Tag Archives: interior remodel (H3-40)

2015/12/21 (M) John and Marian

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Linda was up at 7 AM this morning and I got up at 7:30.  It was 66 degrees F in the coach so I turned on the Aqua-Hot diesel burner and turned up the thermostats.  I made our morning coffee and got to work finishing yesterday’s blog post.

John and Marian Hagan would be visiting this afternoon and staying for dinner.  Given the large meal we had for dinner last night we wanted to take it easy today so a little after 9 AM we had a light breakfast of grapefruit and English muffin with apricot preserves.  So good.

After breakfast Linda did some light cleaning.  I was going to do a load of laundry and recharge the water softener but Linda reminded me that I had decided to do all of those chores tomorrow.  Deal.  I started working on this post but eventually got dressed and settled in at my computer.  I spent the rest of the morning updating my BCM article status tracking Excel spreadsheet and uploaded it to our Dropbox.  I also cleaned up the organization of the files to match the status sheet and backed them up to the NAS.

As planned, we skipped lunch.  John had indicated they would arrive around 2 PM.  I asked him to call when they got to the office and he did.  I was going to drive up and escort him in but getting to our site is very straight forward so I just gave him the directions.  A few minutes later they pulled up and I got them parked next to our car, which Linda moved to one edge of the pad when she returned from Winn-Dixie this morning.

After giving John and Marian and tour of the interior remodeling project we spent most of the afternoon sitting outside.  Linda thought about using the induction cooker to make dinner outside and remain in the conversation but realized she needed two burners.  When it was time to prepare dinner Linda went inside and Marian went with her to help.

For dinner Linda made a salad and risotto with olive oil, garlic, mushrooms, and dark greens.  She bought a frozen vegan cheesecake at Earth Origins the other day and served that for dessert.  John and Marian brought a bottle of Barefoot Riesling wine and between Marian, Linda, and me we finished it.  That’s only 250 mL per person, so not really that much.

We eventually moved inside and continued our conversation over coffee.  John and Marian were members of our FMCA Freethinkers associate chapter until they bought a house in Dunnellon and sold their motorhome.  Since we saw them two years ago they have gotten more involved in the humanist group that meets at The Top of the World (an adult planned community) and joined the Unitarian Universalist church just south of Dunnellon, both of which have given them the opportunity to make new friends in the area.  They had a half hour drive to get home and left at 6:30 PM.

After cleaning up the dishes we watched TV and doodled on our iPads.  I probably should have worked at my computer but did not feel like it.  I did check my e-mail and had a reply from Butch with his edits for the BCM article on the ITR Oasis Combi Installation he did last fall (2014) in their MCI MC-9 NJT motorcoach.  I also looked at, and commented on, several posts/comments on RVillage.  Linda was off to bed at 11 PM and I was tucked in with the lights off by 11:30.

 

2015/11/20 (F) The End of Projects (for now)

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Linda was up at 5:45 AM again and off to the bakery at 6:15 but this was the last time until spring 2016.  There is still more to do on both the software project and year-end accounting but she will do it remotely.  We need the weekend and the first three days of next week to get the motorcoach, the house, and us ready to travel and prepare for our Thanksgiving Day family gathering.  Also, unlike the last two winters, Linda does not plan to fly home in late February to take care of year-end accounting and tax work.  She will handle all of that from Florida instead, so she has to make sure she has everything she needs with her in the bus when we leave.

This was likewise the last day for me to work on bus projects.  The things I needed to do in the bus included:

  • Install metal edging to protect exposed tile edges.
  • Grease the steering column.
  • Install filter material over the HVAC holes under the bed.
  • Mount the West Mountain Radio RigRunner on the dashboard.
  • Pull the chassis battery tray out and check/clean/tighten the connections.

But I had a few other things to attend to first.

I was up and dressed at 7:45 and had an alarm set on my iPad for 8 AM to remind me to pick up our coffee bean order from Teeko’s.  I had a bowl of granola for breakfast and then called Brighton Honda.  My last oil change was at 99,280 miles and I now have over 105,000 on the odometer so I made an appointment for Monday afternoon to have the oil changed.  I had a cup of tea in the living room where I spent some time with our cats.  I then went to my office and replied to an e-mail from Gary at BCM.  I called Teeko’s to make sure our coffee was ready to pick up.  Mary did not have it packaged yet but said she would have it ready in an hour.  I indicated that it would be longer than that before I got there.  I called Discount Tire in Howell to see about having the tires on the Element rotated.  They were running 2 – 3 hours so I made an appointment for Monday morning.  I called Brighton Ford/NAPA to order an air filter for the bus.

I moved the brass colored stair edging into the bus and checked the temperature.  It was 64 degrees F so I bumped the thermostats up just a bit.  I also switched the remote temperature sensors so that #1 was in the freezer (top) and #2 was in the fresh food compartment (bottom).  I removed the ham radio antenna from its magnetic mount and put it in the car.  I finally left at 11:45 AM on my errand run.

My first stop was Wendy’s where I had an order of French fries for lunch.  I then went to Lowe’s, which was just across the street, for carpet stain remover and looked at tarps while I was there but did not buy one.  I don’t think we will be able to create enough space in the garage for the lawn tractor so I want to cover it for the winter.  From there it was less than a mile east on Grand River Avenue to the car wash.  I had taken the ham radio antenna off before I left the house but the car wash knocked the magnetic mount cellular booster antenna loose.  I pulled into a parking spot, put the cellular antenna back in position, and reattached the ham radio antenna.

I backtracked that same mile and stopped at Teeko’s to pick up our coffee order.  It seemed light but Mary already had it bagged and I was anxious to move along so I did not check it.  I continued west on GRA to the Bank of America branch near The Home Depot (which I should have done after stopping at Wendy’s).  With colder temperatures coming the next few days I decided to drive to the Shell station in Brighton and top off the tank.  The sign said regular was $2.059/gallon but the pump I used was set to $1.959.  Deal.

When I got home I checked the coffee order and realized something was not right.  There were supposed to be 16 vacuum sealed 1/2 lb. bags, four each for four different coffees, for a total of eight pounds of beans, but there were only 10 bags.  Some of them were definitely much less than a half pound but I did not have a scale and so I had no way to know for sure what the total weight was.  Three bags were also unsealed and some of the beans had spilled into the larger bag.  Two of those bags were the same bean but unfortunately the third one was different so I had no way of knowing which bag, or bags, the loose beans came out of.  I dumped the loose beans into the bag that was the most open as that was the easiest one to get them in.  I closed the three unsealed bags with spring clips, put everything back in the carry bag, and drove back to the coffee shop.

I was not pleased with the situation, especially the fact that I had to make this extra trip, but I worked through my frustration while driving and was friendly and courteous while I was there.  Being upset and nasty to people never accomplishes anything good.  Roger was there in addition to Mary and once I explained what we had ordered on Monday evening from Jeff it was obvious that something got lost in translation.  They will make it right and we will pick it up late in the afternoon on Monday.

For some time now we have felt that we do not always have Jeff’s full attention when he is waiting on us.  Teeko’s has had its challenges over the last couple of years, first with road construction making access to the strip mall more difficult, and now with the opening of a Panera on the opposite corner of the intersection.  My sense is that they have struggled financially as evidenced by the fact that they never spent the money for a proper neon sign.  As a result the shop is not as visible as it should be even though it is located at a major intersection.  Jeff got married last year and they just had their first child in September.  With those added responsibilities he went back to work driving a delivery truck for PepsiCo, which has a major plant on the south central side of Howell.  His parents, Roger and Mary, have been left to run the coffee shop during the day, which I suspect is not what they intended to be doing in their retirement.  Still, they are always very pleasant to deal with and I feel for their situation.

As much as we like Panera, when we still lived in Farmington Hills we tried to patronize a series of small, independent coffee shops but they all failed in the end.  Some failed because of mis-management, but ultimately they could not compete with the Starbucks, Panera, and Einstein Brothers stores in the area.  Sadly, I suspect this will also be the fate of Teeko’s even though it is a nicer coffee shop than the Biggby’s just down the street.  And it’s too bad (for us at least) as we really enjoy being able to purchase a variety of green beans and have them roasted to order.

Back home I finally got to work on the bus around 3 PM.  I got all of the old silver colored metal stair edging from the garage and determined where each piece had been installed.  I realized that I did not have a good way to cut the new edging nor did I have the time to measure, cut, and install it before it got dark.  I really wanted/needed the exposed edges of the tile protected so I decided to reinstall the old edging.  Although it had obviously seen heavy use over the years it was still serviceable.  Of equal importance was that it was already cut to approximately the correct length and angles.  I checked that the holes on the new edging would fall in different places than holes in the old edging.  That was the case, so I held each piece in place and drilled a small pilot hole at every third hole.  I changed to a different bit to drill through the metal that secures the edge of the plywood bus floor and then screwed each strip of metal edging in place.  The new edging will cover the holes from mounting the old edging.

This was the only work I was going to get done on/in/around the coach today.  Linda had called by this point to let me know she was heading home and was going to stop at Meijer’s along the way.  As soon as she got home she started making three batches of granola.  She is going to make and freeze as many batches as she can fit in the freezer so we can enjoy this fabulous granola well into winter.

While Linda made granola I worked at my computer cleaning up old e-mail.  Dinner was vegan Pad Thai; not like the real thing, of course, but it was easy, hot, and tasty enough.  We had some small oranges for dessert.  I worked at my desk for a while after dinner deleting old e-mails.  I quit at 8 PM to watch a few TV shows and work on this post.

 

2015/11/18 (W) Fuel Run

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The new floor in the cockpit of the bus.

The new floor in the cockpit of the bus.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

2015/11/12 (R) Unforced Solutions

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When I got up at 7 AM Linda had already left for the bakery.  I had granola for breakfast and made a cup of Stash China Black hot tea.  I went to my office and processed the photo that Byron sent me of him and Betty and e-mailed it to Gary and Jorge at Bus Conversion Magazine.  I then replied to an e-mail from Nancy (& Big Bill).  We met them at Suncoast Designers in Hudson, Florida in April 2014.  They are from Ontario but have a place near Ocala, Florida where they spend at least part of the winter.  I also replied to an e-mail from the Mitch in Florida regarding good places for bus service and forwarded my reply to Chuck.  I cleaned the kitty litter tray and finally got to work on the bus.

A piece of scrap SurePly underlayment used as a spacer/guide for the Porter-Cable oscillating saw to undercut he bottom edge of the side wall panel so it can be removed above the floor tile.

A piece of scrap SurePly underlayment used as a spacer/guide for the Porter-Cable oscillating saw to undercut he bottom edge of the side wall panel so it can be removed above the floor tile.

First up was to finish screwing the down the SurePly underlayment on the floor of the passenger seat platform.  With that done I turned my attention to trimming the switch panel next to the passenger seat.  This panel is just 1/4″ walnut veneered plywood but has both AC and DC switches mounted in a row across the entire top portion.  The added thickness of the underlayment and tile on the floor and back wall of the platform required the bottom and back edges of the panel to be trimmed so it could be installed and removed in case I need to get to the wiring behind it.  I used pieces of underlayment as spacers/guides and trimmed off the edges using the Porter-Cable oscillating saw.  This was the perfect tool for this situation where I could not remove the panel and take it to the shop.

With the panel trimmed and the sawdust vacuumed up I turned my attention to the tile.  After test fitting some pieces to see where the edges would land I decided to tidy up the front of the bus so it would be easier to work.  While that was certainly true it was also a tactic of stepping away from the work and letting solutions float into consciousness rather than trying to force them out.  After several trips to bring things inside the house and garage it was noon and time for lunch, which meant more time to relax and let my subconscious work on the tile layout.  Hummus and sourdough pretzel nibblers made a quick, easy, tasty meal and a cup of Constant Comment decaffeinated tea helped wash it down and warm me up while I worked on this post.

Two scrap pieces of the Armstrong Alterna Luxury Vinyl tile used as feeler gauges to make sure the side wall switch panel will clear the floor and rear wall tiles.

Two scrap pieces of the Armstrong Alterna Luxury Vinyl tile used as feeler gauges to make sure the side wall switch panel will clear the floor and rear wall tiles.

As long as I was taking a break I called Pat/Vickie Lintner to let them know I would be coming through Elkhart tomorrow (Friday) and verify that they would be home in the morning.  That sounded fine to Pat.  I will be picking up an accessory for a Nutone power base unit from them.  We have one of the power bases installed in the kitchen counter of the bus but the blender was the only accessory that came with the bus when we bought it.  Pat and Vickie had a power base in their bus but it broke years ago.  They never replaced it, and don’t plan to, so they no longer needed the accessories and were willing to give them to us.  We got most of the pieces from them at the GLCC Surplus and Salvage Rally back in September but we were missing a critical piece which Vickie thought she still had and eventually found.

After my break I reinstalled the large front trim board on the driver side vertical wiring/plumbing chase that is located on the outside wall next to the back of the driver’s chair.  I don’t recall how I got it out but I could not get it back in.  I ended up trimming off a small protrusion on the lower end and then it went into position without any further difficulty.  It was a small thing, but it needed to be done and it was good to get it checked off my (mental) “to do” list.  When I cannot solve the problem I am trying to solve (tile layout) I try to keep moving and get other small tasks completed.

I took a few more minutes to carefully measure the adjustment needed to the bump out on the passenger side HVAC duct cover and the dimensions for the two new pieces of walnut that will go on either side of the sofa seat.  I brought the old pieces in the house and found the leftover walnut in the garage as I have to take some of it with me tomorrow to Jarel’s cabinet shop in Logansport, Indiana.  I think an hour of my day disappeared between these small, simple tasks.

I continued to ponder the tile layout for quite some time, taking and retaking measurements as I tried to figure out an arrangement that would allow the joints to fall in reasonable places while making sure I could notch around things that go through the floor and avoid having any small pieces.  That is a lot of constraints.  The arrangement I finally came up with had three full 16×16 tiles centered on the landing and into the driver area.  There will be pieces about six inches wide along the fore and aft edges, and the first full tile will also be about six inches back from the edge of the landing (by the entry stairs).  The joints (grout lines) resulting from this placement will continue up the front of the passenger seat platform and result in tile placements on the platform that should work out well.

Linda called at 4:15 PM to let me know she was on her way home from the bakery and was stopping at Kathi’s on the way.  I was done working in the bus for the day so I adjusted the thermostats on the heaters and checked the house battery bank status.  The battery bank voltage was at 25.0 VDC, just slightly down from the 25.2 V level of a fully charged and rested “24 V” lead acid battery (2.1 V per cell x 12 cells in series).  The State Of Charge (SOC) was at 84% and I decided to leave the charger off until Saturday morning after breakfast.  I did have the shorepower turned off for a few hours Wednesday so the refrigerator was running on the inverter for a while but there are no DC loads operating in the coach at the moment and the Magnum remote is showing zero current coming out of the battery bank.  There must be some loads, however, as the battery SOC wound not drop that much that quickly due to self-discharge.  I locked up the bus, went in the house for the evening, and turned on the outside lights for Linda.  Given when she left the office I knew it would be dark by the time she got home.

I took a few pictures throughout the day so I went to my office and off-loaded them onto my computer.  I had an e-mail from Gary at BCM with the latest markup of the PDF for the December 2015 issue.  I proofread my article and highlighted a half dozen things that needed to be changed, using the sticky note feature for the first time to indicate the corrections, and e-mailed it back to Gary and Jorge.

Linda got home about the time I clicked ‘send’ so I wrapped up my desk work and went upstairs.  She had not been grocery shopping this week and wasn’t sure what to fix for dinner so I suggested vegan pancakes.  Fifteen minutes later we were enjoying flapjacks with real maple syrup and cups of hot tea.  Breakfast for dinner is always a treat.  We spent a little time in the living room by the fireplace and then went to the rec room to watch a few TV programs while we doodled on our iPads.  We have been trying to break the habit of watching TV in bed but we finished watching the last show in bed and then turned out the lights.  In a reversal of our recent usual morning routine I have to be up early and Linda does not, but she still fell asleep before I did.

 

2015/11/11 (W) Two for One

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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.

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 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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

2015/11/09 (M) Clever Mouse

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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.

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.

 

2015/11/08 (N) SLAARC Elections

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Madeline was in bed last night at 8 PM and fell asleep quickly.  We were in bed before 10 PM.  Linda fell asleep right away and I put my iPad away and turned off the light at 10:30 PM.  Good thing, too, as Madeline started coughing at 5:30 AM.  Linda got up at 6 AM and brought her into our bed.  I don’t know if she ever fell back asleep but we all stayed there quietly enjoying the warmth of the covers until 7:30 AM, by which time the house was warming up.  Hurrah for programmable thermostats!

Being Sunday morning, and having Madeline here, we were in no hurry to get up, get dressed, or get busy.  Not that we had nothing to do, we just were not in a hurry to do anything.  Linda prepared baked French toast last night, with a little help from Madeline, and let it sit overnight in the refrigerator.  She got up at 6:45 to pre-heat the oven and again at 7 to put the dish in to bake.

I got up at 7:30 and made coffee.  The downlight over the end of the counter where I make the coffee burned out last night so I replaced the bulb.  Linda set the table and took the French toast out of the oven at 8.  When she cut into it and served out pieces for each of us it was obvious that something was very wrong.  Instead of baked French toast we had inedible goo.  Linda has had very few recipe failures since we switched to a whole-food plant-based (WFPB) vegan diet but this one took first place.  She mentioned that it was a different recipe than she has used in the past and that she used an egg replacer she has not used before which did not seem to dissolve correctly last night.

Linda was willing to make vegan pancakes but I did not see any reason for her to go to that trouble.  We still had plenty of granola, part of a loaf of cinnamon raisin bread, and fresh berries, all of which made for an easy but tasty breakfast.]

Madeline plays (at) the organ. It is one of her favorite “toys” at our house.

Madeline plays (at) the organ. It is one of her favorite “toys” at our house.

After breakfast I cleared the table and then read a book to Madeline while Linda cleaned off the dishes.  I turned on the fireplace and we drank our coffee in the living room while Madeline found various things to play with, ultimately ending up at the organ.

By 9:30 AM we were feeling like getting dressed.  I put in my work clothes and finally got to work in the bus at 10 after turning up the thermostats in the library, garage, and bus.  The first thing I needed to do was screw down the last/top layer of SurePly underlayment in the landing and driver area.  I used #6 SR (square recessed) self-drilling wood screws in three different lengths based on what was underneath the underlayment.  I chose to use screws rather than staples for several reasons.  The main one was that I needed the ability of the screws to pull things together.  The other reason was that I did not want to get the air compressor and stapler out for this relatively small number of fasteners.  (The SurePly underlayment for the main floor of the bus was stapled with approximately 350 staples per full 4’x8’ sheet.)

I pulled up the larger piece of SurePly one last time, measured the location of the boundary between the original bus floor and the new patch, marked the boundary on the top of the large piece, and put it back in place.  I carefully aligned the smaller piece to the stair edge and along the front and made sure the larger piece also fit correctly.  The smaller piece sits entirely on the new landing, which is 3/4″ plywood, so I secured it with 1″ screws, spacing them 2-to-3 inches apart along every edge and about 4 inches apart in the field.

The 1/2″ piece of plywood just forward of the driver’s seat was partially unscrewed and needed to be screwed back down.  Since it was installed over the original 1″ thick plywood bus floor I replaced the existing screws with 1-1/4″ screws and added more, especially along the edges.

To secure the larger piece I used 1-1/2″ screws over the patch, which was already about 1-1/4″ thick.  Over the original 1″ thick plywood bus floor I used the 1-1/4″ screws and over the 3/4″ thick landing I used 1″ screws.  I ran out of the 1″ length before I got the larger piece secured.  As much as I did not want to spend time driving around today I could not finish this task without the proper screws so around 11:15 AM I headed off to Lowe’s.  As long as I had to make the trip I looked for washers to space up the mounting bolts for the passenger seat pedestal base and nylon washers to go under the nut on the main mounting stud for the two swivel bases.  I found something that might work for the former but not the latter.

Linda and Madeline were getting ready to leave as I returned home just before noon.  Madeline was upset because Linda made her wear a sweater under her coat and she did not want to.  She is generally a cheerful and pleasant little girl but we never know when or why she is going to draw a line in the sand.  She doesn’t always or even usually get her way but she is persistent.  The tears, of course, are not the result of genuine injury and are usually quickly enough wiped away by focusing her attention on something else.  They finally pulled out of the driveway at 12:15 PM for an outing at Kensington Metropark.

I finished securing the larger piece of SurePly over the landing and then started on the next task.  I had decided to patch in an area at the end of the passenger platform where it drops down into the back of the driver area.  The area to be patched was only 12-3/4″ long and less than 4″ wide but the underlying metal was rounded over in this area and there wasn’t much I could use to attach new wood.  The area was also deep and not level.  I ended up making a sandwich with two layers of SurePly, two wood shins on top of those, and a piece of 3/4″ plywood on top.  I got all of the pieces cut and fitted and then marked them with pencil lines down the exposed edges to act as alignment marks.

I carefully assembled the sandwich upside down in the shop and screwed it together from the bottom.  I then put it in place in the bus and measured for a vertical piece with an angled rear edge to catch the outside edge of the patch and hold it up.  I secured the patch with one 1-1/2″ screw near the front and secured the vertical piece with one screw into the same piece of wood.

Building and installing this patch took a while and I was just finishing it when Linda and Madeline got home around 3:30 PM from their trip to Kensington Metropark.  By this time it was too late to start working on the underlayment for the passenger seat platform as I needed to stop working at 4 PM and get cleaned up for our amateur radio club meeting this evening.  With the little time remaining I unscrewed the top of the step and removed the two screws that held it to the rear and side walls of the co-pilot/navigator platform.  I then removed a half dozen flat head wood screws that held a piece of metal trim to the front edge of the platform.

The screws were rusted but came out.  The issue for my work was that the heads were not countersunk and stuck above the metal in a way that would interfere with installing the sheet of underlayment.  I used a 7/16″ drill bit to create tapered holes and may go back tomorrow and use my countersink bit.  I looked, but did have any appropriate screws to replace the ones I took out.  That meant another trip to Lowe’s which I could do after dinner on my way to the ham radio club meeting.

I put the two swivel pedestal/bases back in the landing and locked the bus.  I made sure everything was in the garage that needed to be and closed the overhead door.  I showered and shaved and put on clean clothes.  I then sat on the living room sofa with Madeline while Linda fixed dinner.  I worked on this post while Ms. M played games on Linda’s iPad.  It’s amazing to watch a 3-year old manipulate an iPad.  Their use of the touch screen is intuitive, which is cool, and it holds their attention in a way that other activities do not, almost to the point of obsession or addiction, which can border on troubling.  In spite of how much Madeline likes to eat, Grandma Linda had to gently take the iPad away and get her to come to the table for dinner.

As part of her food planning for this weekend Linda had picked up some mock turkey patties with gravy.  She also picked up some vegan heat-n-serve mac-n-cheese.  Those were the main course this evening along with a nice green salad and the rest of the fresh pineapple.  Dessert was going to be cake but I had to leave before it was served.

I left at 5:30 PM and drove to Lowe’s in New Hudson.  I monitored a QSO between Mike (W8XH) and Steve (N8AR) until Steve reached the meeting location in South Lyon.  I then called for Mike and we chatted until I reached Lowe’s.  I bought a box of 1-1/4′ long # 12 flathead wood screws and picked up three 40 W appliance light bulbs for the microwave in the house as the installed ones had burned out.

I got to the Witch’s Hat Depot at 6:35 PM so I had a chance to visit with my fellow hams before the meeting started at 7 PM.  Steve (N8AR) had a display set up with several different DC power meters he ordered off of EBay.  The business meeting was longer than usual because we had to elect officers for 2016.  The process was very smooth, surprisingly so actually, but still took 10 minutes.  The meeting was done by 7:20 after which the club president, Harvey (AC8NO), did a presentation on his Icom IC-7200 portable base station transceiver.

I was back home by 8:40 PM.  Madeline had already gone to bed so Linda and I had some quiet adult time to enjoy a cup of hibiscus tea.  We were both tired after long days of work and play but we did a lot today and felt good about the things we accomplished.

 

2015/11/07 (S) Measure One, Cut Twice 

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We were all up at 7 AM.  I got dressed and left at 7:25 AM for the SLAARC breakfast in South Lyon.  Linda and Madeline had toaster waffles and fresh berries for breakfast at home.  The main reason I went to breakfast was to talk with Larry (K8UT) about a plug-in for WordPress that he recently found and though I might want to use for the SLAARC website.  He purchased a five site license for the full version of a survey plug-in and was willing to donate one use to the ham radio club.

When I got home at 9:30 AM the girls were getting ready to leave.  Linda’s plan for the morning was to take Madeline to the Howell Public Library.  The library has a very nice play area for younger children and a good selection of children’s books.  Apparently they planned to be gone for a while because they had a bag packed with snacks and other things for an extended outing.  I changed into my work close and when they left I resumed working on the bus.

My first objective was to cut the final piece of SurePly underlayment for the entry landing and area under the driver’s seat.  It was a large and complex piece that took me a long time to lay out even using the piece that goes under the driver’s seat as a template.  When I finally had it cut and drilled with the holes for the seat mounting bolts I took it to the bus to see how it fit.  Unfortunately I could not get it in.  It had to go under something on the front and back and also had to fit around curves and angles, and it just was not physically possible to get it in place in one piece.  It was immediately obvious that I would have to cut the piece into two parts but not so obvious how best to do that.

Linda and Madeline returned about this time (12:30 PM) and I was ready for a break.  They brought in their “haul” from the library—eight books and five videos—and laid it out on the living room coffee table.  The play market that Madeline likes so much had been replaced by a play kitchen.  The librarian told Linda they rotate the playsets every three months to keep it interesting for the children.

After going to the library Linda drove to the Brighton Mill Pond so Madeline could play at the Playscape.  Linda reported that Madeline has figured out how to pump a swing and is able to keep it going once someone helps her get started.  As a special treat they went to the ice cream shop nearby and Ms. M got a scoop of ice cream.  She did not tell me what flavor, but she said it had sprinkles on it.

It was going on 1 PM and seemed like a good time to have lunch, so Linda made hummus sandwiches with sliced onion for us and hummus on bread for Madeline.  She washed off a big bunch of grapes and we all enjoyed some of those too.  After lunch I read one of the library books to Madeline and then Linda read her a different one.  At that point I excused myself and went back to work on the bus.

I pondered the situation with the piece of underlayment and finally saw what appeared to be a natural cut line.  After considering where the tile would go, however, I decided against it.  Unlike the tile on the main floor of the bus, which is installed on the bias, the grouted joint lines in the cockpit/entry are going to run straight fore-and-aft and side-to-side.  I was not sure, however, exactly where they would fall.  I needed to avoid having a grout line fall on a joint between two pieces of underlayment so I ended up cutting the piece that covers the landing at an angle.  This gave me a smaller piece that tucked under the center console on the dashboard and a larger piece that tucked under some metal trim behind the driver’s seat.  I was now able to get both pieces in but they did not fit properly.

I had used my last large piece of SurePly to make the original single piece, and it had taken me hours to do, so I did not want to remake it.  I made any trips between the bus and the garage/shop, trimming a little bit at a time and rechecking the fit, until I finally got the piece to fit correctly.  In the process the piece had changed enough that the smaller piece was now too small and could not be trimmed to fit.  I searched through my scrap pieces of SurePly and found one that was almost big enough to remake the smaller piece, but not quite.

It was now 3:30 PM, and I still had some good daylight to work by, so I secured the floor patch under the driver’s seat.  The patch consisted of a 1/4″ thick layer of SurePly with a 3/4″ thick layer of oak veneered plywood on top of it to make a 1″ thick piece.  The SurePly was screwed to the 3/4″ plywood from underneath.  With the patch in place I installed another piece of 1/4″ SurePly that covered the patch and extended out over the old surrounding wood, which was still sound, and filled in the area once occupied by a 1/2″ thick piece of plywood.  I used 1″ self-drilling screws to secure the top layer of SurePly to the underlying wood, slightly countersinking the heads and pulling the underlying patch up tight while pulling the SurePly down tight to the old wood.  I walked on it and it felt secure.  There will be one more layer of SurePly and a layer of tile before the seat base gets re-installed.  Bolting down the base will obviously pull everything down tight to the structure of the bus if it isn’t already.

Linda and Madeline spent part of the afternoon baking vegan cupcakes.  Linda usually makes chocolate ones but I requested white/vanilla ones this time.  She found a recipe that looked promising and used it.  They needed frosting to finish the cupcakes so they bundled up and went to Meijer’s.  They got back a little before 4 PM, frosting and sprinkles in hand.

I needed more SurePly to continue working, not that I was eager to; I had spent most of the day trying to make one stupid piece of wood and still wasn’t finished.  The temperature had been dropping all afternoon and it was down to 55 in the garage, which was open so I could go back-and-forth to the bus.  I still had the antique SUN distributor tester in my car and determined that I could not get 4’x8′ sheets of material in the car with the machine in there.  Linda and Madeline put on their shoes and coats and came outside so Linda could help me get the tester out of the car.  I then went to Lowe’s.

I had a nice QSO with David (W8DRD) from our ham radio club on the way to Lowe’s.  At the store I was struggling to get the SurePly off of the top of the stack, which was above my head at the limit of my reach.  A customer stopped and helped me which I appreciated.  I needed one sheet to finish the driver/landing area and get the piece I need for the passenger seat platform floor, but I bought two sheets just in case the various scraps I have are not large enough to do the walls of the passenger seat platform.

I was back home by 5 PM and unloaded the two sheets of SurePly.  I put one on the 2x4s across the sawhorses and the other one in the small bay with the other sheet materials.  Linda and Madeline put their shoes and coats on once again and came outside so Linda could help me load the distributor tester back into my car.  Linda said we would eat dinner around 6 PM so I started working on remaking the small piece for the front portion of the landing.

I used the original piece as a pattern for the edges that fit properly but cut it larger than needed for the edge that needed to match the other piece where I cut it into two parts.  After getting it trimmed to fit correctly on three sides I put the larger piece in place overlapping the smaller one and traced the edge on the smaller piece.  I took it back to the garage and used the clamp-on saw guide to get a clean, straight cut.  When I took it back to the bus and set it in place it fit.  Success at last.

By now it was dark and getting close to dinner time.  I decided to leave the securement of this last layer of SurePly until tomorrow when I was refreshed and had better light.  I had hoped to get this landing/driver floor finished today, as well as the floor for the passenger seat platform, but given the difficulties and frustrations of today I felt like I had ended at a good place.  I locked up the bus and closed the garage door on my way in.  I expect tomorrow to be another good day, but then if I didn’t, why would I bother?

I changed out of my work clothes and put on my sweats.  Dinner was vegan cheeseburgers with a vegetable medley on the side and fresh pineapple.  Dessert was vanilla frosted white cupcakes with sprinkles.  After clearing the table I interacted with Madeline while Linda cleaned up a few dishes.  She and Madeline then prepared the baked French toast, which has to sit overnight.  As promised, once all of the stuff was done we went to the basement and watched one of the Daniel Stripped Tiger videos.  When we had seen enough episodes we turned off the TV set and went upstairs.  Madeline got into her pajamas and went to bed.  I put a load of laundry into the washing machine and then settled in to my usual evening routine.  I pulled the laundry out of the dryer at 9:45 PM and we turned in for the night at 10 PM.

 

2015/11/06 (F) MEF3

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

2015/11/05 (R) POR-15

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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.

 

2015/11/04 (W) Southbound Liberty

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Linda decided last night to work at home today rather than driving into the bakery in Hamtramck.  That meant she did not have to get up at 5:45 AM.  She was up just before 7 and I was up just after that.  I made a large pot of Sweet Seattle Dreams half-caffe coffee and Linda toasted slices of cinnamon raisin bread for breakfast.  After breakfast she settled in to work at her desk while I tended to several chores.

I last changed our whole house water filter in May (of this year) and it looked like it was overdue for replacement.  I had one filter element left so I used it.  The process is simple enough:  I turned off the well pump, shut off the valves on either side of the filter housing, released the pressure in the housing, and unscrew the removable bowl.  When I unwrapped the filter and read the directions I was reminded that I am supposed to clean the bowl with warm, soapy water, rinse it clean, and then sanitize it with a bleach solution and rinse it out again.  That requires water, of course, but I had the water shut off and the filter housing disassembled so I had n way to turn the water back on.  The only way to accomplish this would be to stage the needed water before shutting off the water system but I never remember to open the new filter element are read the directions before I start.  I mean, really, it’s not the sort of procedure that requires me to read the directions each time.

One of the old swivel bearings (L) and one of the new swivel bearings (R). The new one is obviously smaller than the old one and was not compatible with our pedestals and power bases.

One of the old swivel bearings (L) and one of the new swivel bearings (R). The new one is obviously smaller than the old one and was not compatible with our pedestals and power bases.

Not having any running water I wiped out the bowl with paper towels as best I could.  The directions called for lubricating the main O-ring with silicon grease.  I knew I had some from the last time I changed the filter.  It was hiding in plain sight but took me a while to find.  After greasing the gasket and installing it back on the bowl, I put in the new filter element and screwed the bowl back into the filter head, tightening it with the filter wrench.  I turned the well pump back on, opened the inlet and outlet valves for the filter, and let the trapped air out with the purge valve.

Our filter housing takes a larger than usual element.  It is 10″ long, which is the most common length, but 5″ in diameter, which is much bigger than usual.  It’s a dual density spun polypropylene material with a 50 micron nominal rating at the large outside surface and a 5 micron nominal rating towards the smaller core.  These filter elements are not available at the local home stores so I get them from Adam’s Well Drilling and Water Treatment, who installed out current water treatment system.

I gathered up the laundry and put a load in the washer.  I took the label from the new filter element and headed out on an errand run.  My first stop was Adam’s where I bought four filter elements and two bottles of chlorine tablets for the taste and odor portion of our water treatment system.  Wilson Marine is located next door to Adam’s so I stopped there to see if they sold marine grade plywood.  They didn’t but I had a good chat with the associate.  He suggested that for patching the floor in the bus I just use treated plywood or use Thompson’s Water Seal to treat whatever wood I use.

One of the new swivel bearings on top of one of the old swivel bearings clearly showing that the new bearing is small in diameter, inside and out, than the old one.

One of the new swivel bearings on top of one of the old swivel bearings clearly showing that the new bearing is small in diameter, inside and out, than the old one.

My last stop was O’Reilly’s Auto Parts.  Their parking lot was finally open so I could park near the door.  Ronald had me load the containers of used oil and the bag of filters into a shopping cart.  The bag had leaked onto the paper towels I put under it in the back of my car so Ron gave me a cardboard box to put it in.  He simply put the bag of filters in a container but he emptied the six containers of oil and gave them back to me.  They recycle oil but not the containers.

When I got home Linda checked to see if we could take the plastic oil bottles to Recycle Livingston.  Used motor oil is considered hazardous waste and anything that has had used motor oil in it is considered a hazardous material so we could not take the containers there.  I helped Linda load all of the other recyclables into my car and she made a run to the recycling center, the first in a few weeks.  After moving the laundry from the washer to the dryer and putting another load in the washer I got back to work on the bus floor.

The area behind the panel to the right of the co-pilot/navigator seat. The mouse nest is gone and the damaged wood has been removed from between the side-to-side seat mounting rails.

The area behind the panel to the right of the co-pilot/navigator seat. The mouse nest is gone and the damaged wood has been removed from between the side-to-side seat mounting rails.

I spent most of the afternoon working on the floor under the front passenger seat.  First I removed the blocking that provides support for the bottom edge of the switch panel but also spans the three floor boards.  I cleaned out the mouse nest behind the switch panel and found the skeleton of a small mouse.  I then got the piece of wood between the mounting channels out.  The drain line for the front CruiseAir evaporator went through this floor near the outside edge but the floor was rotted enough that I was able to break out the wood on the back side and pull the board out.  As I did this I was reminded, once again, about how much of this conversion was built with the idea that it would never have to be disassembled.

I took a break for lunch, which was leftover lentils and quinoa pilaf with some fresh fruit.  After lunch I resumed working on the floor under the front passenger seat in the bus.  I managed to remove most of the rusted metal filler plate.  I made a lucky guess as to where my wire brush was stored and used it to clean the surface of the rusted metal that remained.  I played with different combinations of wood thicknesses and pondered how I will rebuild this area.  I then sprayed the rusted areas with POR-15 cleaner/degreaser and scrubbed them with a sponge soaked in hot water.

I moved to the driver’s seat area and repeated the process.  There was one area with damaged wood that I still had to deal with.  There was an edge about 10 inches long capped with two thin gage metal angles that were badly rusted.  I removed as much of the angles as I could.  I cut off a strip of wood about 2″ wide and 10″ long and removed the rest of the angles.  I wire brushed the area but left the POR-15 cleaner/degreaser for tomorrow.  In anticipation of applying the POR-15 tomorrow and coating it with black spray on rubberized undercoating paint I began masking off the area with painter’s plastic.

For dinner Linda made a salad, roasted eggplant with garlic and breadcrumbs, and mock fish with vegan tartar sauce.  We finished the Frey Natural Red wine with our meal.  I would love to support this company but this wine is too dry for my pallet.

PBS had an interesting lineup of shows this evening on continental formation, natural wonders, and the human brain.  I dealt with e-mail before the shows and we turned in after the last one.  Chuck and Barbara were planning on leaving this morning, southbound for Florida in their 1993 H3-40 Liberty motorcoach.  I did not have any messages from Chuck today so I presume they got away as planned.  They bought a lot at the Pelican Lake Luxury Motorcoach Resort in Naples where they have spent the last six winters and that is where they are headed.  We will be staying about 90 minutes north of there in January and February and will get together with them as time and commitments permit.  We are looking forward to seeing their lot; it has a coach house and they are doing some landscaping, including large palm trees.

 

2015/11/03 (T) The Penultimate Cut

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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.

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.

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.

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.

 

2015/11/01 (N) Brunch with Kathi, Farewell to Uncle Bob

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We switched from Eastern Daylight Time back to Eastern Standard Time overnight.  It was 11:30 PM when I turned off the lights and 7:30 AM when I got up, and since I had not reset my nightstand clock I got my eight hours of beauty rest.  I put my robe on and started setting all of the clocks back one hour.  We have a LOT of clocks.

My cell phone adjusts automatically, as do the computers and satellite linked thermometers.  I reset the clocks in the microwave, range, and coffee maker, and stopped the grandfather clock, which is only supposed to be advanced, to let the time catch up to the setting.  I reset the clock on our phone system, the clock on my night stand, and on two of our thermostats.  The Wi-Fi thermostat already had the correct time so it may have adjusted automatically or perhaps was never changed to EDT last spring.  We have three battery powered clocks that I did not reset as I wanted to change the batteries and the incorrect time would serve as a reminder that I had not yet done that.  I still need to check the clocks in the two digital cameras, as I like to have correct time stamps on my photos, and there are five clocks in the motorcoach that need to be reset.  We have a lot of clocks, but I quit wearing a wrist watch when I retired.  I always have my phone with me anyway, and it usually knows what time it is in whatever time zone I happen to be in.

While I was in the basement I checked e-mail, replied to one from Gary at BCM, and then cleaned the cats’ litter tray.  Linda was up by then so I made coffee.  I turned on the fireplace and we settled in the living room to read, write, and savor our morning brew.

Kathi Slater, a long-time friend who Linda hired on at the bakery some years ago, came to our house today for brunch.  I think it was only her second visit since we moved to this house but then most of our friends have been here at most once, if at all.  Family members visit more often, of course, but that does not mean frequently.  John/Dianne Rauch and Steve/Karen Limkemann have been here the most, along with Mike Sharpe (W8XH) from our SLAARC ham radio group.  Philip Jarrell of Precision Grading, and Keith Kish of Kish Lawn Care, have been the most frequent people here on business, along with Kerry Fear, who does our snow plowing, and Darryl Mech of DMC Heating and Cooling, who did a lot of work for us when we converted from propane to natural gas.  We do not, however, feel isolated here.  We are getting to know a few of our neighbors and we are only minutes away from three communities full of people and shopping options.  Both of our children and their families are only 30 to 45 minutes away as are the northwest suburbs of Detroit where some of our friends still live.  But most days we live quiet, undisturbed lives at our home in the country, and we like it that way.

Linda and Kathi had “things” to discuss that did not involve or concern me, so after brunch I busied myself with other things.  After checking e-mail I started downloading an update to Adobe Photoshop CC (2015).  These downloads are huge and very slow so I left it to run.  Chuck texted me and arranged to pick up his eight gallons of oil around noon.  We chatted briefly when he arrived and he took a second look at our water intrusion problem.  After he left I went to the O’Reilly’s Auto Parts store in Howell to buy grease.  Joe told me to get two tubes of the best stuff I could find, synthetic if possible.  O’Reilly’s had Mobil 1 synthetic grease for almost twice the price of anything else on the shelf so I bought three tubes and used my $5 off reward card.  Lowe’s was right across the street so I popped in there and got three boxes of Scott blue paper shop towels.  I use a lot of these when working on the bus.

When I got home I changed into my work clothes and got to work on the bus.  I stayed on that task the rest of the afternoon except for a few short breaks.  The first break was for linner.  The second break was to start the bus engine, raise the body, put the stands under it, set the body on the stands, and dump the air from the suspension.  The third break was to say “goodbye” to Kathi and the forth break was for another brief visit from Chuck to pick up a bus engine oil filter from me.

In the course of the afternoon I managed to cut out most the rotten water-damaged wood from the floor in the driver’s area of the bus cockpit.  Cleaning up the metal and protecting it, providing a drain for the water, and then patching in the floor is going to take several days.  Finding and plugging the entry point may not happen.  It’s November 1st and I only have about three (3) weeks to get the bus put back together to the point where we can use it this winter.  The reservations are made, winter is coming, and we are out of here before the calendar turns to December.

When I wrapped up work in the bus around 5:30 PM I had been using a two-tube fluorescent work light for an hour.  By the time I set the thermostats back, and changed the time on the microwave and the battery powered clock in the living room, it was approaching 6 PM and it was dark outside.

Linda made broccoli soup from scratch for dinner.  It was a mild, subtle dish and we both had seconds along with a few crackers and strawberry preserves.  I called Butch after dinner to update him on the floor situation in the bus and get his opinion on my idea of filling the “tray” with expanding foam.  After talking it through I decided it might be the best idea I ever had.

While I was talking to Butch I got a call from Joe and handed the house phone off to Linda.  Joe was northbound on I-275 in Michigan.  He was at most an hour from our house but getting ready to stop for the night.  He wanted to be close enough to Chuck’s house to get there easily by 7 AM and did not want to backtrack the 20 miles from our place.  As we say in ham radio “QSL” (I understand).

I got the phone back from Linda and was continuing my conversation with Butch when I got a call from a 405 area code number that showed up as “unavailable.”  I don’t usually answer those calls but they left a message and called back about 12 minutes later.  I had not even checked the message yet but figured it was someone actually trying to reach me so I gave the house phone back to Linda and took the call.  It was my nephew (by marriage), Philip Pelton, calling to let me know that my Uncle Bob had passed away a couple of hours earlier.  He was also looking for a phone number for my dad.

Bob was my dad’s younger brother by two years, his only sibling and my only Uncle, my mother having been an only child.  Bob was 88.  Linda and I saw him in April on our way home from our winter in the desert southwest.  Bob had Parkinson’s disease and was in a rehab center near his home fighting an infection.  He did not look at all well to us at the time so I was not really surprised by Philip’s call.  According to Philip, Bob had developed pneumonia in both lungs shortly after we were there and the doctors were never able to cure it.  He was at home when his blood oxygen dropped, he lapsed into unconsciousness, and expired.

Uncle Bob was an interesting and unusual guy.  He had a Ph.D. in micropaleontology and was a brilliant geologist.  Born and raised in St. Louis, Missouri, he moved to Oklahoma and spent his entire career studying the geology of that state.  He developed an interest in genealogy somewhere along the way, and did some significant research on the various branches of our family.  He married Helen Pelton, second marriages for both, but never had children of his own.  Helen had one son, Scott, who passed away some years ago, survived by his mother, ex-wife Linda, two children, Tiffany and Philip, Tiffany’s three daughters, and Philip’s son and daughter.  He was known to all of them as Papa (PawPaw) and they obviously adored each other.  We only had a few visits with him over the years but they were always very interesting.

We wrapped up the call with Butch and I called my sister.  Philip had already reached her but we had a long chat.  She reported that our father is doing better and has recovered somewhat from his stroke of a couple of months ago.  My grand-niece, Lilly, is having short seizures again, which is concerning to say the least.  The doctor has adjusted her medication but it will take a week to see if the higher dose is effective or they need to move to a different drug.  Lilly is six weeks younger than Madeline and just the sweetest little girl you can imagine.  It is most unfair to her, and her parents, to have to deal with these seizures.

I went to my office and downloaded e-mails (which were painfully slow).  I had two in our general contact account, which I do not check every day.  They were both from BCM readers letting me know that they enjoyed my articles and actually found them useful.  I replied to both and answered their questions as best I could.  I then logged into RVillage.  We had one message, which I responded to, and 153 notifications.  The vast majority were from the Comic Relief group and I think I will have to turn off notifications for that, and perhaps other, groups.  In retrospect I should have created a separate e-mail account for RVillage, but I didn’t.

 

2015/10/29 (R) A Setback

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

2015/10/25 (N) Bus Dinner

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It was 44 degrees outside when we got up this morning but cozy in the house.  We were out of Linda’s homemade granola so we had oatmeal for breakfast.  It’s a nice change of pace on occasion and was a hot, hardy start on a chilly day.  I made a pot of Sweet Seattle Dreams coffee and we had a quiet morning in the living room.  We talked about going to the Howell Farmers Market, as today is the last day of the 2015 outdoor season, but did not need anything and given the temperatures decided not to go.  I changed into my work clothes at 10:30, went out to the bus, and turned up the thermostats to raise the interior temperature.

My focus in the bus today was tasks that I could not do alone.  I got my 15/16ths closed-end ratcheting wrench and removed the main retaining nut from the driver’s seat and from the front passenger seat.  Each of these nuts threads over a vertical stud that is fixed to the pedestal/riser which is in turn bolted to the floor.  In between the top of the riser and the bottom of the 6-way power base is a ball-bearing swivel plate which is centered on the mounting stud.  To get to these nuts I had to move the seats forward using the motorized bases and reach in from behind but I had good access and the nuts were not hard to loosen and remove.  I bought this closed end ratcheting wrench specifically for removing/installing these seat mounting nuts and it was worth every penny I paid for it.

With the nuts removed I unplugged the 12V DC power supply wires to each seat.  Linda and I were then able to lift the seats off of the pedestals without too much difficulty, carry them back into the kitchen (of the bus), and lay them down on their backs on the floor, which was protected with blankets.

The reason for removing the seats was two-fold:

  1. We were going to hang wallpaper on the living room walls where they merged into the cockpit and needed better access to those areas, and
  2. I plan to tile the floor and walls in the cockpit and entry this coming week and needed these seats out of the way in order to be able to do that.

Our next task, preparatory to hanging wallpaper, was to remove the walnut cover (half box) from the front eight feet of the passenger side OTR HVAC duct and wiring chase.  We set it across the two seats we had just removed to get it out of the way.

Bruce marks a piece of wallpaper on the dining room table in the house before cutting it.

Bruce marks a piece of wallpaper on the dining room table in the house before cutting it.

When we were finally ready to start wallpapering we needed three relatively short pieces; two to finish the driver side and one to finish the passenger side, at least as far as we intended to go.  I made a sketch for the shape of each piece, took measurements, and added them to the sketches.  The wallpaper is 26.5″ wide on the roll and the longest piece we needed was only 24″.  I got the 3′ and 6′ rulers from the shop while Linda got the roll of wallpaper.  We used the dining room table in the house to measure, mark, and cut each piece.  Although relatively small these pieces took some additional, careful, attention because they had to fit over, under, and around cabinets and window trim.  To make the installation easier I trimmed away as much of the waste material as possible before hanging the piece.

Linda partially filled two 5-gallon buckets with water, added soap to one of them, and brought them out to the bus while I retrieved the paint tray and liner and the 6″ pasting brush.  We laid out all of the wallpaper tools, put a towel on the floor, and set the paint tray/liner on the towel.  I poured the amount of wallpaper paste I thought we would need into the tray and started with the piece of wallpaper at the right end of the built-in sofa (towards the front of the bus).

As we had done previously everywhere else in the bus I applied the paste to the wall rather than to the back of the wallpaper.  The wall behind the sofa had been primed but the small strip above/behind the end cabinet and around into the cockpit had not been, so I used more paste in the unprinted areas.  This first piece required a lot of trimming so it took a while to hang but it looked good when we were done.  As I got each piece installed, with Linda’s help, she rolled the seams and then washed off the excess paste with a large sponge using the soapy water followed by a second sponge with clean water.

We continued along that wall towards the front of the bus with the second piece.  It did not require as much trimming as the first piece and went in a little faster and easier.  I overlapped the thin strip above/behind the cabinet with the first piece and cut through both of them to create a clean, tight seam.  When we hung wallpaper in our house many years ago all of the seams were done by overlapping adjacent panels and cutting through both pieces.  The paper we are using in the bus, which is actually vinyl, is installed by butting the factory edges together.  This certainly simplifies installation, and speeds it up a bit, but it is harder to get a perfect seam.  Still, it was the right choice for our motorcoach as it is washable and scrubbable and goes very well with the interior.

On the passenger side of the coach I pasted up the last section of the living room wall and part of the small section of wall under the trim on the window next to the front passenger seat.  I ended up cutting off a small part of this piece and installing in separately as the trimming required was intricate and awkward to do.

After installing the two parts of this third piece we decided to go ahead and paper a small triangular section of wall above the bottom window trim.  I got a scrap of wallpaper from the house that was big enough to cover the right triangle shape and cut it approximately to size.  I pasted the wall, set the bottom edge flush to the sill, pressed the back edge into its vertical corner, and trimmed off the excess.  This little section of wall was capped by a piece of walnut that ran at an angle along the bottom edge of the glass.  I trimmed off the paper at the bottom edge of the wood trimmed and tucked the paper in under the walnut.

The reason we did not wallpaper all of the small wall section below the window is that part of the plywood wall is severely water damaged and a piece of it rotted and is missing.  There is no practical way to replace the plywood and the only practical way to repair this area is to panel over it.  We could use thin plywood and wallpaper it but we have enough of the 1/4″ walnut veneered plywood that we salvaged from the old refrigerator to panel this area.

We were done with the wallpapering by 2:30 PM.  Linda cleaned off most of the tools and then took the two buckets of water out of the bus to pour them out and clean them.  I took the paint tray/liner, pasting brush, and some of the tools to the laundry room and cleaned them.  There was very little paste left in the tray liner so I had estimated quite closely on the amount I needed for today’s work.

The swivel mechanisms for the two front seats consist of two rings separated by ball bearings and interlocked around the inside edge.  They have an ‘A’ side and a ‘B’ side and one of them was installed ‘A’ side up and the other ‘B’ side up.  They also have a large washer.  The driver seat was installed with the washer between the swivel bearing and the power base.  The passenger seat had the washer directly beneath the retaining nut inside the power base.  Given these differences I could not tell the correct orientation and order of assembly by casual inspection of the pieces involved.  It is possible that the swivel plates are, in fact, symmetrical and thus can go in either way, but one of the washers had to be in the wrong place.

My interest in all of this was motivated, in part, by the fact that both of these seats have always wobbled since we bought the coach.  The new seats are firmly attached to the power bases which seem tight but may have some play.  I was suspicious of the swivels, however, as the main source of the play.  I studied the design for a while and came to some tentative conclusions.

When the swivel plates are installed the ring on the bottom (that sits on the pedestal) is not going to move as the pedestal is bolted to the floor.  The top ring, which will be in contact with the power base, is going to move relative to the fixed bottom ring when the seat is tuned.  I decided that the larger ring, which wraps around the inside edge of the smaller ring, should go on the bottom.  With regards to the washer it seemed to me that it should go directly under the retaining nut, allowing the power base to swivel relative to the nut without loosening it.  Further, placing it between the swivel plates and the power base would potentially prevent the base from fully resting on the swivel plate and allow the whole seat to wobble.

I will examine all of this again more carefully when we are ready to reinstall the seats.  For now, I took the two swivel bearings to the garage to clean and lubricate them.  After wiping them off I sprayed them with WD-40, worked them around, and wiped them off again.  I then sprayed them with garage door lubricant, worked then around again, and wiped them off.  Finally, I worked Red Tack ‘grease’ into the ball bearing race, spun the rings to distribute it evenly, and the wiped the outer surfaces clean.  After cleaning the grease off of my hands I took the swivel plates back to the bus, wiped the pedestal plates clean, and set them back in place.

We quit working around 3 PM so Linda could cut my hair and beard.  I then shaved, showered, and got dressed for dinner.  Linda showered after me but was dressed and ready to go before I was.  We made plans yesterday to meet Bruce (W8RA) and Linda (K4YL) at Carrabba’s in Novi at 5 PM for dinner.  We left at 4:30 and arrived in Carrabba’s parking lot just after 5.

The parking lot was not full so we knew there would not be a wait for a table.  Bruce and Linda were already there and had opted for a booth.  The booths will seat six adults so they have more table space than a table for four. They also offer a bit more privacy for conversation in an otherwise not very private setting.

Carrabba’s had changed its menu since we were last here.  The one dish they had before, Tag Pic Pak (seriously), was no longer on the menu.  It was Linda’s favorite dish and one of only two that we could eat.  They had something with a different name that the waitress said was the same but it included chicken.  She said they could leave the chicken out but the price would still be $14.95.  The Tag Pik Pak was $10.95 as I recall.  We have come to resent paying for animal products that we don’t eat.  Linda ended up getting whole grain spaghetti with Pomodoro sauce and I got whole grain spaghetti with olive oil and garlic.  Linda said the sauce lacked flavor.  My dish was “off menu” and was unimpressive.  Our salads, dressed with vinegar and oil, were OK and the bread was very tasty.  Linda had a glass of wine and I had blackberry sangria.  Sangria is Spanish, not Italian, but it was good.  The meal overall was disappointing but we had a great time chatting with Bruce and Linda over dinner.  The manager stopped by to ask how our meal was (as a courtesy) and ended up having to talk to us for 20 minutes.

Back home Linda made vegan banana nut muffins.  The organic bananas we bought at Meijer’s two days ago must have been bruised because they were going bad very quickly.  Banana bread or muffins was a great way to salvage what we could.  While she made the muffins I went to my office, checked e-mail, and off-loaded the photos we took today.

At 8 PM I turned on the Yaesu FTM-400 ham radio and participated in the SLAARC Info Net.  When the net was over I came back upstairs, reviewed the items in my B&H Photo shopping cart, and placed the order.  I then spent a little time researching DC distribution panels on the DX Engineering website and doing a Google search for cantilevered table supports and legs.  We each had a muffin for dessert and went to bed at 10 PM.  I put on the Detroit PBS Create channel, turned down the volume, and worked on this post for a while before finally going to sleep.

 

2015/10/22 (R) Another Routine Exam

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Linda got up at 2:30 AM and started drinking the second half gallon of GoLightly at 3 AM.  She was done with it by 5 AM, as required, and got me up at 5:45 AM.  We were going to leave for the HFHS Columbus Center in Novi at 6:15 but actually left closer to 6:30.

The traffic inbound to the Detroit Metro Area from the northwest at that hour of the morning is heavy and the slowdowns are ridiculous in the sense that there is no apparent reason for them.  And yet, according to Linda, the traffic comes to a complete stop at approximately the same places every day.  Part of the problem seems to be that people do not know how to merge.  This might be a driving specific manifestation of the more general problems in or society of people thinking they should always come first and being unable/unwilling to compromise.  Another problem is that people speed and tailgate, which means they are frequently on their brakes, the implication being that the rest of us should somehow get out of their way.  Brake lights, in turn, seem to cause a chain reaction and far enough back in the chain traffic can come to a complete halt.  Whatever the causes, we do not drive the highways at rush hour if we do not have to.

We got to the Columbus Center with a few minutes to spare, got a nice parking spot, and went inside.  We found the colonoscopy clinic on the second floor and Linda checked in.  She was the first patient on the schedule for her doctor and did not have to wait very long before being taken in.  The Columbus Center has guest Wi-Fi for their customers and a small self-serve cafe so I went there and had some coffee while I researched flash units and lenses for the Sony SLT-a99v camera that I recently acquired.

Linda’s colonoscopy took less than an hour.  She had come out of the anesthesia, gotten the preliminary results (good), and been discharged by 9:15 AM.  She got dressed and we were on our way by 9:30.  She was hungry, of course, so we went to the Panera on Novi Road just south of Grand River Avenue and had coffee and bagels.  On the way home we stopped at the new Menard’s on Wixom Road just north of I-96.  They had the Eaton RV electrical outlet boxes for the same price as Lowe’s but had a better selection of conduit adapters.  I bought three pieces that together would allow me to connect the bottom of the RV outlet box to the conduit I already had.

We got home at 11 AM and it did not take long for Linda to go to bed.  While she slept I installed the RV outlet box on the post by the new driveway extension and level parking pad.  The first step was to cement a 1-1/2″ to 1-1/4″ reducer into a 2″ to 1-1/2″ reducer which I did in the garage.  The weather was on the cool side of perfect but a nice enough day for working outside with appropriate clothing.  The next step was to determine where to cut off the vertical piece of 2″ PVC conduit so the bottom of the outlet box would be 24″ above the ground.  The pair of reducers would take up about two inches so I marked the pipe at 22″.

The conduit was tight to a 4″x 4″ post and secured by two plastic conduit brackets.  I removed the upper bracket but could not use my Rigid tubing cutter to go completely around it so I used a hacksaw.  I could not just cut all the way through the pipe, however, because of the rope that was inside to be used later to pull wires through the conduit.  I cut a large “V” notch on the side opposite the post, like I would when felling a tree, and pulled the free end of the rope out through the opening.  The notch was horizontal on the bottom and came in at about 45 degrees from higher up.  With the rope out of the way, and secured so it could not fall into the pipe, I continued the horizontal cut and finished cutting through the conduit.

I loosened the clamp holding the bottom of the pipe so I could move the top of it far enough from the post to get some PVC cement most of the way around the riser.  I then pushed and twisted the 2-piece adapter assembly over the 2″ conduit.  Using a short level I plumbed the riser pipe while eyeing its relationship to the post.  Holding the upper clamp over the pipe I secured the clamp with two screws but did not tighten the clamp all the way down.

RV electrical outlet box on top of riser post with level on top.

RV electrical outlet box on top of riser post with level on top.

I set the outlet box on top of the adapters and dropped the third piece through the hole from the inside but did not cement it in.  I used the level to plumb the box, checking it visually in relationship to the post and pipe, and then marked the three mounting holes with a marking pen.  I removed the adapter collar and box and then center-punched and drilled holes for three pan head wood screws.  I put the box and collar back on/in the pipe and secured it to the post with three pan head wood screws.  I then installed the removable panel with the outlet mounted in it.  I coiled up the extra rope, closed the cover, and was done except for getting all of the tools and materials back into the garage.

I checked on the thermometers in the bus refrigerator and recorded the readings.  I then decided to add a duplex AC outlet in the cabinet behind the driver’s seat.  I found a deep plastic single gang remodeling box, a brown duplex outlet, a brown oversized cover plate, and a 30″ length of 14-2+G cable.  I used the box to outline the opening and then completed the lines with a small square.  I drilled out the four corners of the opening with a 1/2″ drill.  I then cut out the opening using a saber saw, finishing some of the inside corners with a hacksaw.  I made quite a bit of sawdust and wood chips so I vacuumed up the mess before continuing with the installation.

The new AC outlet box (blue) installed in the front of the A/V cabinet behind the driver’s chair.

The new AC outlet box (blue) installed in the front of the A/V cabinet behind the driver’s chair.

I turned off the breaker in the inverter subpanel for the driver side AC outlets circuit and verified that the existing outlet was not energized.  I removed the cover plate, unscrewed the duplex outlet, and pulled it out.  I opened a second access hole on top of the outlet box and then prepared the cable by removing about 4″ of the sheath and stripping about 3/4″ of insulation off of the wires.  I fed the cable through the hole and connected the wires to the appropriate screw terminals.  I turned the outlet over so the round ground pins were at the top rather than the bottom, screwed the outlet back into the box, and put the cover plate back on.  I had hoped to finish the whole job before dinner but dinner was ready so I went inside to eat.

For dinner Linda made a salad and Garbanzo beans with onions and Swiss chard lightly sautéed in olive oil.  It probably had a little garlic and might have had a few hot pepper flakes as Linda often uses these ingredients, but I don’t know for sure as I am wrote this post two days later.

After dinner I finished installing the new outlet.  When I put the oversized cover plate on it appeared to be close enough to the top edge of the cabinet that it would interfere with the Corian top.  No big deal, I would just swap it with the regular size plate on the original outlet.  When I went to take the first cover plate off I noticed that one of the outlets was cracked in half horizontally.  I will have to replace it but did not feel like getting into that this evening with the light and my energy fading.

It had been a long day, and I was admittedly tired and contemplating an earlier than usual bedtime, so I locked up the bus and went into the house for the evening.  We turned in at 9 PM and were asleep by 10.

 

2015/10/19 (M) Flashless

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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.

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  

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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

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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.

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.

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 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 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.

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.

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.

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).

 

2015/10/13 (T) Desk Alignment

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I got up at 8 AM, put on my robe, made coffee, fed the cats, and refreshed their water fountain while Linda got dressed and washed blueberries to put in our granola.  We took our coffee to the living room where I turned on the fireplace and we were joined by our feline friends.  I put the finishing touches on yesterday’s post and e-mailed it to myself while Linda pulled up the latest video post from Dr. Michael Greger at NutritionFacts.org.

Linda left at 9:30 AM to meet Diane at Kensington Metropark for their weekly walk.  As this will probably be their last walk together until spring they planned to go to lunch afterwards.  While there was some work I could do by myself on the (permanent) installation of the desk there were other aspects of the job that would definitely require two people.  I needed to finish updating the roster for the FMCA Freethinkers chapter so I spent about 30 minutes reading the manual for the new Sony SLT-a99v camera and then got dressed and worked in my office for the rest of morning.

After a short lunch break I resumed working on the roster until Linda got home.  She and Diane had lunch at Baker’s in Milford as it is close to the Metropark parking lot where they meet.  We removed most of the things from the bus we were not currently using, many of which were stored in the sofa storage box.  We got the sofa seat off of the desk pedestals and set it back in place on the sofa base.

I wanted to use pieces of a 24″ X 30″ furnace filter to cover the various air inlets in the desk bases and the air outlets in the OTR HVAC duct.  The best way to hold the filter material in place appeared to be with some very strong tape.  We did not have any such tape on hand so Linda went to Lowe’s and bought a roll of Gorilla Tape while I cut pieces of filter material to fit the various openings.

The left desk base and passenger side OTR HVAC duct showing the pieces of furnace filter material used to seal these openings while permitting filtered airflow.

The left desk base and passenger side OTR HVAC duct showing the pieces of furnace filter material used to seal these openings while permitting filtered airflow.

We got all of the openings taped up but I still needed to fabricate two tongue and groove alignment devices between the pedestals and the center connector/cover.  I make these out of flat mending plates, one on the pedestal (tongue), and two on the connector/cover (groove).  The tongue is flat against the back side of the pedestal vertical board and protrudes about 1/2″ beyond the edge.  The groove is made from two plates, one stacked on top of the other, attached to the back side of the vertical connector/cover board.  The upper plate is just back from the edge of the board and the lower one (next to the wood) is offset from the edge a little more than 1/2”, just enough to create a space for the tongue.  The tongue and groove devices match two others lower down on the connector/cover.  All four of them are oriented vertically allowing the connector/cover to drop into place and force it to align with the matching pieces of the pedestals.  A pair of horizontal plates, one on each pedestal, provide a resting surface for the connector/cover that aligns it horizontally.

With the devices fabricated we were finally able to set the pedestals on the bases, drop the connector/cover in place, and align everything as if the entire desk was a single unit.  We then got the Corian desktop out of my car, brought it into the coach, and set it in place.  It will require some careful adjustments before we screw everything down but it basically fit properly and looked good.  Final positioning of the left pedestal and base, however, would require us to put the front HVAC duct cover in position.

We got the cover out of the library and into the bus for the first time since we brought it home from Jarel Beatty Cabinetry in Logansport, Indiana.  The length was perfect but the bump out where the heater hoses were originally going to loop through was too deep.    I suspect the mistake was in my design/drawings.  Jarel knew this piece was supposed to line up with the left pedestal and base but I no longer recall if he even had the desk pieces in his possession when he was building the cover.  At this point it didn’t matter anyway.  The misalignment is with the base and is not very visible.  Also, the bump out is screwed on to the main cover so it can eventually be removed and trimmed or replaced with one that has the correct dimensions.

Once we had the cover in place I realized that I also needed to fabricate and install alignment plates between the cover and the left pedestal.  I had not planned on this and did not have enough mending plates so we went to Lowe’s to buy more.  While we were there I bought another can of 40:1 premixed fuel and a bottle of bar and chain oil for the new Poulan Pro 18” chainsaw.  We stopped at Walmart to see if they stocked a particular folding chair made by Stakmore that we have seen online, but they did not.  We think it would work nicely as a desk chair, and go well with the interior materials and colors in our bus, but we would like to see one in the round before buying it.

Back home I worked on the alignment plates while Linda prepared dinner.  We had leftover lentil loaf, microwaved sweet potatoes, and a mix of steamed broccoli and Brussels sprouts.  She added a little water to the lentil loaf before reheating it to moisten it a bit.  We both like ketchup on our lentil loaf and I added some Pick-a-Poo sauce to mine.  All three dishes were served hot, which was comforting on a cool evening, and everything was very tasty including the cup of hot tea.

I returned to the bus after dinner and finished installing the mending plates on the HVAC duct cover.  I was not able to put it in place by myself, and there was no reason to have Linda come out and help at this hour, so I set the thermostats back and locked up the bus.

I called Butch and this time the call went through.  I updated him on the installation and testing of the fan-coil heat exchangers and asked him about the operation of our new refrigerator.  He suggested that I isolate the remote temperature sensors by using pieces of the furnace filter material to keep them from touching an objects or surfaces directly.  He and Fonda are wrapping up at the RV Park in Bouse and moving to Quartzsite on Thursday.  After we were done talking I worked on this post while we watched a few TV programs and then went to bed.

 

2015/10/12 (M) Countertops Plus

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I was up later than usual last night so I did not get up this morning until 8 AM.  I fed the cats but did not have breakfast or make coffee.  I put the ham radio antenna back on my car and reinstalled the control head and microphone.  I then reinstalled the GPS and the cellular booster.  I moved the front passenger seat forward, set the back all the way down, and the moved it back until it touched the passenger side rear seat, which I put down last night.  I got two 2x4s from the garage that were about seven feet long and set them on the reclined seats to serve as full length supports for the desk/counter top I was picking up today from Countertops Plus in Shipshewana, Indiana.

Linda got up at 8:30 AM and got a couple of blankets for me to use to protect the desktop and the tabletop once there were loaded in the car.  I made sure I had my checkbook, sunglasses, wallet, phone as well as the address and phone number for Countertops Plus.  It was a beautiful, clear, cool morning as I backed out of the driveway at 8:45 AM.

The GPS predicted I would arrive at 11:30 AM but tried to take me on a different route than the one I actually followed.  I followed my usual route, heading west on I-96 to Lansing and then south on I-69.  I stopped at the Shell station half way between Lansing and Charlotte but their pumps were all out of order.  (We encountered this same situation at our local Shell station on the way home from our ham radio club meeting last night.  We presumed they were out of fuel.)  I went to the BP station across the street and fueled my car.

I got off I-69 again at the Charlotte exit about 15 miles later and stopped at the Biggby’s coffee shop where I got a toasted bagel and a large coffee to go.  My coffee was 40% Biggby’s best (regular), 40% French roast (decaf), and 20% Michigan cherry (regular).  I was glad I did not use any more Michigan cherry than I did as the flavor is very strong and somewhat unpleasantly artificial.  Biggby’s is definitely not my favorite coffee but the location in Charlotte is about an hour into the trip to Indiana and conveniently located relative to the highway.

I stayed on I-69 as far as Coldwater and then headed west on US-12.  At Sturgis the GPS had me turn south on Centreville Road (M-66).  A few minutes later I crossed into Indiana and passed the Howe Military Academy in Howe.  I went west on IN-120 and then took several county roads before arriving at Countertops Plus at noon.

On the drive down I got a call from our mobile mechanic, Joe Cannarozzi.  He is tentatively coming to our house on Monday, November 1, to service the chassis and engine.

The office at Countertops Plus was unattended so I walked around the side and found owner Ferman Miller working in his shop.  He had me back up to one of the loading doors and helped me get the desk/counter top into the car and onto the pair of 2x4s.  He set the tabletop, which was much smaller, on one of the blankets on the floor in the rear.  I wrote a check for the balance (cash or check only, no credit cards) and got a receipt.  I set the GPS for home and headed back the way I came.

When I got back to Howe I got on the Indiana Toll Road going east and took it toI-69 where I exited and headed north.  I stopped at M-60 to have lunch and then drove across the street to the Shell station.  All of their pumps were also out of service so I drove back towards the highway entrance ramp and stopped at the BP station.  It appeared that whatever was affecting the Shell stations was widespread.  I got back on I-69 north at 1:30 PM and the GPS said I would be home in approximately 90 minutes.

The beautiful blue skies of the morning were becoming more and more obscured by clouds the farther north I traveled.  It had been breezy all day and that continued but with reduced intensity.  It was almost completely overcast by the time I got home.  I did not stop again and pulled in the driveway around 3 PM.  I backed the car in front of the bus and unloaded my personal affects.  We inspected and measured the desktop and table and were satisfied that they were the correct size and shape.  The plywood base was not exactly as I had specified it but the deviations will not prevent the desk from being assembled correctly or be visible.

While I was away Linda had removed the remaining wallpaper in the cockpit of the bus and made a trip to J. C. Penney’s at Twelve Oaks Mall in Novi to look for new privacy curtains for the front of the bus.  I was not in the mood to change into work clothes and needed to work on FMCA Freethinkers chapter roster and financial statements so I went to my office.  After cleaning up my desk and checking e-mail I got down to business.

Linda called me up to dinner at 6 PM.  We had a nice salad, Amy’s Spanish Rice and Bean soup, crackers with peanut butter and strawberry preserves, and watermelon.  We got a few raindrops on the rear deck while we were eating even though the probability of rain was near zero.  The weather is changing this week from mild and dry to cooler and a little wetter, with our first sub-freezing overnight low temperature forecasted for this coming weekend.  Cooler weather means more soup, which is fine by me.  It also means more mornings with the fireplace on while we enjoy our coffee; also fine by me.

I made progress on the Freethinkers chapter records but did not get done.  We watched a few TV shows on the big TV set in the basement; Big Bang Theory, Scorpion, and NCIS Los Angeles.  I did finalize plans for our visit with Bill, Karen, Mike, and Catherine at the Jellystone RV Park in Frankenmuth on Wednesday.  I also managed to get an e-mail off to Lou letting him know that the new camera had arrived.  We went to bed at 11 PM, put on the Create channel from the Detroit PBS affiliate (WTVS), and watched travel and cooking shows while I worked on this post.  Around midnight I thought I heard it raining but did not get up to check.

 

2015/10/11 (N) Now Heat This

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I guess we were tired after having Madeline at our house for 23 hours.  We slept in until after 8 AM and it was going on 9 by the time the coffee was brewed and we sat down to breakfast.  I really needed to attend to some paperwork for our FMCA Freethinkers chapter but was also eager to get deeper into the manual for the new Sony a99v camera.  I installed the PDF manual onto my laptop yesterday from the CD-ROM that came with the camera and then e-mailed it go my iPad2 so I could read it conveniently.

HL – Jasper, our mackerel tabby male cat, allows himself to be photographed on the living room floor. You wouldn’t know it from this photo, but he is actually a very sweet animal ad a real joy to have in our household.

Jasper, our mackerel tabby male cat, allows himself to be photographed on the living room floor. You wouldn’t know it from this photo, but he is actually a very sweet animal ad a real joy to have in our household.

Other than the time, date, and date format I have not adjusted any of the default settings or experimented with the camera’s many functions.  I have taken a few photos just to make sure it works but I do not want to start generating a lot of image files until I have made decisions about basic things like folder naming conventions and “normal” shooting modes and settings.  I did, however, enable a “rule of thirds” grid on the viewfinder screen.

Linda worked on our personal accounting and then prepared the treasurer’s report for our amateur radio club meeting this evening.  I took a break from reading the camera manual to research the availability of some accessories on the B&H Photo website.

The electric cable release for my old Minolta 9000 SLR film cameras works with the a100 so it may work with the a99v too.  If not, newer remotes are available, including wireless ones that are not too expensive.  I found the angle finder but it is discontinued.  With the adjustable LCD screen in the back of the camera the angle finder isn’t really necessary but would have been a nice accessory just the same.  I am also looking for a case and/or a photographer’s vest and/or a chest harness/holder.  The a99v with the vertical grip and a telephoto lens is a substantial piece of equipment, both in size and weight, and the chest harness/holder would support that weight more comfortably and securely than a neck strap.  I found several interesting things but not exactly what I had in mind.

By the time Linda finished her accounting tasks I was dressed to work.  First up was the hydronic heating system in our bus.  I got four pieces of 2×4, each about four feet long, and two pieces of 2×12 about 16″ long.  I put a pair of 2x4s under each desk base and inserted one of the 2x12s between the 2x4s and the base.  That raised each base three inches which was enough to ensure that the heater hoses attached to the lower fitting on each heat exchanger sloped slightly downward back towards the main unit.

The hose that connects the two heat exchangers together in series is attached to the top fitting on each one.  Half way between the exchangers is a T with the bull branch pointing up.  A ball valve with a waste port is attached to the branch.  While Linda held the valve higher than anything else in the system I opened the valve and used a small funnel to slowly pour in antifreeze.  When the lines and exchangers appeared to be full I closed the valve, turned on the thermostat for that loop, and turned it up to cause the circulating pump to come on.  I let the pump run for a few minutes and then turned it off.  Again with Linda elevating the valve I opened it and added a little more antifreeze.  I ran the pump again for a few minutes and shut it off.  This time the coolant was still right at the valve so I shut it and Linda set it down.

It was now time for “the big test.”  In order to be able to see if there were any leaks, and catch any coolant if there were, we put heavy duty paper shop towels under all six of the clamped connections where the heater hose went over 3/4″ copper as well as under the soldered joints of the T and valve.  I opened the water bay on the passenger side, where the Aqua-Hot is installed, checked the coolant level in the expansion tank, and made sure the paper cup was positioned under the overflow tube.  The level of coolant in the expansion tank was just above Minimum Cold.  With everything in order I turned on the Aqua-Hot burner and then turned the front zone thermostat back on.  I also turned on the thermostats for the bathroom and bedroom zones to cause coolant to circulate through those loops.

There are quite a few gallons of antifreeze in the hydronic heating system and even on a mild day such as today (temperature just above 70 degrees F) it takes a while to heat it up to the 170 degrees required to shut off the diesel burner.  I kept checking the hoses by the fill valve and the expansion tank.  When the hoses were warm and the level of the coolant had risen 1/2″ in the expansion tank I cracked open the waste port on the fill valve.  I got a tiny, short hiss and then coolant came out so I quickly closed it.  It appeared that our method for filling the system and bleeding the air out had worked as intended, and there was no evidence of any leaks.

I left the Aqua-Hot on until it shut off on its own.  The expansion tank was near full at this point and I topped it up.  As the system cools down the coolant will contract in volume and some of the coolant in the expansion tank will be drawn back into the main chamber.  It’s important that there is more coolant in the expansion tank than the amount that will be drawn in or air will get drawn in instead.  I buttoned up the coach and turned to my next task.

I removed the chain from the new Poulan Pro 18” chain saw since I completely dulled it trying to cut through a tree root.  As long as the cover, chain, and bar were off I cleaned up the motor unit as best I could.  Oil impregnated sawdust is tenacious stuff.  I put the new chain on the bar and attached them to the motor, making sure the chain was oriented correctly.  I topped up the bar and chain oil reservoir and topped off the fuel tank.

It took several trips to get the 7′ step ladder, pole saw, compound lopping shears, hand tree saw, and chain saw back to the apple tree.  I noticed yesterday that one of the main branches coming off the trunk about 3′ above the ground was dead.  The bark was missing and the smaller limbs were brittle.  The bark looked like it might have been chewed away by deer but I wasn’t sure.  All I knew is that it was dead.

I started with the pole saw and worked from the ladder to cut off the limbs that extended far up into the tree.  Once I had those detached and pulled out of the tree I started the chainsaw and used it to cut off the larger branches as I worked my way down towards the main trunk.  I gathered all of the smaller material into a pile and then gathered the larger pieces together.  I used the largest piece as a sawbuck to support the other pieces as I de-limbed them and cut them into four foot lengths.  I then cut up a large pine tree limb that has been sitting on the ground under the apple tree for quite a while.  I used the pole saw and loppers to trim off a few other small branches and the carried all of the tools back to the garage.  It was 3 PM by the time I got everything put away.  I was done with physical work for the day so I got a much needed shower and got dressed appropriately for our meeting later.

The apple tree is still in need of serious pruning if it us to survive and bear useful fruit.  It particular it needs to be “topped.”  It is too tall overall, especially in the center, and much of the fruit is growing up there where the sunlight is good but it cannot be reached either by us or by the deer.  We have been putting deadwood in the firepit all summer and, more recently, on the disposal pile, where it goes mostly depending on what part of the yard the tree was in when it fell or got cut down.  In the case of the apple tree it occurred to me that Applewood is prized for the smoke it produces when grilling so I may stack it up, let it continue to dry, and perhaps rent a chipper next year to turn it into something useful.

We had breakfast later than usual, and skipped lunch, so we ate dinner at 4:30 PM, which was earlier than usual.  Dinner was lentil loaf, baked potato, and steamed broccoli, a simple but healthy and tasty meal.

On Friday I exchanged a few text messages with Josh at Coach Supply Direct regarding our desktop and table.  The net result was that his schedule had changed and he was not going to be able to get our desktop and table from Countertops Plus in Shipshewana, Indiana and deliver them to us for over a week, at the earliest.  He had also planned to bring some extra clips for our MCD shades and look at the wiring on the front passenger seat 6-way power base.  Those last two items were not critical but we are ready to install the desk once we have the desktop and cannot afford to wait another week and a half to get it.  I called and left a message for Ferman Miller to let him know I would be driving down tomorrow morning to pick them up.  I then worked on this post until 5:30 PM when I stopped to reinstall the antenna, radio, and GPS in my car.

We left at 5:45 PM for our monthly SLAARC meeting and shortly thereafter heard Mike (W8XH) on the South Lyon 2m repeater.  I replied to his call and we had a QSO that lasted almost all the way to our meeting site, where we arrived within a minute of one another.

We socialized with fellow club members from 6:30 PM until Harvey (AC8NO) called the business meeting to order just after 7 PM.  The club secretary was absent so I took the minutes.  The business meeting lasted less than 10 minutes and was followed by a presentation on APRS by Eric (K8ERS).  I gave Mike (W8XH) a check for the Icom IC-2820H dual band radio that has been in my car since early summer.

As I said at the beginning, I really needed to update the FMCA Freethinkers roster and financial reports and make them available this evening.  Well, sometimes things don’t happen just because they need too.  Today was just too perfect a day to waste it sitting inside at a computer and by the time we got home from our meeting I did not feel like starting this task.  I will try to make this a priority tomorrow evening, but each day is an adventure and I have to be agile in dealing with the myriad tasks that lay before me, including ones that appear unexpectedly.

 

2015/10/09 (F) All Charged Up

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We finished the current batch of granola for breakfast and had just finished our meal when Chris, from Bratcher Electric, showed up at 8:45 AM to service the whole house generator.  He let me watch and explained the various steps in the process.  The trickiest part appeared to be replacing the spark plug on the back side of the engine.  Everything else was fairly accessible.  There is a 1/4 turn valve to drain the oil and a rubber tube to get it out to a collection vessel.

Chris had what looked like a small gas can but it was painted blue.  It had a clear plastic tube attached to what would normally be the air vent.  The tube was sized to just fit inside the oil drain hose.  A vacuum pump was threaded on to opening where the pour spout would normally go.  A few pumps of the handle and the device sucked the oil right out of the engine and contained it so he could transport it easily and cleanly.  It was a very clever device, and obviously very handy for someone who does several generator maintenance procedures every day.

He gapped the spark plugs at 0.028″, checked the air filter (it was fine), replaced the oil filter, noting the date on the filter with a permanent marker, and put ~2-1/3 quarts of 5W-30 synthetic oil back in the engine.  He cautioned me to only use the specified filter and pure synthetic oil.  The engine runs hot under load and regular oil can lead to problems.  He checked all of the settings and changed the weekly self-test to run at full speed for the entire time.  He prefers that setting as it gets the engine up to normal operating temperature and helps burn off any moisture in the oil.  He started the unit manually, let it run for a while, and then shut it down and put in back in AUTO mode.

Linda prepared the dry ingredients for her vegan chocolate cupcakes and then put together a grocery list.  She left to go to Meijer’s while Chris was still working.  He finished up around 10:15.  I worked on the bus, using split plastic wire loom to protect the wires that power the fans on the heat exchangers.  I then worked on reconnecting the wires from the front bay electric heater to the supply wires.

A close up view of the fill/bleeder valve assembly for the heat exchangers in the desk bases.

A close up view of the fill/bleeder valve assembly for the heat exchangers in the desk bases.

The supply wires run inside the HVAC duct.  They originally came out of the duct and went through a hole in the floor into the OTR air-conditioning bay and then through the partition wall into the front bay.  I had to cut the cable and pull it through the floor from underneath so I could install the new floor tile.  I could clearly see where the OTR HVAC supply duct came into the distribution duct but when I tried drilling from below I seemed to hit metal.   The bottom of the duct was clearly plywood so I drilled from above with a 1/2″ spade bit.  I got through most of the plywood but again seem to hit metal.  I knew there wasn’t anything in that location, like wires, pipes, or air lines, so I switched to a 1/2″ twist drill and finished the hole.

I dropped a screwdriver through the hole so I could locate it from below.  I then pushed the electrical cable from the heater up through the hole and secured it to a fastener on the forward wall with a cable tie.  Linda got back at this point so I helped get the groceries into the house.  She then mixed a new batch if granola and put it in the oven to bake.  I gathered up my electrical tools, uncapped the feed wires, checked them with a volt meter to make sure they were not energized, connected the feed wires to the load wires, and tucked them back inside the duct.

We had a choice as to what to work on next—fill the heat exchangers and hoses with antifreeze or hang the wallpaper in the hallway—so we had lunch.  Summer has passed, but tofu hotdogs with mustard, onion, and relish, along with some red grapes, was still a tasty lunch.

When we got back to work in the coach we decided to hang the wallpaper.  The pieces were already cut and laid out on the bed.  Hanging them not only got them off the bed, it would allow us to get the wood trim off the bed as well and back on the lower wall.  But not today.  The wallpaper adhesive needs to cure for 24 hours before we work around it and does not achieve its full cure for 5 to 7 days.  We have one piece of wallpaper to hang behind the forward end of the sofa but the wall prep is not finished in that area.  Once that piece is up, and we have the Corian top for the desk, we can complete the installation of the desk and sofa.

Shawna was bringing Madeline at 4:30 PM to spend the night with us.  It was already 2:30 and I needed to get cleaned up and put on non-work clothes before they arrived so we called it a day.  I had once again accumulated quite a few tools in the bus.  I gathered up all of the ones I was done with, returned them to the garage, and locked up the coach.  The UPS truck showed up with my package from B&H Photo which I set aside temporarily while I took a shower and got dressed.

The box looked like it had been treated well in shipment.  I opened the box, carefully removed all of the contents, and compared them to the order/packing list.  Everything was there and appeared to be in pristine condition.  I unwrapped the battery charger and Lithium ion battery, put the battery in the charger, and plugged it in.  The new charger is essentially the same as the one that came with my Sony alpha 100 years ago so I got the old one from the basement.  I bought five additional batteries so I opened one of them and plugged it in to the old charger.  I then found the Instruction Manual and curled up with it on the living room sofa while Juniper (the cat) curled up on me.

The directions with the charger and the batteries indicated that it can take up to 175 minutes to fully recharge a battery and that full charge is not obtained until an hour after the charging light goes out.  So, basically, I need to leave the batteries in the charger for three hours to ensure they are fully charged.  The camera takes one battery, and the vertical grip accessory takes two batteries, so my normal operating configuration will be to have three batteries in the use.  That’s why I have a total of six batteries for this new camera.  I will probably buy another charger so I can charge three batteries simultaneously.

I called Chuck to let him know I got my car back late yesterday but would not be able to move the windshields box until sometime next week.  It turned out that he and Barbara were also busy all weekend.  His daughter, son-in-law, and grandson were in town with more family arriving from Trinidad and Tobago this evening.  Tomorrow is his grandson’s first birthday and Sunday he is being baptized at the church in Ann Arbor where Chuck’s daughter was married.

Shawna showed up just after 4:30 PM.  Madeline had fallen asleep in the car and was slow to wake up, clinging to her mom for quite a while.  Linda brought in the various bags of clothes and toys along with the inflatable bed and got everything situated in the middle bedroom.  When Linda mentioned making cupcakes Madeline finally woke up and became cheerful.  Once her focus was on baking with Grandma Linda Shawna was able to slip away without any drama on Ms. M’s part.

Today was Brendan and Shawna’s friend Jorge’s birthday and the three of them were headed to a new restaurant in Detroit to celebrate.  The restaurant does not take reservations and is apparently very popular at the moment so Shawna was not sure if they would actually get to eat there.

With Linda’s help Madeline mixed the ingredients for the cupcakes and managed to pour most of the batter into the baking tray.  Linda then prepared dinner while I played with Madeline.  We did the ABCs on her placemat, and then colored with crayons.  Dinner was mock chicken tenders, edamame, and steamed carrot rounds with fresh orange segments and sliced strawberries, so it was mostly fresh, whole plant-based foods.

As soon as the cupcakes were cool enough to be frosted Madeline coated each one with the special Halloween orange frosting and the back and orange Halloween sprinkles.  I was summoned to inspect the work and then it was time to eat.  Madeline selected a cupcake for herself and then one for me and one for Linda.  We ate them at the table and they were very good.

After cupcakes we played soccer with two different balls, kicking and throwing them all around the house.  By 8 PM we needed to start winding things down.  Shawna had left her iPad and Madeline selected a Curious George video about Christmas.  Linda and Madeline climbed up in our bed where they could stretch out their legs and watched the first 60% of the cartoon.  I opened two more camera batteries and put them in the chargers and then joined the girls.  We will watch the rest of the cartoon tomorrow morning.

I helped Madeline brush her teeth and Linda got her into her pajamas.  Linda read her several stories and finally got her in bed around 9:15 PM.  During dinner Madeline inquired about having pancakes for breakfast.  (I had made the same inquiry over lunch.)  Linda did not have all of the ingredients she needed so after Madeline went to bed I went to Meijer’s in Howell and bought avocado oil and all-purpose flour.  Linda is trying to use up ingredients rather than stock up on them so I bought a two pound bag of King Arthur organic unbleached enriched all-purpose flour even though I could have bought a 10 pound bag of the Meijer’s brand (bleached and not organic) for only 50 cents more.

Just before going to bed I opened two more batteries and put them in the chargers.  We went to bed at 11 PM but did not turn on the TV to ensure that we did not disturb Madeline’s sleep.  I was basically done with the draft of this post and read some more of the Instruction Manual for my new Sony alpha 99 (SLT-A99V) camera and vertical battery grip (VG-C99AM).  I am really looking forward to using this new equipment but it takes a couple of days to charge batteries, install software, and read manuals enough to be able to configure it for first use.  This class of camera has a lot of adjustable parameters with default settings that may or may not be what any particular user wants.

 

2015/10/08 (R) A Mighty Hose

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

2015/10/07 (W) The Root Cause

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We had Linda’s homemade granola for breakfast with fresh blueberries.  Berry season is just about over for the year and they will become more expensive as they have to be transported from farther away.  I made a pot of Sweet Seattle Dreams, the half-caff blend that Jeff makes just for us, and we drank it in the living room.  Linda checked in on the world and pulled up the latest video from NutritionFacts.org while I researched hardwood veneers on Rockler.com.

After breakfast and coffee I called Metro Environmental Services to arrange to have the culvert under the road cleaned out.  They were able to schedule us for this afternoon so I accepted that appointment.  I then called Brighton Honda to check on my car and left a message for Rob, the service advisor who wrote up the repair for the driver side door lock.  I had no sooner left that message than I got a call from Karen at Bratcher Electric.

Mike had worked up the quote to install the 100 Amp disconnect, tie it into the output of the transfer switch, and run a 100 Amp 4-wire service entrance cable to the current sub-panel, making it into a main panel.  They would also disconnect and cap the current sub-panel feed from the basement as part of the work.  At just north of $1,300 it was a good $300 higher than I expected.  My expectation, however, was not based on anything specific other than my own sense of the cost of materials and the amount of labor that might be involved, plus a desire for it to not cost more than $1,000.  🙁

With the phone calls taken care of we worked in the bus for the rest of the morning.  Linda worked on stripping the remnants of wallpaper that remained after we removed the mirrors from the lower outside hallway wall yesterday.  I worked on re-routing the heater hoses for the fan-coil heat exchangers.  She got her job done before I got mine done.  That’s usually the way it is.

To start, I removed one of the old 4″ round plastic grates and used my inspection mirror and a flashlight to examine the inside of the HVAC duct.  What I discovered was that the two heater hoses were secured periodically with plastic cable clamps to the outer wall of the HVAC duct.  I also discovered that the metal part of the duct is just the inner wall and top.  The bottom is the plywood subfloor of the bus and the outer wall is the plywood wall.  As originally built the metal portion of the duct could be removed but when Royale Coach did the conversion they built cabinets around the ducts and put wood wiring chases on top of them in such a way that they can no longer be removed without partially disassembling the coach.

The location of the hoses and wires in the duct was such that I could safely use my 4″ bi-metal hole saw to cut access holes for the hoses.  I determined where the cable clamps were located by measuring inside the duct.  I then marked where the access slots in the bottom back of the bases would be located and determined where I needed the two hoses to emerge from the duct.

The manual sheet metal nibbler used to cut a line between the bottoms of the two holes in the HVAC duct.

The manual sheet metal nibbler used to cut a line between the bottoms of the two holes in the HVAC duct.

There was already a 4″ hole at one of my needed locations so I drilled a second one next to it with an inch in-between.  I used Chuck’s hand powered sheet metal nibbler to connect the holes together to make an opening that looked like the track around a football field.  We vacuumed up the metal chips and I then installed door edge molding all the way around the edge of the opening.  I was able to reach the screws holding the first pair of cable clamps with a #2SR screwdriver and remove them.  This large slot will be behind the left end of the center connecting cover of the desk and the hose for the heat exchanger that goes in the left base will come out of it.

 

Plastic U-channel door edge molding installed around the new heater hose opening.

Plastic U-channel door edge molding installed around the new heater hose opening.

The location of the next pair of cable clamps corresponded, roughly, to where I needed the hose for the right heat exchanger to emerge.  I drilled two 4″ holes, side-by-side, at that location and nibbled out the little bit of metal in-between them to make a second slot.  Again, I installed the door edge molding around the entire edge.  The molding was a tight fit, and I had to use a screwdriver to get it to go on the inner curves, but I got it on.  The U-channel is locked in mechanically and has adhesive in it so it should stay put once it has had a few days in place.  Once the hoses are re-routed I will put screen material, and perhaps some solid plates, over the openings to prevent critters from gaining access to the living area by way of the HVAC PCTS (Prevost Critter Tunnel System).

 

The access holes in the OTR HVAC duct in the area behind where the desk will be installed.

The access holes in the OTR HVAC duct in the area behind where the desk will be installed.

Linda had two medical appointments this afternoon, both routine diagnostic procedures, so she got cleaned up, changed her clothes, and left around 12:30 PM as I was finishing up the second slot.  I went inside and was thinking about making something for lunch when the doorbell rang.  It was our mail carrier, Michelle, with a package that was too big for the mailbox.  A few minutes later the doorbell rang again.  I figured it was Michelle again, but it was one of the guys from Metro Environmental Services.  They were supposed to call first but just showed up.

I put my shoes on and walked them down to the clogged culvert that goes under the road.  I was really hoping they could clean it out from the south side but when we went into the woods we could not see the end of the culvert.  They got a metal detector and located the end of the pipe.  It was almost completely buried and had a massive root running right in front of it from a very large nearby tree.  They got a shovel and dug out around the root, exposing much of it and the end of the pipe.

The tree was probably 30″ in diameter at the base and the root was at least 10″ in diameter.  I got my (new) 18″ chain saw but had trouble getting it started.  It turned out it was out of gasoline.  Once I got it started I tried to cut through the root on either side of the culvert.  I thought I was all the way through on one end (closest to the tree) and most of the way through on the other end, but the root would not budge.  I dulled the teeth on the chain to the point where the saw would no longer cut and did not want to take the time to put a new chain on just to ruin it quickly.  The guys finally agreed to hydrojet the culvert from the north side of the road.

The actual cleaning out of the culvert did not take that long.  The pump produces 2,000 PSI and they used about 300 gallons of water from the onboard tank on their truck.  The head on the end of the hose has one forward facing nozzle and many rear/side facing nozzles.  The forward facing nozzle loosens and cleans out the area directly in front of the head while the other nozzles force the head forward and blast whatever is in the pipe back out towards the entrance.

They started with a small head and ran it in until there was water coming out the other end of the culvert.  They then pulled the hose back and switched to a much larger head and ran that all the way through and back.  When they were done muddy water filled the culvert and the depressions on either end.  On the inlet end the water was only about 3″ deep in the bottom of the culvert but on the outlet end it was near the top.  They billed me for the minimum first hour amount even though I think they were here longer than that.

I called Phil to let him know what we had run into.  He was surprised, to say the least, as he thought he had checked the other end of the culvert.  Obviously not, but that’s water under the road, so to speak.  Besides the problems with the root and the discharge end of the culvert being below the surface, it looked to me like the discharge area was something of a low spot and it was not obvious to me where water would flow from there.  I have learned, however, that I am not very good at judging such things visually.

Cory, our neighbor across the street, had come over to see what was going on.  He offered that the discharge area does, in fact, drain to the south through his property and eventually to Golf Club Road.  Cory has been here for 30 years so I have no reason to doubt the truth of that.  The elevation where Golf Club ends at Hacker and where our street ends at Hacker appears to be about the same.  Our street is fairly level while Golf Club has a little bit of up and down, but it is subtle.  I suggested to Phil that we might have to clear a path into the woods for his small digger and do some trenching to give the water a way out.

While Cory and I were chatting I noticed that the trees along this part of the road were hanging out over the road on both sides and were rather lower than they should be.  This is the very thing I complain about with regards to the way most of our neighbor’s fail to maintain their properties along the road.  I decided I should do something about it so I got our pole saw and spent a couple of hours trimming the low overhanging branches.

Linda went to the Whole Foods Market in West Bloomfield following her medical appointments and got home just as I was finishing up the pruning.  She went for a walk while I called John Palmer of Palmer Energy Systems in Florida.  I bought our Magnum inverter/charger for the bus from John along with various accessories and batteries.  I needed a 4-wire terminal block for our Magnum Battery Monitor Kit (BMK) because I had messed up the one that came with it when I originally installed it.  John confirmed that Magnum Energy had recently been acquired by Sensata, and was in the process of relocating the plant to Minnesota, but that several of the old-timers were still on board.  John needed to talk to Tom anyway and asked me to call him back in a week to see if he was able to get the connector.

I checked with the service department at Brighton Honda again and Rob said he expected to get the new door lock mechanism back from the locksmith tomorrow morning and to have the car ready for me to pick up by the end of the day.  It will be nice to finally have it back.

The cloudy weather finally broke today and we saw some blue sky with brighter light levels than we have had recently.  The day was lovely but a little on the cool side by late afternoon so we both had a cup of hot tea.  Linda took advantage of the light to work on her counted cross-stitch project, a holiday stocking for grand-daughter Madeline, and I went back to the bus to sand off the last traces of the old wallpaper from the outside wall in the hallway.

I used our Porter-Cable 1/4 sheet palm sander with 80, 120, and finally 220 grit sandpaper.  The sander has an integral dust collection bag but it does not capture all of the dust.  I used the vacuum cleaner to pick up as much of the residual dust as I could and then used a tack cloth to wipe down the wall.

For dinner Linda made pan-grilled tofu with caramelized onions in sweet barbecue sauce.  She served it open-faced on rye bread, because that is what we had, and steamed some fresh green beans as a side dish.  Yum.

After dinner I drove to Lowe’s.  I needed something I could use to plug the two heater hoses to keep them from leaking as I pull them back through the HVAC duct and out through the new slots I made for them today.  I ended up buying two 3/4″ barbed plastic plugs.  While I was there I looked to see if they had any bleeder valves but they did not.  They do not sell parts designed specifically for hydronic heating systems and I will have to go to Northwest Plumbing and Supply for such items.

While I was in the plumbing isle I looked to see if I could figure out some combination of parts to make a fill valve for the system but did not see anything that inspired me.  I would love to have one or more high point expansion tanks on this system but I do not have any easily accessible places for them from which I could also run overflow drain lines.  There is a good sized volume of unused space behind the drawers on the passenger side of the bedroom but it would be a very difficult place to install anything.  Perhaps Northwest Plumbing and Supply will have something.

On the way home I stopped at the BP station and topped up the fuel tank in Linda’s car.  I drove home with greater consideration for fuel economy than usual and managed to get the average MPG up to 56.7 before it dropped back to 55.4 as I pulled in the driveway.  It will drop into the upper 40s as soon as Linda starts the engine tomorrow morning but it was fun to get it into the driveway with numbers above 55 MPG.

 

2015/10/06 (T) Trimming & Stripping

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We did not get an early start to our day today.  I got up a little after 8 AM and Linda got up 15 minutes later.  Even so, she still had our granola and berries ready before I had the coffee made, but in my defense I had the extra step of transferring the three pounds of coffee we bought yesterday from their paper bags to our metal containers with the air-tight lids.  We were wondering about whether grapes are berries so Linda Googled the topic.  Botanically, grapes are berries but strawberries and raspberries are not.  Also included among the “true” berries are bananas, tomatoes, cucumbers, and eggplants.  That’s right, tomatoes, cucumbers, and eggplants are fruits.

Linda left at 9:30 AM to meet Diane at Kensington Metropark for a 10 AM walk.  Mike from Bratcher Electric showed up at 10:30 to revisit the wiring project I needed his company to do.  They are going to install a 100 Amp disconnect switch next to the transfer switch in the southwest corner of the garage, run power to the disconnect switch from the transfer switch, and then run a 4-wire service entrance cable (SEC) from the disconnect switch through the garage attic to the electrical distribution panel in the closet with the HVAC system for the library.  The electrical panel is currently a 60 A sub-panel of the main distribution panel in the basement and this project will convert it to a 100 A main panel while still allowing it to be powered by the generator if the utility power goes out.

When Mike left I gathered up the two metal cutting tools I borrowed from Chuck, our corded 1/2″ Craftsman drill (which I needed to power one of the nibblers), the small Rigid drill kit, and my telescoping inspection mirror.  My plan was to cut one or two openings in the passenger side HVAC duct for the heater hoses but I decided to do some yard work instead.

We still had some bushes growing out over the drainage ditch by the mailbox and I wanted to get them trimmed up and add the waste material to the timber pile before Phil hauled it away tomorrow (hopefully).  I was still working on this little distraction when Linda got back from her walk so she got a pair of gloves and helped.  The bushes and trees in this area have an extensive system of vines running through them.  I got a lot of the smaller vines cut and pulled free and I managed to trim one bush back enough to create an “entrance” to the inner part of this stand of trees.

Once I was “inside” the grove I found one of the main sources of the vine, a massive thing that looked like something out of a Harry Potter movie.  It was easily 10″ in diameter where it came out of the ground and had 4″ to 6″ pieces branching off in different directions.  I have no idea what kind of vine this but I suspect it is a wild grape vine.  Given its size I surmised that it has been there for a very long time gradually chocking off the trees.  I will have to eventually cut it out, but I would like to find out first just exactly what it is.

Linda helped drag all of the clippings over to the disposal pile where we cut some of them into smaller pieces before adding them to the pile.  We noticed a small tree hanging out into the space above the driveway that Phil is about to build.  We thought the tree was dead and decided to cut it down.  It was 5″ in diameter 6″ above the ground–big enough to require the chain saw–and also had a lot of branches that were large enough to be more expeditiously dispatched with said same machine.

After felling the tree and de-limbing it I was not so sure that it was dead.  We had a half dozen other trees along the northern edge of this stand woods that looked to be similarly dead but I decided not to cut them down.  One in particular had a lot of obviously new, small branches.  We will wait until spring and see which, if any, of these trees develop leaves.  If they are alive I will trim them instead of cutting them down.

We put away the yard tools and took a break to have a light, late lunch of vegan cold cuts sandwiches and black grapes with a glass of beet juice.  I like beets on salads and as a side vegetable.  Beet juice is OK but a bit more of an acquired taste.  We have added it into our daily food plans because of its ability to control blood pressure.  Linda is adding ground flax seed to her granola for the same reason.

Measuring and cutting wallpaper on the dining room table in the house.

Measuring and cutting wallpaper on the dining room table in the house.

At 2 PM we decided to hang the wallpaper in the hallway of the bus so we gathered all of our tools and took them to the coach.  I measured the wall and determined the lengths (30″) and widths of the four pieces; two full width (26.5″) and two partial width (15.5″), one for the left end and one for the right end.  We cut the four pieces on the dining room table in the house where we could unroll over six feet of wallpaper, measure more accurately, and cut more easily.  We cut the two full pieces out of the end of the first double roll and cut the two partial pieces out of the beginning of a new double roll.

Linda took the pieces to the bus and laid them out on the bed.  I was getting ready to pour some GH-95 paste into the tray and roll it onto the wall when I decided to remove the trim board that separates the upper wall from the vertical mirror strips on the lower wall.  My intent was to avoid having to trim the bottom edge of the wallpaper by tucking it behind this board.  What I discovered was that the strip mirrors on the lower portion of the wall were glued to the wallpaper and some of them were loose.

The fact that the mirrors were glued to wallpaper and not to the plywood wall surface meant that they could be removed.  I unscrewed the four vertical pieces of wood trim that framed the mirrors in three panels and then removed the bottom trim piece.  I carefully removed each mirror by prying the underlying wallpaper loose from the wall using a large screwdriver and working from the top down.  When the entire strip was loose I cut the wallpaper to release it.  I handed them to Linda and she stored them carefully inside the built-in sofa.  I managed to get all of them off except one which fractured in several places.  We taped it up and vacuumed up the few glass fragments that were created when it broke.

At this point we were clearly not going to hang the four pieces of wallpaper we just cut as we needed to finish stripping the base layer of the old wallpaper first.  We also had to take a little time to decide how to finish the lower wall.  One option would be to wallpaper the entire wall and not put the wood trim back.  We probably have enough wallpaper to do that, even after cutting the four smaller pieces for the upper wall, but we did not think the wall would look right if we did that.

Another option would be to install wood panels to replace the mirror strips.  In this case we would use a light wood with a natural finish to provide an intentional contrast with all of the walnut trim.  The mirror strips are slightly beveled on their long edges and measure 3/16″ thick at those edges.  That means a 3/16″ hardwood veneered plywood should be a perfect fit, allowing all of the wood trim to go back in place.  Maple or Birch with a natural finish are the most likely choices.

The wood panels is the option we will almost certainly pursue and we do not have to resolve exactly what panels to use in order to finish wallpapering the upper part of the wall.  All told this will push our finish date back a couple of days, but we don’t really have a finish date anyway, and we will like the final result a lot better.  We really do not like the strip mirrors and wish we could remove or cover all of them.

It was only 4:30 PM when we quit working in the bus for the day but we had both had a relatively physical day and were ready to quit.  The lighting in the hallway was also a little dim due to the continuing heavy cloud cover which was having the added effect of lowering our energy level and enthusiasm a bit.

My last couple of e-mails to Lou Petkus of the SKP Photographers BoF had gone unanswered so I called Lou to make sure everything was OK.  It was; he and Val have just been very busy.  We know about busy.  We had a nice chat about cameras and RVing plans for the upcoming winter.

Linda always puts nice dinner meals on the table and tonight was no different.  She halved and cored a white acorn squash and baked it in the oven with a little vegan butter and brown sugar.  She had a few Brussels sprouts left over and some baby carrots so she added onions and sautéed them to make a very good vegetable medley.  Finally, she heated a package of mock chicken in orange sauce.  The trio of dishes was not only tasty but lifted my spirits; not that either of us are down, but the weather has been heavily overcast for several days and had a slightly depressing effect on our moods.

I got a call from Phil after dinner updating me on his availability to work on our driveway and French drain project.  The 2-day job he started yesterday morning is probably going to take him the entire week to finish so there is very little chance we will see him back at work on our project before next Monday.  He did, however, find time to call a company that can hydrojet the culvert under our road and find out their pricing.  He gave me the name and phone number and I will call them tomorrow and try to set something up.  The other upside is that we have more time to pull dead trees out of the woods in front of our house, cut them up, and add them to the disposal pile, if we so choose.

Linda’s favorite TV shows are concentrated on Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday evenings so we watched NCIS and NCISNOLA followed by an episode of LIMITLESS, just to see what it was like.  I watched Two and a Half Men, which I happen to find very amusing, and then went to sleep.

 

2015/10/05 (M) Pondering Wallpaper

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I woke up to stay at 7:20 AM, got up shortly thereafter, and got dressed to work.  Today was finally wallpapering day.  I fed the cats and refilled the reservoir on their recirculating water dish.  Linda was still sound asleep, and I suspected that she did not sleep well last night, so I closed the bedroom door while I ground the coffee beans so as not to disturb her.  She is still fighting off a cold and/or allergies and so am I.  I used the last of the Ethiopian Yirgacheffe beans plus a couple of scoops of the Kenya AA.  We are a day or two away from being out of coffee and will have to get some more when we go out this morning to buy wallpaper paste and tools.

Linda got up at 7:40.  Phil had not shown up yet nor called to update us on whether he would be here so we were left to guess that he was on his way to the other last minute job that he said he would probably have to take care of today and tomorrow.  The temperature at 8 AM was 55 degrees F with light fog.  It looked very wet outside but I could not tell if it had rained overnight or if it was just heavy dew.  The high was forecast to be 72, and we have the electric heaters on in the bus, so the walls should be warm enough for us to hang wallpaper today.

We left at 9:30 to go buy wallpaper paste and a few tools at Lowe’s in Howell.  We stopped at Teeko’s on the way and ordered three pounds of coffee beans.  We got one pound each of the following, roasted to order:  1) Sweet Seattle Dreams (1/2 Seattle Blend and 1/2 Sweet Dreams decaf blend); 2) Ethiopian Yirgacheffe half-caff; and 3) 1/2 Sumatra Manhelding with 1/2 Sumatra decaf.  At Lowe’s we bought a gallon jug of Roman GH-95 Wallpaper Paste for Kitchen and Bath.  It is supposed to be more suitable for high moisture environments and since we tend to use the bus with the windows open it can get humid inside.  We also got a smoothing tool, a 24″ paint shield to use for as a trimming guide, a 1/4″ nap 9″ long roller cover, and an inexpensive paint brush.  We stopped at Teeko’s on the way home and Roger had our coffee beans ready for pickup.

Back home I gathered up the tools we already had and took everything to the bus.  I got a scrap of underlayment to use as a small work surface for measuring and cutting off lengths of wallpaper.  We did not have room to set up a work surface in the bus that was big enough to roll out the wallpaper and apply paste to the back side so we decided to apply the paste to the walls using a roller and brush.

Before we got started installing the wallpaper Keith showed up around 10:45 AM to cut the grass.  I wasn’t sure he would come today due to the wet conditions, but he did not think it was wet enough to be a problem.  It’s been two weeks since the last grass cutting and it definitely needed to be mowed, at least in some places.  We also cut up and moved a couple of downed trees so he was finally able to mow the grass where they had been.

I had just finished chatting with Keith when Phil showed up around 11 AM to pick up his small excavator.  He had been at another job since 7 AM.  It was supposed to only involve “moving some stone around” so he only took his front loader to the site.  When he got there he was shown a much more extensive landscaping plan and a job site that included removing tree stumps and other digging operations.  Even with that his plan is to be back at our place on Wednesday.

My first task was to sand the primed walls.  I used the Porter-Cable palm sander, first with 120 grit sandpaper and then with 220 grit.  Linda then wiped down the walls with tack cloth while I put the sander away.  There is not a lot of room to work in the bus so we try to remove tools that we are not using.

We finished gathering our tools and materials, including two big buckets of water (one with mild soap) and spent an hour pondering the wallpaper installation.  Part of the pondering involved measuring the three wall areas that were ready for wallpaper and deciding where we would start and how we would proceed from there.  By the time we were ready to cut and paste wallpaper it was 12:30 PM so we took a break and had a sandwich and grapes for lunch.

When we unrolled the first double roll of wallpaper we noticed periodic faint horizontal “lines.”  These turned out to be slight impressions from the outside edge of the end of the roll which was very tightly wrapped in clear plastic.  We decided to cut four shorter pieces to go behind the desk and behind the sofa just in case the impressions did not smooth out and disappear.  We cut two more short pieces to continue forward under the windows on the passenger side.  We then cut longer pieces for the corner behind the desk and the wall at the kitchen end of the sofa.

The last time we hung wallpaper was 30 years ago.  It was all pre-pasted and required reverse rolling the piece to be hung, immersing it in a water tray to activate the glue, and then slowly pulling it out as it unrolled and drained.  We then slid it into position on the wall, smoothing it out and removing the air bubbles as we went, and finally trimming it.  The wallpapers we used were thinner than the stuff we have for the bus and we created seams by overlapping adjacent panels slightly and cutting through both pieces half way between the overlap.  The free edge pieces were both removed and we had perfect seams.

The wallpaper we bought for the coach is a heavier vinyl that is washable and scrubbable.  We got the paper from Delux Drapery & Shade Co. in Ann Arbor but it did not come with installation instructions other than to follow the adhesive manufacturer’s directions.  The associate at Lowe’s, however, was very helpful and told us specifically not to overlap and trim the seams the way we had years ago.  The appropriate technique for the heavier vinyl wallpapers is to butt the edges together and roll them flat.

You always reach a point in every project where there is nothing left to do but to do it.  We poured some of the paste into a paint tray (with a plastic liner for easier cleanup later).  I started on the passenger side of the bus in the corner behind the desk on the back side of the pantry.  I used the brush to cut in the corners where the wall met the adjacent woodwork and used the roller to fill in the field.  We butted the right edge of the panel into the corner along its full length and then smoothed it towards the left and top as best we could.  The wall curves in as it goes up but I got the top edge tucked and trimmed.  I made a relief cut at the bottom of the window surround on the left which allowed us to finish smoothing the bottom portion of the panel under the window and get the upper panel tucked in, where the wall meets the surround, and trim it.  I then trimmed around the window release mechanism and along the bottom of the panel.

Wallpaper tools in sofa (seat removed) and wallpaper on wall behind the sofa.

Wallpaper tools in sofa (seat removed) and wallpaper on wall behind the sofa.

The vinyl wallpaper did not trim easily even with a new, very sharp, break-off style blade.  It also did not want to stick to the wall and we ended up peeling it back in places and spreading more paste.  We had primed the walls with Zinser 1-2-3, a water-based acrylic primer, so they should not have been very absorbent.  We hung a total of eight pieces, five on the passenger side and three on the driver side, and stopped for the day.  The wall in the hallway was prepped for four additional pieces but we decided to defer those until to tomorrow.  We cleaned up all of the tools and then relaxed for a while in the living room.

Linda prepared dinner while I worked on this post.  I could not figure out from the odor what she was making but it sure smelled good.  It turned out to be a tofu scramble, a vegan interpretation of scrambled eggs, and she served it with toasted raisin bread.  Very tasty and very satisfying.  It’s the one breakfast dish that she makes that does equally well as a dinner meal.

I drove to O’Reilly’s Auto Parts to get some door edge trim/guard and stopped at the Meijer’s supermarket for tissues and laundry supplies.  The door edge trim is a plastic U-channel that I will use to cover the edge of a hole (or holes) I will cut in the passenger side HVAC duct for the Aqua-Hot heater hoses to base through into the desk bases without making any sharp turns.

We felt like being entertained and settled in to watch several TV shows.  In-between two of the shows I made popcorn, a rare treat for us but one we really enjoy.

 

2015/20/04 (N) Family Trees

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I was awake at 7 AM and got up at 7:20, showered, shaved, and dressed for the upcoming visit by our son, daughter-in-law, and younger grand-daughter.  We did not have breakfast, as they were bringing bagels with them, but I did make a small pot of coffee to get the day started.  While it was brewing I gathered up a load of laundry and put it in the washing machine.

We finally turned the furnace on a couple of days ago so the house was cool but comfortable.  Even so we turned on the fireplace and enjoyed our coffee while we awaited our visitors.  Brendan sent a text message indicating a 9:30 AM arrival and it was only a few minutes later than that when they showed up.  Today’s visit was the result of specific request by Madeline yesterday to see her Grandma Linda and Grandpa Bruce.  She will be coming back on Friday after pre-school/day-care and spending the night.  She is then going to go see her Grandma B and Cliff in Denver while her mom attends a conference.

Brendan and Shawna brought five bagels, one for each of us, with cream cheese and lox for them and hummus for us.  They also brought sliced tomatoes, cucumbers, and onions.  We provided our Melt non-dairy butter substitute, a large pot of Kenya AA (single origin) coffee, orange juice, a bowl of mixed fruit, and a bowl of honeydew melon.  It was a wonderful mid-morning breakfast.

After breakfast the adults took turns playing with Madeline.  At one point Brendan reminded her to ask me something and what followed was a request to take a tour of the bus.  So we did!  Madeline is not yet 3 years old, and the bus does not really mean anything to her yet, but Brendan and Shawna wanted to see the work we had done.  We are looking forward to taking Madeline with us for short trips when she is a little older.

Madeline normally takes a nap at 1 PM and Shawna was a bit tired too so they packed up and left around 12:30 PM and drove back to Ann Arbor.  There was a “block party” taking place later this afternoon for their block and they wanted to rest before it started.

We needed to get some yard work done yet today so we changed into our work clothes.  I moved the laundry to the dryer and then got busy figuring out how to start and operate the new Poulan Pro 18″ chain saw.  The quick start guide had 10 steps, numbered and clearly illustrated.  I followed the steps carefully and it started right up.  We gathered up our rake, hand saw, wheelbarrow, and compound pruning shears along with a face shield, safety glasses, hearing protector, and heavy canvas work gloves and headed down to where the dead tree fell across the road a few days ago.

The tree fell across the road and had been moved out of the road by a neighbor shortly after it fell.  I had gone out a little while after that and cleaned up the limbs on the other side of the road and the small debris that was still in the road.  The tree, however, was still in the ditch along the side of the road and need to be cut up and moved.  Phil said he would take it and dispose of it if we cut it into pieces not longer than five feet and piled it by all the other timber and yard debris.

This turned out to be just the first of five trees that we cut up this afternoon.  Once the first tree was done we cut down a second one that was still standing but very dead and leaning out towards the road.  Better to take it down now than have it fall during the winter.  This tree was only 20 feet from the first one and not quite as tall, the top having broken off some time long ago.  These were both ash trees, killed by the Emerald Ash Borer beetle.  It saddened me that all of this wonderful ash timber was going to a landfill instead of a sawmill, but we had no practical way to turn it into usable lumber.

While Linda acted as spotter for cars I made a “V” cut about three feet above the ground on the side where it was going to fall and then made a relief cut on the back side until it toppled under its own weight.  Once it was down I quickly cut it into shorter pieces and Linda got them off the road.

As long as we were working along the edge of the road I decided to prune or remove a few other saplings, bushes, vines, and deadfall so that Keith could mow the grass in the drainage ditch.  That turned out to be quite a bit of extra work but it needed to be done.  We encountered two different bushes with serious thorns and had to work carefully.  Without gloves, eye protection, and heavy weight long sleeve clothing and blue jeans it would have been dangerous and painful.

There is a complex of vines that runs all through this stand of trees.  We cut a lot of smaller runners and pulled them free form the other growth but I cut several at ground level that were at least 3″ in diameter.  A thorough cleaning and restoration of this particular stand of trees will take more time than we have to spend right now, but perhaps we can get some of this kind of work done next spring and early summer along with finishing the interior of the bus and redoing the water bay.

We have had a large tree down at the west end of our property for quite a while, and Keith has just been mowing around it, so we moved all of our equipment down there and worked on that area of the yard.  There were a lot of other small limbs scattered about and dead/broken branches hanging in several trees.  We gathered up the smaller stuff and cut it into manageable lengths and wheelbarrowed it to the disposal pile.  I then used the chain saw to remove the larger limbs and cut the tree up into four foot lengths.  It was 10 inches in diameter at the base and 30 feet long before we cut it up.  There is also a lot of pruning that needs to be done to the trees in this part of the yard, and some of it will require the pole saw and/or a ladder, and/or some careful climbing; but not today.

With that area cleaned up we moved our gear to the firepit (burn pile).  We have had a conifer tree on the ground next to the firepit for the entire summer and, once again, Keith has had to mow around it.  This tree was about 6 inches in diameter at the base and 20 feet long.  Linda found a second, smaller, tree and dragged it over.  I pruned all of the smaller limbs with the compound shears and then used the chain saw to cut off the larger branches and cut the trunk up into four foot lengths.  Rather than transport all of this material to the disposal pile we added it to the burn pile.  The pile is now about eight feet in diameter and four feet high so it should make quite a fire when we finally light it up.  I think we will wait for a chilly fall day to do that, if we get to it at all this year.  The longer the pile sits here the more of a problem it will be, however, as small animals will undoubtedly use it for shelter and to build nests.

It was 4 PM when we quit and we had only worked for three hours but it was very physical work and we were tired, or at least tired enough that we were not going to start working in the bus at that point.  By the time I cleaned off the chainsaw and we put all of the tools away it was 4:30 PM.  We changed out of our work clothes and I added them to my second load of laundry for the day.  We sat in the living room reading and writing for an hour or so until Linda pulled together our dinner.  In the interest of time she microwaved a couple of sweet potatoes (yams), steamed some Brussels sprouts, heated the last two mock chicken scaloppini, and poured a couple of glasses of Franzia Moscato.

After dinner I tended to the laundry and then settled in to work at my desk for a while.  I logged in to RVillage and saw that Curtis had posted in the Stakeholders group that he was holding Go To Meeting sessions today at 9 AM and 5 PM PDT.  That was noon and 8 PM EDT.  We had obviously missed the noon meeting, and would have anyway with company here but as it was only 7 PM we could still participate in the evening meeting.  We had an hour to wait so I decided to start uploading blog posts starting with August 1st.

I uploaded the posts for the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd, including a few photos, but something did not seem right as the photos did not corresponded to the posts.  I checked more carefully and observed that I had renamed photos from early September with early August dates.  I quickly edited the two posts that included photos and deleted the images from the posts.  I am two months behind again uploading posts and having to go back and select/process photos for my August posts will only delay the uploading further.  Ugh.

I launched Go To Meeting at 7:55 PM EDT and let Linda know it was time for the meeting.  Curtis was already online and we eventually had eight stakeholders checked in, some of which were individuals and some of which were couples.  Curtis, the founder and CEO of RVillage, gave us an update on recent development work, new features to be released next week, monetization of the site, and the progress of the current round of investor financing.  The meeting lasted about 45 minutes.

I was glad I caught the error with the photos for my blog but I was not in the humor to spend hours working on fixing it this evening.  Linda cut a couple of pieces of the vegan frozen chocolate torte that she made last weekend and that was reason enough to quit working at my computer for the evening.  We spent an hour relaxing in the living room eating our torte while reading and writing.  Yesterday Phil said he would call this evening and let us know whether he would be here tomorrow or at another 2-day job, but he did not call.

When we finally turned in a little before 10 PM we watched TV for a while before turning out the lights.  We caught the last half of a program on the glass blowing school at Pilchuck and “A Woman in Battle” about a Cuban born woman who disguised herself as a man to fight in the Civil War on the Confederate side but ultimately became a Union spy.  Tomorrow we hang wallpaper in the bus and we will need to be well rested so it was lights out by 11 PM.

 

2015/10/02 (F) Tire Nibblers

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It dropped into the mid-40s last night and the house cooled off proportionally.  It starts getting light at 7 AM these days and cool mornings are just another reason to stay under the covers a little longer.  I finally got up at 7:30 AM, got dressed to work, and made our morning coffee.  After our breakfast of fresh mixed berries and homemade granola I turned on the fireplace and we enjoyed our coffee to its dancing light and warmth.

Chuck called to let me know he had set out one of his sheet metal nibblers for me to pick up at the shop.  I left around 10:30 AM and drove Linda’s Honda Civic to Discount Tire in Howell.  (My Honda Element is tied up at Brighton Honda until the middle of next week to get a broken driver-side door lock replaced.)  I noticed last night while we were out that several tires on the Civic were under-inflated and the sidewalls were badly weather-checked.  They still had plenty of tread but the paperwork indicated they were put on five years and 80,000 miles ago.  Time for a change.

At Discount Tire the sales associate confirmed that the date code was from 2009 and corroborated my observations.  The tread was probably good for another 20,000 miles but I do not mess around with old tires with cracked sidewalls.  Michelin no longer makes the Defender, at least not in the P195/65R15 size, so I bought a set of four Continentals that should perform equally well and last for 90,000 miles.  That means they will age out before the wear out, which is fine with me.  It was going to be a two hour turnaround time so I texted Linda and Chuck and settled in to wait.  Thank goodness for iPad games.

The technician pulled the car in at noon and a few minutes later asked me if I had the key for the wheel locks.  I had looked for it earlier and not found it.  He wasn’t sure he could get them off at all and would certainly ruin them in the attempt.  That sounded like a bad situation getting worse so I had them set the tires aside while I took the car to Brighton Honda and had them remove the special lug nut from each wheel using their master key set.  I bought a new set at the Honda dealership (so any Honda dealer can remove them in the future) and had them put those on and made sure I had the key when I left.

While I was there Rob gave me a quote on four Continental tires.  The installed price, including a rebate in the form of a Visa gift card, was 30% lower than the price I paid at Discount Tire so I showed the quote to the guy at the counter when I got back.  He said the quote was for a different, less expensive, discontinued tire.  I had no way of knowing if that was true or not but he also asked if the guy who wrote me up gave me the rebate form for the tires I bought.  I said ‘no’ so this guy printed out an extra receipt and gave it to me with the rebate form.  That narrowed the price difference to 20% and I was satisfied with that.  I liked the tires I had purchased and did not want to undo and then redo the sale.  I have also had good experiences over the years with Discount Tire, including their nationwide free rotation and balancing policy.

When the tires were finally mounted, balanced, and installed I headed for Chuck’s shop in Novi.  He was there when I arrived and had three different metal cutting tools laid out to show me.  One was manual, one was electric, and one was powered by a drill.  We decided that the manual one and the drill powered one were most likely to work for what I needed to do.  He put them in a cardboard box along with cans of three different chemicals he was getting rid of.  His trash, my treasurers.

On the way back to the house I stopped at the Shell station at Beck and Grand River Avenue to top up the fuel tank.  I texted Linda and then headed for home.  I arrived home at 3 PM to find lunch on the table.  That was a nice surprise.

After lunch we uninstalled the desk in the bus and set the pedestals on part of a large blanket in the center of the kitchen floor.  We draped the blanket over them and then uninstalled the hinged sofa seat and set it across the pedestals.  We folded the blanket back over the seat and set the desk bases on top of it.  We now had clear access to the wall behind the desk and the wall behind the sofa.

I got a 3″ brush from the basement and then got the Zinzer 123 Primer, opened it, and stirred it.  It was still in good shape as it has been in the library since last fall when we repaired and repainted the west wall after Darryl was done installing the new HVAC system.  Rather than pour it into another container I found a lid from a copy paper box to put it under the one gallon can.  Linda finished masking off the woodwork and counters in the bus and then helped me spread painter’s plastic to protect the floor.  We spread out an old bathroom towel, put the box lid on that, and then put the can inside the (upside down) box lid.  I set the can lid aside and worked directly out of the can.

I started in the back of the hallway and primed the upper half of the outside wall as I worked towards the front.  The lower half of this wall has vertical mirror tile wainscoting.  We wanted to remove it but assumed the pieces were glued directly to the plywood wall, as they are elsewhere in the coach, in which case removing them would have done a lot of damage.  We repositioned the plastic, towel, and paint and I continued up the passenger side priming the plywood next to and (mostly) under the windows.  Completing that side up to the cockpit required one more repositioning of all the stuff.  I was working in close proximity to the new living room captain’s chairs so we wrapped those in painter’s plastic as well.

Bruce primes the bare plywood behind the sofa and under the driver side living room window.

Bruce primes the bare plywood behind the sofa and under the driver side living room window.

I moved to the driver’s side and primed the area under the window and up the left side.  Even though Linda had masked off all of the woodwork with painter’s tape I worked carefully and stayed away from the tape.  We are not sure that the priming is even necessary and I did not want to risk getting any on the woodwork.

By the time we finished it was 5:30 PM and we were done working on the bus for the day.  We had only worked for a couple of hours, and only accomplished a small task, but it was a critical path task that stood in the way of getting a whole chain of other important things done.  Tomorrow we will sand the primer with 220 grit paper using the palm sander and try hanging the new wallpaper.

Linda made a pizza for dinner using the gluten-free almond meal recipe she got from Mara.  She topped it with greens, onions, mushrooms, sun-dried tomatoes, and Daiya non-dairy cheese.  There is also cheese in the crust along with garlic and other good things.  We had a nice salad first with walnuts, beets, and sun-dried tomato vinaigrette.  The salad was very good and the pizza was outstanding.

Philip Jarrell called to let us know he would be here at 8 AM tomorrow to start our French drain and driveway project, weather permitting.  Detroit Public Television shows classic movies at 8 PM on Fridays and tonight’s selection was “Bullit” starring Steve McQueen and Jacqueline Bisset.  We watched This Old House and a couple of travel shows after that and then went to sleep.

 

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

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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.

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.

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.