the conduit installed and the trench filled and tamped, Phil filled started building the “curbs” for the driveway. He had excavated parts of the driveway path and filled in other areas to create a base for the construction fabric and road gravel that was eight inches below the finish grade. The construction fabric is 12’6″ wide and Phil likes to wrap it up on the sides about 8″ so when he staked out the driveway to be 11′ 2″ wide. Phil used the sand to build up the areas along both sides of the driveway so that it looked like he had cut the driveway out, but that is not, in fact, what he had done.

My main bus project today was cleaning up the kitchen and living room, which mostly involved moving tools back to the garage. It is a confined workspace and tends to get cluttered over time as we fetch tools for this and that. I also wanted to be able to see the desk and its Corian countertop.

Two of the three sets of cushions in place on the new built-in custom walnut sofa/storage base.

I called Butch in Quartzsite, AZ regarding the distributor tester. He suggested that I send him an e-mail requesting Bill’s e-mail address and he would send it in his reply. We then discussed the refrigerator and he suggested that I set the freezer to a colder setting, leave the fresh compartment setting as is, and monitor it for a while to see if it changes. I did that and reset the min/max memory for both compartments.

Phil is not done with the French drain yet and spent part of the afternoon working on that instead of the driveway. He made lots of trips back and forth with the front loader to take the topsoil he had removed to create the driveway, spread it out along on top of the pea gravel that fills the drain trench, and grade it off to blend with the undisturbed yard along either side of the drain. Before he is all done with these two separate, but inter-related projects, he will have to bring in several truckloads of topsoil. It will be used to fill low spots, especially at the west end of the property, and to cover everything that has been disturbed. All of the topsoil will be finish graded to blend into the existing contours of the property and then seeded with grass seed.

The view from the living room looking towards the hallway. The new built-in custom walnut desk has its Corian countertop in place and the new refrigerator is in place next to the built-in custom pull-out pantry.

I did not want to get involved in any complex or time-consuming projects so I hung out on the west half of our yard where Phil was working and took lots of pictures with the new camera. Actually, I had been doing that all day trying to document the work as it progressed. When I wasn’t taking photos I gathered up broken branches and larger deadfall and carried or dragged it to the brush pile on the west side of the line of large fir trees that separate the east and west halves of our five acres.

Linda called around 3:30 and asked me to see if her wallet was on her desk. She thought she had it with her but could not find it. She finally located it in her car where it had been since falling out of her case this morning. She was on her way home by 3:50 PM.

I had a final chat with Phil, who won’t be back until Saturday, and then closed up the bus and the garage. We were headed to Ann Arbor this evening and I needed to get cleaned up and put on nicer, more appropriate clothes for our evening out. I used to wear Oxford shirts and nicer pants every day for work, and sometimes a sport coat and tie or even a suit. These days it’s mostly polo shirts and blue jeans or sometimes REI ripstop nylon convertible cargo pants. And this summer it has mostly been my work jeans and work shirts.

We left around 5:15 PM and were parked in Ann Arbor before 6 PM. We agreed to meet Kate at the Lab Cafe which was just around the corner from the Thompson Street parking garage. (This garage is behind the former Border’s book store #1 which also housed the company’s corporate headquarters. Our daughter started with Border’s as a cashier at this store and within four years was a regional manager for their PaperChase product line before the company imploded and went bankrupt.)

Kate was sending Linda text message updates on her travel status and ETA so we ordered a couple of decaf coffees to go. At $3.75 each they were pricier than we are used to paying for coffee but they were “hand-crafted” and the coffee was very good. It took the barista at least 10 minutes to make our cups, grinding the beans just before brewing and then slowly pouring hot water through individual filter holders after pre-wetting the filters. In the time it took to make our coffee I would have been on my second cup at Panera.

Linda (front) and Kate (behind) take in the interior of one of the Pop-X art exhibit sheds.

The music was too loud and really awful, a bad combination in our opinion, so we sat outside in spite of the occasional attempt to rain. When Kate showed up we walked the short distance to Liberty Park to see the Pop-X Art Exhibit. Organized by the Ann Arbor Art Center, all of the art was displayed in “sheds” designed by an architect, one artist per shed. The sheds were approximately 10 feet square with steep pitched roofs. The roofs, and the two sides they pitched down to, were covered in clear wavy plastic panels to let in a lot of natural light. The back end was solid and the front had a pair of sliding “barn style” doors hung from tracks. There was a solid floor that was elevated relative to ground level and provision for electrical power. They were designed to be sold as potting sheds after the exhibit was removed at the end of the week. Although the light was fading I was still able to get some decent shots with the new Sony a99v DSLT camera. It has much greater light sensitivity than the Sony alpha 100 it is replacing as my primary camera and this was my first opportunity to take advantage of that since getting it.

Our main reason for coming to Ann Arbor was to have dinner with Kate but Pop-X was a nice bonus. Ann Arbor has a LOT of dining options; hundreds I would guess just in the very walkable downtown area. We decided to try the Grizzly Peak Brewing Company after Linda confirmed that they had some things on the menu we could eat. It was a bit of a walk but the rain held off and it was an otherwise pleasant evening.

Linda had a dark Porter with definite chocolate tones and I had a hard cider with distinct cinnamon/vanilla tones. It was also supposed to have roasted pecan notes but I did not detect that. Kate had a red beer that was not hoppy and thought I might have liked it. I had a sip of Linda’s Porter and it was very agreeable. We both had small couscous and greens dinner salads, which were very nice, and both had wild mushroom burgers, which were excellent. Linda said her chips were also very good and my French fries were tasty and generously portioned. Kate had a burger and all of our meals came with pickles. Kate does not care for pickles, which I knew, and does not care for vinegar in general, which I did not know, so Linda and I split her pickle rather than have it go to waste. The waiter was very attentive and a good sport when I asked for a gallon of ketchup for my fries. He brought two very full bottles for the table and a bottle of Frank’s hot sauce. We tipped him accordingly.

At 9:30 PM we started a slow stroll back to the parking garage and chatted a while longer by our cars, which coincidentally were parked very close together. It was 10:40 PM by the time we got home. I fed the cats and we went straight to bed. I was up later than I wanted to be trying to outline this post but I had not had much opportunity to work on it throughout the day.

2015/10/19 (M) Flashless

Leave a reply

Linda was up at 5:45 AM and out the door by 6:15. I woke up but went back to sleep and finally got up at 7:30 and got dressed. I turned on the furnace in the garage and turned up the thermostats in the bus and then had breakfast. Rather than grind up a small quantity of coffee beans and get the coffee maker dirty I had a cup of tea. I retrieved Butch’s e-mail and called Clyde in Canton to arrange pickup of the antique Sun distributor tester that Butch bought from him last night on Ebay. I will drive down Friday to pick it up.

Phil showed up around 8:30 AM, unloaded his front loader, and got to work on the French drain. I went out around 10 AM and talked to him briefly. I then walked through the southwest corner of our property looking for a corner marker. I did not find one but I did discover some REALLY big trees with REALLY BIG vines woven through them. The base of the vines was as big as one of the trees, about 30″ in diameter. I had never seen a vine root that size.

Back at the house I called John Palmer, of Palmer Energy Systems in Florida, to update him on my recent call to Magnum Energy technical support. He said he would talk to Tom in the next couple of days and try to get me the connector (terminal block) I need. We agreed I will call him back on Friday.

Next I called A-1 Upholstery in Elkhart, Indiana and talked to Terry. I ordered a bolster cushion to fill in the space behind the sofa seat cushions and below the sofa back cushions. It will be 6″ high x 4-3/4″ deep x 78″ long and will be one density of firm foam rather than a firm center layer with softer outer layers on top and bottom (like the seat cushions). She will use a plain beige fabric as it will not be visible and so it does not have to match the other sofa cushions. She said it would be ready in early November, which is plenty of time for us to drive down and get it. The price was $125, which sounded like a fair price to me.

I got out my old Sunpak DX-8R ring flash and connected it to one of my Quantum high voltage battery packs but the battery pack appeared to be dead. The two battery packs I have are almost unused but have apparently self-discharged and are now dead. This also happened to my original battery packs. The only flash equipment I have is set up to run off these packs but I am not inclined to replace them again as I do not use them enough to keep them charged which makes it hard to justify the cost as they are expensive. Unfortunately that leaves me, for the moment, without any flash capability for the new Sony SLT-A99V DSLT camera. Buggers.

I sent a TXT message to Joe to let him know that I did not see any indication of axle/hub seal leaks on the inside of the bus wheels. I then called Bill in Mexico, Indiana and left him a message regarding the antique Sun distributor tester. I will drive it at least as far as Elkhart, Indiana when I pick up the bolster from A-1 Upholstery and transfer it to Bill if he can meet me there. There is also the possibility that I will drive it all the way to Bill’s place in Mexico, Indiana and stop by Jarel Beatty’s cabinetry shop in Logansport to have him cut down the connector on the passenger side HVAC duct cover. If I do I will also pick up the drawings for the desk, sofa, and pull-out pantry as long as I am there.

Phil checks the grade of the new driveway extension. The laser level is set up by the utility pole.

I went back outside and walked through the layout of the driveway extension with Phil. He then set up his laser level, took elevation measurements at various points, and made an annotated sketch. He needed to think about the data and figure out what we could actually do given the change in grade from the existing concrete driveway to the road at the third culvert and the need to flatten out before reaching the culvert to tie in with where the barn will (might) eventually go.

Keith, from Kish Lawn Care, showed up around 11 AM to mow the grass. I got out our leaf blower and let Phil know that I would be occupied for a little while with yard work. I blew the leaves off of the rear decks, out from under/around various bushes, and off of the two boulder retaining walls into the yard where Keith could mulch them with his riding lawn mower.

About the time I was done blowing leaves Phil had a plan to discuss. The elevation drops 7-1/2 feet from the concrete driveway (that goes from the street to the garage) to the street at the third culvert some 200 feet away. Phil thought that our best bet was to slope down from the driveway over a distance of 40 feet, level out for 40 feet, and then gently slope down for 70 feet to the area in front of the future barn location. That would leave another 50 feet with a slight drop to get to the street. Some of the area down there will be close to level, however, so another RV could park down there.

We also discussed running power and agreed that I would buy about 40 feet of plastic conduit to get under the level area and headed towards the southwest corner of the garage. We would need the conduit first thing tomorrow morning so I decided I would go to Lowe’s this evening.

I finally got to work in the bus around 1:30 PM. I positioned the sofa seat, secured the piano hinge to the stationary backboard with four screws and then drilled all of the other screw holes using my smallest VIX bit. I installed all of the little screws, dialed back the thermostats, and closed up the bus. My time-on-task was short but it was a big item to check off of my “list.”

The Sunpak DX-8R ring flash can operate on four AA batteries so I put a set in and connected it to the hot shoe on top of the camera. The camera was able to trigger the flash (more than once) but the shots were seriously overexposed. I did not take the time to try and figure out if the flash can be controlled by the camera based on light coming through the lens. If not it won’t be usable in most situations.

It was a mild day with blue skies and white puffy clouds so I took the new camera outside to capture some images of the work Phil is doing. I shot a few frames of the more colorful trees in our yard while I was at it.

Linda texted me at 3:40 PM to let me know she was leaving the bakery and stopping at the store on the way home. Phil continued to find rock, concrete, and brick debris as he dug out the driveway extension. He used the 30″ toothed bucket on his excavator to sift out the larger pieces and pull them into a pile and then used his front loader to put all of it into his dump truck. I got a metal tine rake and raked out some of the smaller stuff, not because it needed to be removed but because I needed to do something physical and wanted to smooth it out to get a better idea of how it will look when finished.

Phil started securing his equipment at 5 PM and we were wrapping up our last discussion of the project for the day when Linda got home at 5:30. After unloading a few groceries she started fixing dinner. Phil took off and I continued raking for another half hour until dinner was ready. Linda served the rest of the polenta with puttanesca sauce and steamed sliced parsnips. I thought we finished the Cupcake Black Forest wine last night but I was pleasantly surprised to find out that we still had enough for our meal this evening.

After dinner I went to The Home Depot looking for a fuel filter for our Cub Cadet lawn tractor. THD sells Cub Cadet equipment but only had generic fuel filters so I did not buy one. I went to Lowe’s, where we get a 5% discount on everything we buy! and bought the following: four 10-foot pieces of 2″ PVC non-conductive conduit, a 90 degree elbow, a coupler, two end caps, 1″ and 1-1/4″ self-drilling screws, an 8′ long pressure treated 4×4′, and a clamp on saw guide. The saw guide was an impulse purchase but I had a $10 Off card for a total purchase of $50 of more. We have struggled with makeshift saw guides all summer and fall and I still have more careful cutting to do. I already have a saw guide but could not find it and should have bought a new one at the beginning of the bus remodeling project.

Phil called the house while I was out so I called him back. He had figured out that extending the driveway to within 10 feet of the front of the proposed bus barn would add 25% to the cost of the project. That was more than I was prepared to spend at this time so we will defer that work until we build the barn, probably in summer 2017. We watched Scorpion and NCIS Los Angeles and then went to bed.

2015-10-18 (N) Homage to FLLW

Leave a reply

We got up at 8 AM. I made Ethiopian Yirgacheffe half-caffe coffee while Linda prepared vegan pancakes. We had talked yesterday about going to the Howell Farmers Market this morning but did not feel like going out in the early morning chill. When we finished our coffee I turned the fireplace off and we got dressed to work.

Our focus in the bus today continued to be the built-in sofa. We decided yesterday to move the plywood seat out from the wall 4-3/4″ from its original position. The original stationary board on the back side of the piano hinge, which was only 2-3/4″ wide, was designed to place the front edge of the plywood seat (which has a 3/4″ walnut hardwood edge) 3/4″ beyond the cabinetry on both ends of the sofa with an overhang of just a few inches beyond the vertical front support board. It was a nice design which tied in well with the cabinetry and kept the sofa from intruding into the living room aisle. It resulted, however, in a seating depth of 16″ which turned out to be too short. It was my homage to Frank Lloyd Wright: integrated, attractive, cantilevered, and uncomfortable.

As much as I like and admire FLLW’s work, I also like the Bauhaus maxim “form follows function.” We needed a 3/4″ thick (11/16″ actually) board 7-1/2″ wide by 77-7/8″ long to locate the plywood seat in its new position. The only wood we had on hand that we could cut this from in one piece was a 24″ X 96″ piece of walnut veneered plywood. Since the board will not be visible I did not want to waste the walnut veneered plywood for this piece.

We also had a half sheet (4′ X 4′) of good plywood and after thinking about it for a while I decided to make the stationary board in two pieces. The key was that I would use a third piece, cut from that same 4′ X 4′ sheet, as a splicing plate to join the other two pieces together. But I was trying to accomplish more than that. With the original design the pivot line of the piano hinge was over the top of the wiring chase, about 1-3/4″ back from the front edge. That meant the back edge of the moveable seat board, when closed, was resting on the wiring chase for its entire length. With the new stationary board the pivot line of the piano hinge is unsupported except for 5-3/4″ on each end. The third piece of plywood would be at least a partial solution to that problem.

We worked in the garage with the overhead doors closed and the furnace on. I cut two 7-1/2″ wide pieces off of the 4′ X 4′ sheet of plywood and then cut them to lengths of 38-7/8″ each so they would be just shy of 77-7/8″ when butted together end-to-end. We took the two pieces to the bus and set them in place on top of the writing chase which sits atop the HVAC duct. They just fit, which was nice. I marked the underside along the edge of the wiring chase with a pencil. We then took the pieces back to the shop.

I found a relatively flat portion of the garage floor and laid the two pieces end-to-end face down. I set the third piece on top of the first two so that it was of equal length in both directions from the center and was at least 1/4″ forward from the line I had marked. This third board extended beyond the front edge of the other two boards by at least two inches along its entire length of four feet. With Linda holding it in place I inserted four self-drilling wood screws, two for each of the main boards, to hold the three pieces in position.

We placed the old 2-3/4″ wide board along the edge of the new boards and marked the locations of all of screw holes for the piano hinge. I then center punched and drilled countersunk holes for lots of screws being careful to keep them in between the hinge holes. I ran all of the screws in until the points just protruded from the other side. I then applied Titebond II wood glue to the two main boards, positioned the third board using the screw tips as alignment guides, and ran all of the screws down pulling the pieces tightly together. Linda got a paper shop towel wet and I used it to clean off the excess glue that oozed out from between the boards.

We took the new stationary backboard to the bus and set it in place upside down. I marked the underside along the edge of wiring chase and then we flipped it end-for-end and set it in place right side up. We pulled it forward so I could mark the locations of the existing screws securing the top of the wiring chase to the two long sides and then slid it back against the wall. The line served as my guide for where to screw the backboard to the wiring chase. (The chase has two long “1×2″ sides on edge with a 3/8″ thick plywood top that is about 4-1/2″ wide. For maximum strength I needed to screw through the backboard into the 1x2s. I also needed to avoid the space between the 1x2s as that is where all of the AC wiring is run.)

I center tapped a lot of locations and drilled them with a #6 countersink bit even though I was using #8 self-drilling outdoor screws. The reason for the drilling step was to make sure I did not split any wood. I screwed the backboard to the wiring chase with lots of 1-1/4″ #8 screws in two rows corresponding to the front and back side boards of the wiring chase.

The backboard pieces had oozed a small amount of additional glue so I used a piece of scrap aluminum sheet metal to scrap it out of the joint. When the plywood seat is closed the back couple of inches will rest on the third piece of plywood so there cannot be any interference along there. We set the moveable seat board in place and marked all of the hinge holes on the stationary backboard and then pulled it out gain. We did not, however, attach the piano hinge to the stationary backboard as I wanted to let the glue cure for at least 24 hours.

By this point it was 1 PM so we stopped to have lunch which consisted of vegan hotdogs with mustard, onions, and relish and both red and green grapes. We got these grapes at Meijer’s and their produce is usually good, but the green grapes had almost no taste. Oh well; there will be days (and foods) like that.

After lunch we shifted our attention to the driveway extension project. I gathered up a box of plastic and wood stakes, a mallet, a 100 foot tape measure, and the site plan for the bus barn and driveway. It took us about three hours to stake out the location of the pull-through driveway, locate the front corners of the bus barn, and stake out the approach/apron for the barn. Phil will be back early tomorrow morning and the first thing on the agenda is going over the layout and figuring out elevations for the two planned level pad areas.

At this point Linda went inside to work on dinner while I cleared the margin of the woods along the south side of the driveway extension. I added bar/chain oil and a 40:1 fuel:oil mixture to the chain saw and got out the compound loppers, pruning saw, pole saw, and safety glasses. I initially used the loppers to cut down small saplings, cut off small branches, and trim back bushes and vines. I used the chain saw to cut down slightly larger trees, up to 3” in diameter at the base, and finish cutting out three bushes and some entwined vines. I then used the pole saw to trim low overhanging branches. I dragged all of the cuttings to a spot on the west side of the fir trees and used the chain saw to cut the larger trees into smaller pieces.

It was 6:30 PM by the time I was done and had the tools put away. Dinner was almost ready when I got a call from Butch. He was following up on how our refrigerator was performing and also needed my assistance with a possible Ebay purchase. The item he was interested in was in Canton, Michigan about 45 minutes from our house, and the seller was not willing to ship it. He wanted to know if it would fit in our Honda Element and if so, would I be willing to pick it up if he decided to buy it. Of course I was willing to help as long as my car was able to handle the item. While he was on the phone I measured the clearance for the rear hatch and gave him the dimensions. As soon as we got off the phone he e-mailed me the link to the auction, which still had 85 minutes remaining.

For dinner Linda started with a really nice salad that had slivered almonds and pumpkin seeds and dressed it with Ken’s Sweet Vidalia Onion dressing. The main course was an amazing soup. She roasted a golden acorn squash, sweet potatoes, carrots, garlic, and shallots. She then put these in a pot, added vegetable broth, and heated the mixture. To finish the dish she used an immersion blender to purée everything into a smooth, thick, hearty, and delicious soup. After working outside all afternoon on a chilly day it really hit the spot. We finished the bottle of Cupcake Black Forest red wine we opened yesterday.

After dinner I retrieved Butch’s e-mail, checked out the item, and e-mailed him back. I then spent a little time reading and replying to posts in various RVillage groups. I called Butch back just before 8 PM and then turned on the Yaesu FTM-400 to join the SLAARC Info Net at 8 PM. Unfortunately all I heard was noise. I have not used the radio for the last few weeks so I don’t know if the net did not take place (unlikely but possible) or if a problem has developed with our system. If the later, it is most likely the Morgan I.C.E. lightning arrestor (again). Whatever the reason, I was not going to figure it out this evening. I went to bed at 9 PM and wrote this post. It took some time to write but if I do not record the details the same day they slip away quickly.

2015/10/16 (F) Desk Installation

Leave a reply

We were up at 8 AM, fed the cats, made coffee, and had breakfast. Phil showed up around 8:30 AM, unloaded his front loader, dropped his flatbed trailer, and left in his dump truck. I turned on the fireplace and we enjoyed our coffee while iPading until 10:15 AM.

Our first task today was to cut up several large limbs that I pulled out of the woods last evening to get them out of Phil’s way. I cut them up with the chain saw and then we stacked them on the disposal pile for Phil to haul away.

Phil returned at 10:30 and moved his Caterpillar 305C excavator into the woods across the street by the culvert. I went down to chat with him briefly to make sure I understood what he was going to work on. There were a lot of small trees (3″ diameter), saplings, and bushes scattered around the site. Some of them had been dead for years and some had just been knocked over by Phil. I decided to work in that area with my chain saw cutting everything up into five foot lengths so Phil could use his front loader to get them into his dump truck. I worked at this until 11:30 AM and then turned my attention to the bus. Linda worked on her needlepoint while I cut wood.

Before getting started on construction tasks I took two pieces of filter material and set them on the wire shelf in the freezer compartment of the new refrigerator, one on top of the other. I then set the two remote thermometer sensors on the filter material. Butch had suggested the other night that I set the sensor on a sponge to get it off of the floor of the freezer compartment as it was likely responding to the automatic defroster heat strips when they come on. I figured the filter material would work just as well and that placing the sensors on the shelf would definitely get them away from the floor.

Linda brought out a bag of ice from the house fridge and put it in the bus freezer. She also filled several 1/2 gallon juice and milk cartons with water, put the caps on, and put them in the fresh food compartment. The purpose of all of this was to add thermal mass to the compartments to cause the refrigerator to run less often and reduce large swings in temperature.

Inside the bus our first sub-project was installing the desk, which included putting the front passenger side HVAC duct cover in place even though it is not finished. It took us quite a while to get everything positioned just right. With Linda holding things in position I screwed the right pedestal to the wall, adjusted the position of the base and screwed the pedestal to the base. We then repeated that process for the left pedestal and base.

Linda removes the backing from the double-sided tape on the back side of the air grate in the center connector/cover for the desk.

At this point we had several things to do with, and under, the center connector/cover so I removed it and took it into the garage/shop. We cut a piece of the decorative brass colored metal grate and secured it to the back of the air opening with small screws every few inches. Next we cut a piece of black plastic mesh to fit over the grate. We then cut pieces of 3M Extreme Mounting Tape (double-sided) and attached them to the back side of the grate in between the screws. Linda peeled off the protective layer and we carefully placed the plastic mesh. Using one of the scrap pieces of the protective layer I rolled the plastic into the take with our wallpaper seam roller. Finally, we had a piece of filter material already cut to cover this air intake opening so we set that on top of the mesh, pressed it down to take advantage of the tape, and then secured it with Gorilla Tape on all four edges, rolling it with the seam roller to get good bonding.

A detailed view of one of the homebrewed tongue and groove alignment assemblies made from flat mending plates.

Back in the coach I had to tie in the outlet strip to the 120VAC power feed. I shut off the breaker for this circuit and checked with my tester to make sure it was not live. The hot and neutral wires were accessible but the ground wires were back under the left pedestal where they were not easy to reach and manipulate. It took a while, certainly longer than it should have, but I got the three ground wires tied together with a grounding clamp. I connected the hot and neutral wires (three each) relatively easily using wire nuts. I turned the circuit breaker back on and checked that the outlet strip had power between the correct terminals and did have power between any other terminal pairs.

I went to the garage to get a four foot long piece of 1″X1″ aluminum angle that I bought weeks ago to use as a support bracket for the upper rear edge of the center connector/cover. I was going to cut off a 26″ long piece and then drill countersunk holes but I noticed a piece of 1/2″X1/2″ light gage angle that was about 26″ long and already had holes in it. It was long enough to span the space between the pedestals and go under each one about an inch. That was sufficient to position it correctly so Linda held it there while I secured it to the wall with four round (pan) head screws. I then put the center connector/cover back in place.

Phil has cleared all of the organic debris from the area where the driveway extension and RV pad will be located.

Phil starts trenching and placing the plastic drain tile tubing for the French drain.

Phil had long since left in his truck to dump all of the wood debris. We had a light lunch of Amy’s Lentil Vegetable soup and fresh organic grapes. While we were eating a group of three deer came to our back yard and eventually ended up eating apples that had fallen from our tree onto the ground. These same deer, along with two others, were here yesterday at twilight and were very frisky. We saw them later in our neighbor’s yard across the street.

Another view of Phil’s smaller excavator with the 12” bucket being used to trench the French drain in the southwest portion of our property.

Phil returned around 3 PM and started working on the French drain. He replaced the 30″ wide toothed bucket with the 12″ one and started at the high end if the culvert on this side of the road.

The grand finale was the installation of the Corian desktop, which has been sitting on a blanket in the middle of the living area floor since Tuesday. I drilled countersunk holes through the four corner plates in each desk pedestal from underneath. I then inserted 1-1/4″ #8 self-drilling outdoor wood screws into each hole, again from underneath, until they just protruded above the corner blocks and then backed them off until the tips were just below the surface. We set the desktop across the pedestals and pushed it as tight to the back and right end wall as we could. Linda put her weight on it and I ran the screws home, pulling the top tight to the pedestals. We reinstalled the four drawers in the right pedestal, finally getting them off the floor in the hallway where they have been since Tuesday. We stepped back to admire the desk and agreed it was a thing of beauty and a joy to behold. Linda also marveled, once again, at how much space she now has to work in the kitchen.

A wider shot showing the excavator and drain tile. The laser level is at the left edge of the frame. The main arm of the excavator (with the bucket attached) has a laser sensor on it that tells Phil exactly where the lower edge of the bucket is relative to the laser level.

The “denouement” was mounting the outlet strip and adding felt pads to the two fake drawer fronts on the left pedestal and then adjusting the magnetic catches. I originally had the outlet strip (temporarily) mounted to the wall between the two pedestals with two screws a few inches below the cord notch in the center of the back edge of the desktop. Rather than put it back there I decided to mount it on the underside of the desktop just in front of the cord notch.

The underside location will work just as well as the wall mount location for regular 2- and 3-prong plugs but probably not as well for small AC adapters. The added pluses of this location, however, are: 1) it will not interfere with cords coming through the notch, 2) it will be up out of the way of the UPS (uninterruptible power supply) that will sit on the shelf at the top of the center connector/cover, and 3) if liquids are accidentally spilled and run over through the notch they will not run into the outlet strip. Besides, devices with an AC adapter will probably be plugged into the UPS so this was a better overall approach.

Our next task was to adjust the sofa seat until it was deep enough to be comfortable. We slide the plywood seat out a couple of inches and then got the seat and back cushions (three each) from the house where they have been stored since September 21st. We put the cushions in place and sat down. We pulled the cushions out and pulled the seat board out until it was five inches farther out than originally designed and put the cushions back in.

The front edge of the seat cushions were out farther than I liked but we both agreed the sofa was now comfortable to sit on. The distance from the bottom front edge of the back cushions to the front edge of the seat cushions was originally only 16 inches and that turned out to just be too short. With the seat board moved out it will now be 21 inches.

In order for the sofa to work correctly, both as a sofa and as a bed, we will need a cushion that is 5″ wide by 6″ high, by ~76″ long to fill in the space behind the seat cushions and below the back cushions. The height and foam makeup will be such that it is level with the tops of the seat cushions and have the same firmness and feel. Would that I had designed the sofa for this depth to begin with and had the seat cushions made accordingly, but we were trying to open up the living room by not having the sofa protrude into the aisle any more than absolutely necessary.

Next up was reinstalling the wood trim in hallway. We have an interesting plan for the lower half of the hallway but in case we do not get it finished before we leave for the winter we wanted the trim off the bed and back on the wall.

The lower outside hallway wall. There were originally three framed panels of vertical strip mirrors here. We will replace them with wood panels, probably in a lighter color to contrast with the walnut trim.

This trim originally framed three panels of vertical strip mirrors. We were able to remove the mirrors as they were glued to wallpaper. In the process we discovered that the left and right panels were the same width but the center panel was wider. The trim consisted of six pieces of wood; a long upper and lower horizontal piece and four vertical pieces. The six pieces were screwed to the lower half of the outer wall but not attached to each other. The left and right vertical pieces were tight to adjacent woodwork, but the two intermediate pieces were free to be repositioned.

We reattached the upper horizontal piece first making sure the mounting screws went back in the same holes. Next we pushed the lower horizontal piece into place but did not screw it to the wall. We then attached the left and right verticals. The horizontal distance between the inside edges of the left and right verticals was 75 inches. The two intermediate verticals were each 4-1/2″ wide so the distance between verticals needed to be 22″ (75 minus 9 = 66 divided by 3 = 22). We carefully positioned and secured the two intermediate verticals to achieve this spacing.

The trim boards all have rabbited edges on the back side. I need to measure them carefully, but they are ~3/16″ deep by 3/8″ wide. Our current plan is to use 3/16″ underlayment or other 3/16″ high quality plywood to make three panels that will fit within these rabbits with a little room to spare. The panels will either have a hardwood face or we will cover them with a hardwood veneer of a wood that contrasts with the walnut trim. We can get the veneer from Rockler once we decide what we want.

Linda spread out several towels on the new desktop and we moved tools and supplies from the A-V cabinet, behind the driver’s seat, to the new desk. I then removed the Corian top of the A-V cabinet and put in on the bed. We still have a small amount of wallpaper to install in the front of the living room and into the cockpit on the driver side, but it will not be easy to do.

These areas, such as the one behind the A-V cabinet, are small with limited access so most of my sanders cannot be used. The only one that might work is the Porter-Cable oscillating tool but I did not get it out today. I got some sanding sponges instead and tried those on the wall under the passenger side window trim next to the co-pilot seat. When I sanded a dark area about 6″ long by 3″ wide the wood in the center crumbled and I ended up with a hole 3″ long by an inch and a half wide. I could see one of the stainless steel structural members through the hole. Given what was obviously water damage I was glad we bought a bus with welded stainless steel as the main structural material.

Based on what I could see, the walls in the bus appear to be 1/2″ plywood although I did not measure the thickness. This area had obviously gotten very wet over a long period of time and some of the wood has rotted. It is the only spot we have discovered that is this damaged and we immediately realized that we will not be able to wallpaper this area. We will probably panel over it, similar to what we plan to do with the veneered panels in the hallway, but today was not the day to figure that out.

It was going on 5 PM and we decided we were done for the day. I turned off all of the electric heaters, turned on the Aqua-Hot, turned on all three thermostats, and set the temperature to 20 degrees C. The refrigerator was also indicating much colder freezer temperatures than it had been before I moved/isolated the remote sensors so I reset the freezer and fresh food controls to their “normal” center positions. Tomorrow we will replace the alkaline batteries with the Lithium batteries we bought specifically for the TempMinder thermometer system, reset the min/max data, and monitor it for a few days.

I walked down to see what Phil was doing. He was making good progress with the French drain but did not have enough of the plastic drain tile to finish it today. He plans to work tomorrow and will have the additional tile he needs to finish the drain. I left him to his work and took photos of the fall colors in our yard as I worked my way back to the house.

I spent an hour at my computer dealing with e-mail and transferring photos from the Sony a100 to my laptop. Linda called me to dinner at 7 PM. It was a simple meal of vegan Coney dogs with mustard, onion, and beans served open-faced on a whole wheat hotdog bun. As a side dish Linda steamed Opo squash. It was the first time either of us had this particular squash. It was very mild with a hint of cucumber. It is available all over the world and widely consumed as it is relatively inexpensive. It was OK, but I thought it might work better as an ingredient rather than a stand-alone side dish.

I exchanged a couple of text messages with Chuck and confirmed that we would be at his shop tomorrow after breakfast to retrieve our two bus windshields. The rest of the evening was spent in the living room by the fireplace reading and writing on our iPads before turning in and watching episodes of Rick Steeves’ Europe and Joseph Rezendo’s Travelscope on Detroit PBS (WTVS).

2015/10/03 (S) Wallpaper Stumps

Leave a reply

Last night we discussed not going to breakfast this morning and that was sufficient to give us permission to sleep in. We got up at 7:30 AM, too late to make it to South Lyon by 8, so I made coffee while Linda cooked oatmeal with nuts and dried fruits.

There was a hawk on the ground just behind our house. It took flight but stayed in the area dancing with a crow. In spite of seeing it repeatedly–on the ground, perched in a tree, and in flight–we could not identify it other than to be fairly certain it was not a red-tailed hawk. Red-tailed hawks are the most commonly seen raptor around here but they are very distinctive due to their red tails.

I checked the bus and the temperature was 54 degrees F, too cool for wallpapering. I had left two electric heaters on last night but obviously did not set the thermostats high enough. The refrigerator freezer compartment was 24 degrees, which is way too high, and has me concerned that something has broken, perhaps as a result of driving on our very bad roads. I settled in to enjoy my coffee (as best I could) and await the arrival of Philip Jarrell from Precision Grading.

Phil showed up at 8:35 AM. The fact that he was probably starting work on our French drain and driveway extension project this morning was the main reason we decided not to go to our weekly ham radio club breakfast. I left Phil alone long enough to get his equipment unloaded and then went out to chat with him briefly. He had already communicated with me by phone during the week about what he wanted to accomplish today, and where he needed to start the work, but I always like to be on site when a contractor arrives and double check these things. That is especially true when they have big equipment that can move a lot of earth in a short time.

Phil was using his smaller backhoe to dig up tree stumps and pull debris out of the woods along the area where the pull-through driveway extension will run. He also pulled out concrete blocks, pipes, and other building debris that has been thrown there over many years. I did not, however, have him pull out the two piles of bricks as I presume they are the same as the ones on the house and we might want to keep them for future repairs.

I needed to get the air-ride seat base back to Chuck this morning so I put it in the car and drove to his shop in Novi. He was just pulling his stacker trailer out of the shop with his forklift when I arrived. After he finished getting it out and positioning it I gave him the air-ride base and he put it in the trailer through the side door. We chatted briefly about moving the two remaining windshields, during which time Barbara showed up, so I left them to their chores and headed home.

Back at the house we decided not to try hanging wallpaper today. The temperature was in the low 50’s and it was drizzling lightly and intermittently. Not wanting to waste the day we decided to straighten up the temporary workshop we have set up in the garage. We had just started that when we got a call from our son and he put his daughter on the phone. Madeline wanted to come visit her grandparents which we were all too happy to oblige. A return call pinned down the day/time as tomorrow morning. I helped Linda load the recyclables into her car and she took them to Recycle Livingston. She stopped at the Meijer’s in Howell on the way home to pick up ingredients for a fruit salad for tomorrow’s visit.

Part of the reason for cleaning up the garage/shop was that when I went to pull out the tub with all of our wallpapering tools I could not find it even though we both remembered recently seeing the tools somewhere. The more we looked the more it seemed that “recently” was either a long time ago or a product of our collective imaginations. We still have a lot of stuff in boxes from our move 2-1/2 years ago and we have boxes stored behind boxes in the garage making it difficult to get to many of them.

We worked steadily except for a lunch break and a couple of quick chats with Phil. Lunch was a half sandwich of hummus and onions on rye with leftover potato salad and collard greens Cole slaw.

Phil was working by the culvert that goes under the road and had dug away the earth in front of it. I got down and looked in; it was completely clogged. Phil said he knew a company in Walled Lake that could open it and clean it out using a hydro-jet system and agreed to give them a call on Monday. He was setting up his laser level to shoot the grade and mark the route for the French drain when I went back inside.We did not get the garage completely cleaned and organized but by mid-afternoon it was a lot better than when we started. I eventually spotted the dark gray tray that we have used in the distant past for wetting pre-pasted wallpaper. It was on top of some upper cabinets, not down on a shelf where we had been looking. Inside were all of our wallpapering tools except for a long edge that we used for guiding the razor knife when trimming corners. The smoothing tool was falling apart and completely useless so we threw it away. We will need to pick up a few new tools when we buy the wallpaper paste.

Linda made some hot tea and settled in to work on her counted cross-stitch project while I worked on my iPad. I eventually went back to the garage to see if I could find my small gasoline powered chain saw. Fortunately, it was where I remembered last seeing it. We have a dead tree that needs to be cut down before it also falls across the road and several trees that are already down and need to be cut into small enough pieces so that Phil can use his front loader to move them to his dump truck.

As long as Phil is hauling wood debris off of the site we might as well take advantage of his willingness to take whatever will fit in his truck. The alternative is for us to haul it to the fire pit with our (currently non-functioning) lawn tractor and burn it. Unfortunately I could not find the small red plastic gasoline container that I use for gasoline mixed 40:1 with 2-cycle oil for use in small, air-cooled 2-stroke engines such as the chain saw. I also could not find our Ryobi multipurpose trimmer/saw and figured I had lent all of this to one of our children, probably our son.

Our 13″ McCullough chain saw has not seen regular use over the years but has always been willing to run when needed and proven to be very handy. It’s a nice size for cutting down small trees and de-limbing larger ones. In order to use it I needed a small gasoline container. I would normally go to Lowe’s in Howell but much of the drive is on dirt roads. It had been drizzling all day and the dirt roads were sloppy so I went to The Home Depot in Brighton. The entire route is paved except the first/last mile from/to our house.

THD had quarts of pre-mixed gasoline and oil in 40:1 and 50:1 ratios. Although expensive compared to the cost of gasoline at a filling station, I did not have to buy a new container, a bottle of oil, stop at the filling station on the way home, deal with mixing everything in the correct ratio, add Stabil fuel stabilizer to the container, and then remember what was in the container or label it. Sometimes the price of convenience is a price worth paying.

When I got home I added the fuel to the tank of the chain saw and set all of the controls according to the starting directions. I figured it would take a few pulls of the handle, perhaps quite a few, to get it to start but I did not expect the engine to be locked up. On a couple of tries I got the crank to turn slightly but mostly it would not budge. I have no idea what is wrong with it but I suspect that something is rusted or bent. Whatever the case I have no intention of taking the time to try to disassemble it to find out.

Dinner was salad and leftover pizza with a small glass of wine. I went to Lowe’s after dinner and bought a new chain saw. Lowe’s sells at least five different brands of chain saws but they feature Husqvarna. I bought a Poulan Pro 18″ model figuring the longer chain bar would be useful for cutting down and/or cutting up slightly larger trees. I got it for 1/2 to 2/3 of the comparable Husqvarna models.

Poulan is Husqvarna’s less expensive product line and it seemed good enough for the occasional use it will get. We have too many trees on our property to be without a functioning chain saw, however, and Phil will be done cleaning and hauling timber at the end of his next day here. I will probably take the little McCullough somewhere to see if it can be repaired but that may not be until next spring. Even if I took it someplace on Monday I would not have it back in time, assuming it can even be repaired.

Back home I turned on the natural gas fireplace and we relaxed in the living room reading, writing, and playing games on our iPads. With the new iOS 9 Apple changed the Game Center so the login screen pops up every time you open any game. It is REALLY annoying and apparently we are not alone in that view. Linda was checking online to see if there was a way to disable it and saw a lot of chatter on the subject, none of it positive (but no way to disable the “feature”). She did find something that said it should stop popping up for any game where you have clicked “Cancel” three times in a row but she has canceled the login more times than that yet is still getting the screen. Interestingly, the login screen has stopped popping up on my iPad. The only difference between them is that I used mine the other day while waiting at Discount Tire without any connection to the Internet. Maybe that confused it.

We turned in just before 10 PM hoping to watch a little television but did not find much on that interested us even on PBS. We searched through the channels and happened on a program titled “If You Build It” (on one of the three PBS affiliates we can pick up) about project-based learning. It was interesting.

2015/10/01 (R) New Month, Same Project

Leave a reply

For various reasons we have not worked on the bus the last two days. For one, Linda is still recovering from a cold and/or seasonal allergies that may have been triggered by some weeding she did over the weekend. August and September are the time of year for ragweed in Michigan. For another, I was tied up most of Tuesday with the bus windshield replacement and yesterday we both had our annual physical exams, mine in the morning and Linda’s in the afternoon. Throw in an unexpected problem with the driver door lock on my car and a lawn tractor that wouldn’t start and that took care of most of the day. Since I wasn’t working on the bus I used some of my time to edit drafts of blog posts and started selecting and processing a few photos to go with them.

I got a call from Philip Jarrell around 8 PM last night letting me know that a last minute project came up that required his attention today. If all goes well he plans to start on our French drain and driveway extension project tomorrow. Our project is a relatively small job for Phil and I accept that he has to fit it in around larger projects for long-term customers who give him a lot of repeat business. Still, I think he likes working with us and does his best to fit us in.

I had hoped to get back to work on the bus today, specifically working on priming the walls and hanging the new wallpaper, but Linda had another annual medical appointment this afternoon. Neither of us likes to get into our work clothes and get involved in physical tasks for just a small portion of the day so after breakfast, and a leisurely morning in the living room enjoying coffee to the glow and warmth of our fireplace, she settled in to work at her desk for a while before going on a walk.

Our whole house generator threw a code 34 on Tuesday afternoon indicating that it required maintenance but would still operate if needed. I called Bratcher Electric to see what was needed and spoke with Karen. I think she and Mike own the business, but it’s possible she is Mike’s daughter. Whichever, I’m certain that she is family. Our generator was last serviced one year ago on the same date (29th) and the 34 was the total number of hours it has run since being installed in May 2013. I set up the service appointment for Friday October 9th.

While I had Karen on the phone I asked about the project Mike had come out to look at a year ago. I need his electricians to run a 4-wire, 100 Amp service entrance cable (SEC) from the transfer switch in the southwest corner of the garage, through the garage attic, and into the secondary distribution panel in the HVAC closet in the northeast corner of the garage, making it a main panel instead of subpanel. Karen said she would leave a note for Mike to follow up with me.

It was going on noon when I finally got back to work on the bus. It is a gorgeous fall day, chilly and breezy but with abundant sunshine, and I just could not let it slip away without getting something done on our interior remodeling project. I was at least 60% done with rebuilding the landing where the stepwell slide cover used to be and that seemed like the logical thing to get finished. It was 52 degrees F in the bus so I turned on the front electric toe-kick heater and set up the small Broan portable electric heater in the kitchen blowing forward towards the cockpit. I also noticed that the refrigerator thermometer indicated 43.5 degrees F. We do not have any food in the fridge but we do have freezer packs and containers of water for mass. 43.5 is warmer than I want so I checked the freezer reading and it was 28 degrees F. Yikes! That was way too warm.

Frame and center support for the new landing platform. Air lines crimped and secured.

The 31″ X 27.5″ piece of 3/4″ thick plywood for the landing platform flexed slightly when I stepped in the middle. I’m not sure anyone would notice it when stepping on it but we do not want the tile that will be on there to crack from the deflection. My solution was to cut an appropriate length of the 2.5″ wide 3/4″ thick poplar and install it on edge running long ways to support the middle of the plywood. I had to use an angle bracket at the back edge (by the driver’s seat) and place shins under it at several places to get it to fit just right.

About this time Linda came out to let me know lunch was ready. We each had a half sandwich of hummus and raw onion on rye bread and some black grapes. She left for her doctor’s appointment and I made a big cup of Constant Comment decaffeinated tea. I called Chuck to see if he knew where his powered metal shears (nibbler) were and if I could borrow it. The answers were ‘yes’ and ‘yes.’ I decided to take his suggestion of cutting two new access openings in the passenger side HVAC duct to allow the two existing heater hoses to come out and go directly to the fan-coil heat exchangers with minimal bending. It will simplify the installation, eliminate soldered copper parts and connections that would restrict flow and be a potential leakage point. Since my car is in the shop for the next several days I will have meet up with him when Linda’s car is available.

Back in the bus I checked the refrigerator and the fresh food compartment was at 39 degrees F and the freezer was At 6 degrees F. Those are the sort of temperatures I expect to see. I had the freezer set to cycle between about 0 and 10 but occasionally saw it go as high as 17. I figured it had something to do with an automatic defrost cycle, but anything over 20 is troubling. Linda had suggested earlier that perhaps we need to replace the batteries in the remote sensors and the base unit. She may well be right and it won’t hurt to do that anyway.

When I got back to work on the landing I folded over the ends of the two air lines and put cable ties on them to close them off. The air supply for the solenoid valve that controls these two lines has a shut off valve which I intend to keep closed, but if it gets opened accidentally it could drain the auxiliary air tank through one or the other line if they were not crimped closed. I may eventually disconnect the supply line at the valve and cap it, but for now this will at least prevent an open line leak.

New landing platform structure with sound/thermal insulation.

After screwing down and cutting off the shims I plugged the hole where the air lines come through the floor with steel wool and secured the lines to the floor with cable clamps. I then cut fiberglass insulation to fit the two spaces in the floor. I used the same John’s Manville Sound & Thermal insulation that we used in my office and ham shack as I had some left. I put the plywood floor piece in place, evened it up along the front edge, and screwed it down but ran out of screws before I had it completely secured. Projects are like that.

I was walking towards the garage when I saw a car coming very slowly from west of our house headed east. The drive pulled past our third drive and stopped but I could not see what the driver was doing. The car eventually continued on, followed closely by a second vehicle and I thought the flashed me a somewhat dirty look, but they did not stop and were too far away to be sue. Still, I thought that was odd. I did not give any further thought to it until I went out to get the mail and noticed a lot of debris in the road and a large, dead tree in the ditch. It had been windy all morning and at one point I thought I heard the crack of a falling tree but it sounded farther away than where this one lay. The driver had obviously stopped to move it and was probably a little bit annoyed that they had to do that because I had not taken care of it. Hey, I didn’t know!

I moved it a little more and then got a metal toothed rake and pulled all of the small debris out of the road. There were limbs on the other side of the road that were 1″ to 2″ in diameter so the tree had obviously fallen all the way across the road. The property on the other side of the road is part of our yard but I would have cleaned up the branches regardless since the tree clearly fell from our yard.

Linda stopped for groceries on the way back from her doctor appointment and did not get home until almost 4 PM. We got a pruning saw and cutter and she helped me cut up some of the upper part of the tree and get the pieces farther from the road. We noticed another dead tree in the same area that looked like it would eventually fall over across the road. I can cut it down safely but will need the chain saw to do so. I was not in the humor to get it out and try to get it started at that exact moment but noted to myself that I needed to do this sooner rather than later.

We were not going to start any messy bus work at that hour so I changed into nicer clothes to go out to dinner. Before we left I texted Josh at Coach Supply Direct to clarify an earlier e-mail and let him know that two of the MCD shades were not staying attached to one of their clips. We left at 5 PM for the La Marsa in Brighton and stopped at the bank on the way. For dinner we split an order of Moussaka and got two salads as our sides along with the warm pocket bread and garlic spread. The food was good and we had a tasty, filling meal for under $14 plus tip. It is our best/favorite restaurant option within reasonable driving distance of our house.

After dinner we stopped at The Home Depot in Brighton but they did not have the screws I wanted. When we came back out I noticed that the tires on Linda’s car were under-inflated and on closer inspection that the side walls were badly checked. We drove to Discount Tire in Howell but they were closed. We stopped at Lowe’s and bought the screws I needed, some furnace filter material, and Lithium batteries (AA and AAA) for our TempMinder base/remote thermometers as we keep the two remotes in the bus freezer and fresh food compartment and the base station on the bus kitchen counter.

Back at the house I worked in my office for a while selecting/processing photos to go with blog posts but I did not feel like putting in a long, sustained effort on the task. I got a call from Phil at Precision Grading. His other job did not get finished today and he will have to return to that job site tomorrow. He hopes to start our French drain and driveway work on Monday but that may not happen. I am anxious for him to get started but I have no control over that. I appreciate, however, that he keeps me informed as it allows me to plan my own time.

We watched The Woodwright’s Shop, Rick Steves’ Europe, and Travel in the Americas on DPTV (WTVS) and then went to sleep.

2015/09/23 (W) Autumnal Equinox

Leave a reply

We were up at 8 AM, had granola for breakfast, and enjoyed our coffee in the living room by the fireplace. I like cool mornings.

I spent some time yesterday morning, and again this morning, considering my full-frame DSLR options. The only 50 MP “35mm” DSLR camera body on the market at this time is the Canon 5Ds/R and there is no indication that Sony plans to introduce a successor to the A99 anytime soon. The A99 is still available, as is the vertical battery pack/grip and I am at the point where I will probably order one. It has a 24 MP full-frame CMOS sensor, which is double the resolution of my alpha 100. More importantly, it will accept all of my old 35mm Minolta A-mount lenses and they will work as designed.

Linda left at 9:40 AM to meet Diane at Kensington Metropark. I gathered up the laundry, sorted it, and started the first load. I then settled in at my desk for a while.

I e-mailed Mike (W8XH) to see if he could assist me on Saturday and/or Monday with climbing the tower to do some more antenna work. I then e-mailed Bill Gerrie to see if he and Karen were in Michigan yet. I pulled up the initial mockup of the October 2015 issue of Bus Conversion Magazine and proofread my article on replacing the speedometer. Jorge had done a good job of laying it out. I e-mailed back four minor corrections, one slightly larger one, and a general comment about the lack of space following periods. I had an e-mail from Steve Smith (N8AR) with contact information for Yaesu Fusion technical support.

The washing machine beeped so I transferred that load to the dryer and started another one. I noticed that it was after 11:30 AM so I cleaned the cats’ litter tray, grabbed the garbage from under the kitchen island sink, put it in the trash can, and got it to the street. Alchin’s normally comes “around noon” but I had a feeling they had already driven by. They were still in our subdivision, however, and stopped on the way out to empty our can.

I had another cup of coffee and updated this post. By noon Linda had not called yet let me know she was on her way home so I headed to Lowe’s for a roll of plumber’s sandpaper. I also picked up the paste we need to hang the new wallpaper. On the way back to the house I stopped at Teeko’s Coffee and Tea to order some Cafe Europe half-caff blend. Linda was home when I got back and we had a light lunch. We have both finally taken off some of the weight we put on this past winter. Long, hard work days with little or no lunch seem to help.

By the time we got back to work on the bus projects it was 3 PM. It’s hard to make progress when the workday starts in the afternoon. Today is the autumnal equinox, so it gets dark much earlier in the evening than it did in late May, June, July and even most of August. Still, as anxious as I am to get the heat exchangers re-installed we have to deal with the wallpaper in that part of the bus first. Linda helped me assemble the right desk base, repeating what we did yesterday with the left base.

The left pedestal base with the Aqua-Hot fan-coil heat exchanger mounted inside.

We installed the metal grates on the air openings (from the inside) and then used doubled-sided tape to affix the plastic mesh to the metal grate. We put a 1/2″ plywood spacer in the bottom and marked the locations of the mounting bracket holes and the heat exchanger. We took the exchanger and spacer out, punched the starter holes, and drilled. Linda cleaned the heat exchanger and used a pair of tweezers to straighten the bent radiator fins, of which there were quite a few. We cleaned off the two copper pipe stubs that provide the inlet and outlet for the antifreeze and then attached the self-stick 3/8″ X 1/4″ dense foam weather-stripping around the front of the housing. We mounted the exchanger to the spacer with approximately 1/8″ of the foam weather-stripping beyond the front edge of the spacer. We put the spacer/exchanger assembly back in the base and I secured it with screws while Linda pulled it into position, compressing the weather-stripping.

Linda cleans and straightens the fins on one of the fan-coil heat exchangers.

I took a few photographs as we worked and took some more of the finished assemblies. While we were working we got a call from Philip Jarrell of Precision Paving. Phil was calling to see if we still wanted the French Drain and driveway work done. He has been busy all summer and even more so coming into fall when folks decide they need stuff done before winter. He had given us a quote (estimate) back in the spring but could not do the work then because the soil was way too moist. The property has dried out nicely over the last seven weeks and he wanted to make sure he did the work yet this year if we were still interested. I told him “yes” and he said he would call “Miss Dig” right away to get the utilities marked and then get started.

The two desk bases with the fan-coil heat exchangers installed view from above and behind.

I think this annoyed Linda as it will be another significant expenditure, but it’s something I think needs to be done and it is not easy to get a slice of Phil’s time. (Actually, we have done a lot of difficult work together on the bus this summer and I think she was already annoyed from working with me on the right base.) Not taking advantage of Phil’s availability would likely mean a two-year delay in getting this work done.

This project is actually a combination of two different projects that happened to make more sense to do at the same than at separate times. The French drain is intended to dry out the far west end of our property which has standing water in the spring and after heavy rains, and stays moist/soft for the first half of the summer. There are a lot of trees in that area and we have lost some and are losing others. The driveway work will give us additional parking for people visiting in their RVs and create the main approach to the location for the bus barn that I hope to eventually build. The topsoil that Phil pulls out from the driveway will be used to fill in low spots on the west end of the property, further improving the drainage in that area.

The right desk base viewed from above/behind showing the fans mounted on the back side of the heat-exchanger.

Linda returned to stripping wallpaper in the bus while I folded the laundry and put it away. For dinner we had a salad and more of the soup that Linda made yesterday. After dinner Linda researched wallpaper installation while I worked at my computer and uploaded eight blog posts from the third week of July. About the time I finished the last one Brendan called so I went upstairs and Linda put the call on speaker. He is a couple of weeks into his position at Eastern Michigan University teaching Art History and gave us a status report on how it is going, along with news of how Madeline is doing in her new daycare program University of Michigan.

We watched Dr. Michael Greger’s 2015 nutrition research summary on Linda’s iPad. This is an annual presentation that he does at the vegan Summerfest in Pennsylvania. His theme this year was the top health concerns of Americans, based on a major survey that was done by one of the national survey organizations, and what nutrition research has to offer with respect to these. As we already know, many different diseases, one common answer; whole-food, plant-based, nutrition with no animal products. We really are what we eat, and Americans are now some of the least healthy people on the planet. We went to sleep reaffirmed in our dietary choices.

The Phase Place

Welcome to the next phase (hosted by QTH.com)

Tag Archives: driveway extension (Phil Jarrell)

2015/11/16 (M) Tiling the Cockpit, #3

2015/11/13 (F) Road Trip

2015/11/11 (W) Two for One

2015/11/10 (T) A Rainy Day

2015/11/09 (M) Clever Mouse

2015/11/05 (R) POR-15

2015/11/03 (T) The Penultimate Cut

2015/10/23 (F) Fetching Antique

2015/10/21 (W) Electrifying

2015/10/20 (T) Pop-X Pickle

2015/10/19 (M) Flashless

2015-10-18 (N) Homage to FLLW

2015/10/16 (F) Desk Installation

2015/10/03 (S) Wallpaper Stumps

2015/10/01 (R) New Month, Same Project

2015/09/23 (W) Autumnal Equinox