Tag Archives: interior remodel (H3-40)

2015/09/24 (R) Blood Work

Linda got confirmation yesterday that our lab orders had been put in by our doctor. The blood work requires a 12 hour fast (minimum) so we finished dinner last night before 8 PM and did not have breakfast this morning. We headed out around 8:30 AM for the Henry Ford Health System Columbus Center in Novi, the nearest HFHS lab to our house. We would not normally get on I-96 at that time of day due to rush hour traffic but we wanted to get this taken care of early and then get something to eat and drink. We got to the lab at 9:15 and it only took a few minutes to get our blood drawn. We then headed to the Panera on Novi Road at Grand River Avenue for bagels and coffee and some down time to sit, relax, read, research, and write.

Linda spent some time last evening researching wallpaper installation but found conflicting information. I got online and looked at some of the same websites. Wallpaper is a little out of style at the moment and some of the website information was over 10 years old but still seemed relevant. The interior walls of our motorcoach are finish grade plywood that is firmly attached to the structure of the bus with spray foam insulation underneath. The issue is how to prep the plywood before we hang the wallpaper. Some sources indicate that we need to size it, some say to prime it, and others say to use a liner material and then prime, all before hanging the paper. Other sites, however, say to just hang the paper directly on the plywood and be done with it.

We left Panera and were headed west on Grand River Avenue. We noticed that Chuck’s truck was at his shop so Linda made a U-turn and we stopped to see if he was there. He was, so we visited for a while and got to see their new refrigerator and discuss the installation, which Chuck somehow managed to do all by himself. Even with the use of his forklift, that was quite an accomplishment.

We got back to the house at 12:45 PM, changed into our work clothes, took care of a few chores, and had a light lunch of fresh apples, pears, and hummus with onion on rye bread. I then called Josh Leach at Coach Supply Direct and left a message asking him to follow up with Ferman Miller at Countertops Plus. If Ferman does not have any more of the Sandstone Corian I want to make sure Josh gets the 30″x48″ piece from the other supplier before it disappears.

The entrance landing with the floor removed revealing the pneumatic linear actuator that operates the slide out stepwell cover.

When we finally got to work on the bus around 2 PM Linda focused on stripping the old wallpaper and I started preparing the entrance for tiling. She taped off all of the wood trim where she is working, spread painter’s plastic to protect the floor, and wrapped the two living room captain’s chairs. I removed the existing vinyl tile from the entry platform, removed the plywood cover, and uninstalled the step well cover. I then removed the tile and treads from the stairs. I also moved the passenger seat forward and determined that I can probably get to the swivel shaft retaining nut from the back. Removing the seat by removing this one nut will make it much easier to tile that part of the cockpit. Ditto for the driver’s seat.

Although we got a late start on the bus today, and worked on it for less than four hours, we were satisfied with what we accomplished. The old tile came up more easily than I thought it would which bodes well for getting the entry/cockpit tiled with the new Armstrong Alterna Luxury Vinyl tile.

I called Phil Jarrell to verify that he had called Miss Dig and told them to mark the gas main and not just the utilities running to the house. He said he did and expected that they will be here on Friday. I will keep an eye open for them and intercede if possible. Phil expects to start our job on Tuesday. If he does he will probably be finished by the end of the week or over the weekend.

The entry stairs into the bus with the bottom riser cover plate removed to reveal one of the two air-conditioner compressors installed in the spare tire compartment. This is how the ports are accessed for service and recharging. The other compressor is accessed through the bay under the driver’s seat.

Linda let me know that our lab results were available so we each logged in to our HFHS MyChart accounts to look at them. Linda’s lipid profile showed a higher total cholesterol than she expected and she was not happy about it. Dr. Vangel had seen the results and commented that they were OK, but Linda was perturbed about it none-the-less. My total cholesterol was also higher than I would like but not as high as Linda’s. Her LDL and HDL numbers and ratio looked good and her HDL, in particular, was much better than mine. This was no doubt a consequence of her almost daily exercise walking. We apparently do not fully understand the lipid profile numbers or what we still need to change about how we eat to bring them in line with the guidelines put forward by people like Drs. Neal Barnhard and Caldwell Esselstyne.

Linda made a nice salad to start our dinner, served with a small glass of Moscato. The entrée was a mock chicken scaloppini that she picked up at Whole Foods. For a side dish she steamed kale with mushrooms, onions, and garlic. After dinner we sat on the back deck and enjoyed a second small glass of Moscato.

I went to my office and edited the blog posts for July 23 through 31 and hope to upload those posts tomorrow. I had an e-mail from Molly Pinner with Linda’s invitation to work as an office staff volunteer at the 2016 Escapade in Essex Junction, Vermont. I replied to that and cc:d Linda. I then e-mailed Lou and Val Petkus to let them know. I was wrapping up for the evening when I got an e-mail from Ed Roelle with the September CCO Newsletter. He develops the newsletter in MS Word and I convert it into PDF for him. I took care of that and sent it to him and then went upstairs to watch a PBS program on scenic train rides of North America.

The program was interesting but PBS was fundraising again, and the fundraising segments were longer than the programming segments. It seems like this has been going on all summer and we are, quite frankly, tired of it. After clicking around the other channels I turned the TV off and went to sleep.

2015/09/23 (W) Autumnal Equinox

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

2015/09/22 (T) Bench Work

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Linda scraps the old wallpaper off below the passenger side living room window.

We were up at 7:30 AM and had fresh grapefruit and cinnamon raisin toast for breakfast. We turned the fireplace on and drank our coffee in the living room. After taking care of a few chores we got to work on the bus. Linda started stripping the old wallpaper while I finished soldering two 45 degree copper street elbows. I then got my tools out and gathered up supplies I needed to disconnect the fan-coil heat exchangers and heater hoses.

I started by trying to connect a 1/2″ i.d. clear vinyl tube to the drain stub on the Aqua-Hot. The stub points straight down, is approximately 3/4″ long, and the open end is about 3/4″ above the base. There is a hole in the base of the unit at that point, provided by Aqua-Hot for a drain line, but Royale Coach installed one of the CruiseAir condenser units directly beneath the Aqua-Hot and did bother to provide a hole in the shelf or make alternate arrangements for draining the unit. I could not get the vinyl tube over the stub and with a limited amount of time to spend on this minor annoyance moved to Plan B.

We have had a large stainless steel photo processing tray, approximately 2′ X 3′, for years. Today we used it to catch antifreeze and protect the new floor. Linda got some scrap towels and we put them under all of the edges of the tray. I then set the heat exchangers on pieces of 2×4 in the tray to keep them up out of the antifreeze. Linda held the heater hoses as I undid each of the band clamps in turn and worked them loose from the exchangers. We emptied the coolant from the exchangers and hoses into the tray, wiped off the heat exchangers, took them outside, and set them in the driveway.

The two fan-coil heat exchangers in the photo tray ready to have the coolant hoses disconnected.

We made sure the hose that connected the two units was drained, wiped it off, and took it outside. This hose has bleeder valves at each end that I will have to remove as I need to reuse one of them. We drained the two remaining hoses as best we could and put the open ends in the metal photo tray. I bought a bucket yesterday with a gasketed lid that has a built in spout. I picked the band clamps and pieces of 2x4out of the antifreeze and put them in the bucket. We then carefully poured the antifreeze from the tray into the bucket and put the lid on. We carried the tray outside and set it in the driveway and then took the bucket outside.

Linda took a break from stripping wallpaper and went to the bank to deposit proceeds from the recent rally. There wasn’t anything else I could do in the coach and I turned my attention to cleaning up the work surface in the garage. I took the two desk bases to the garage and started working on the installation of the grates and heat exchangers. I had not worked through the details of this in advance so I had to figure them out now. I started with the left base, which has an angled front.

The coolant hoses with the heat exchangers removed. We were able to contain the coolant in the tray and not get any on the new floor tiles.

The heat exchangers needed to be spaced up 1/2″ off the floor to better align with the openings in the sides so I cut pieces of 1/2″ plywood to put under them. The exchangers have two holes on the bottom front edge that were probably created by Royale to mount them. Actually, it appears that Royale mounted them upside down, presumably to position the coolant connections where they needed them. I say they were upside down because I discovered labels on the “bottom” indicating they were made by “Vantage Products, Exclusive U. S. Distributor of Primus Hydronic Heating Products.” I designed the desk bases so that the exchangers would mount the same way Royale had them. As such they will remain “upside down” but it will not affect their operation.

My plan was to put 3/8″ wide by 1/4″ thick dense foam self-stick weather stripping around the edge of the discharge side of the exchangers to seal them to the base and reduce vibration noise due to the fans. I cut the 1/2″ plywood large enough to provide room for mounting brackets to attach the plywood inserts to the base in locations that I could reach with the heat exchangers in place. The exchangers had to be screwed to the plywood before it was set in place inside the base since the grates blocked access to the two mounting holes.

The two fan-coil heat exchangers that will go in the bases under the two desk pedestals.

By now it was mid-afternoon Keith showed up and mowed the grass so I took a little time out from my work to chat with him. When I returned to the makeshift workshop in our garage I cut the brass-colored decorative aluminum grates to size and secured them on the inside of the base using small screws. I also wanted to add a layer of the plastic gutter mesh I bought yesterday. After cutting the first piece to size I decided to use double stick tape. The only tape I had was 3M Extreme Duty Mounting Tape so I drove to Lowe’s to get something more appropriate. I found a 1″ wide clear tape and decided to try it.

Half inch wide tape would have been better so I tried cutting the 1″ tape in half lengthwise. I removed the discharge grate, applied the tape to the edges on the back side, and pressed the plastic mesh into it being careful to keep it as straight as possible. I then screwed the whole assembly on the inside of the base. The screws did not like going through the tape or the mesh so I was quickly disabused of this assembly process and decided to use the tape as it came off the roll.

For the air intake grate I first screwed the metal sheet to the inside of the base. I then applied shorter pieces of tape around the edges in-between the screw heads. I carefully positioned the pre-cut plastic mesh, peeled the protective layer off of the tape, and stretched/pressed the mesh in place.

I needed to clean the 3/4″ copper inlet and outlet pipes on the heat exchanger so I got Linda to help me at this point. She held the heat exchanger as I used a strip of plumber’s sandpaper to remove heater hose rubber that had stuck to the pipe.

Because of the grates on the air openings in the base I positioned the plywood spacer and then marked/drilled the holes for the mounting brackets. I set the exchanger in place, made several alignment marks, removed the exchanger, and took out the plywood. I attached the brackets to the inside of the base and then attached the weather stripping to the front of the exchanger case. I positioned the case and Linda held it while I secured it with two screws. I slipped the plywood/exchanger assembly back into the bottom of the base and Linda pulled it tight to the front while I secured the brackets to it. One base done, one base to go.

Keith was done mowing about this time and stopped to see what we were up to and pick up his check. He normally mows our property on Monday morning but had some service issues with his truck that put him back a day. He had some string trimming to finish and our dinner was ready so he went back to work and we went inside to eat. Dinner was salad and Whole Wheat ABC Pasta Veggie Soup. The soup was a North Bay Trading Company mix that Linda got at Whole Foods. She added kale and tomatoes to make a very tasty and nutritious dish.

After dinner I was closing up the bus for the evening and noticed that the two large MCD shades in the living room had come loose from their front mounting brackets. This undoubtedly happened Sunday on Hacker Road as we returned from the rally in Elkhart, Indiana. Linda helped me move one of the desk pedestals on the sofa so I could get to the shade on the driver’s side of the coach. Once I could get to it the mounting rail snapped into the clip fairly easily but I will have to figure out why it popped out in the first place and make adjustments if needed/possible.

I checked e-mail and replied at length to one from Gary at BCM. We then settled in to watch the season opener of NCIS and NCIS New Orleans (NCISNOLA) followed by several shows on CreateTV (PBS). I multi-tasked, working on blog posts at the same time.

My work yesterday and today was not as physical as what we have been doing for most of the summer so it did not feel like I had done much but the evidence suggested otherwise. These seemingly small tasks often have a lot of steps that have to be done carefully in the right order and take time to do. There was also a certain amount real-time problem-solving and a trip to the store in the middle of the work. I hope to finish the other base tomorrow, get both of them back in the coach, and get them plumbed with the new heater hose. That may have to wait a day or so, however, as Linda needs to finish stripping the wallpaper in the area behind the desk and we need to hang the new paper before re-installing the desk. There is a definite order to this work that cannot be circumvented.

2015/09/21 (M) Back to Bus Work

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We were up a little after 8 AM. I showered while Linda prepared our breakfast fruit–blueberries, raspberries, and peaches–to go with our granola. I made a pot of coffee, using up the Costa Rican half-caff, and then sat down to eat. After breakfast we sat in the living room enjoying our coffee to the warmth and glow of the fireplace while Linda downloaded and installed iOS 9 on her iPad. The download was 740 MB so I waited until the installation was done on her machine to start it on mine.

When we finally got to work our first task was to unload all of the wood from the car and store it in the garage. My next task was to call Ferman Miller at Countertops Plus in Shipshewana, Indiana to make sure he got my message on Friday with the dimensions for the Corian top table. I got his voice mail again and left another message. I then called Josh at Coach Supply Direct to bring him up to date, got his voice mail, and left a message.

Linda planned to get a few things at Whole Foods Market as she needed to drive to Ann Arbor anyway to pick up our wallpaper from Delux Draperies and Wallcoverings. While she took care of that I started figuring out what parts I needed to reconfigure the heating system. Before making a run to the store I found all of my plumbing tools and supplies. I got 20 feet of heater hose and 10 band clamps from O’Reilly’s and various copper fittings from Lowe’s. I also got a drain hose and a clean bucket to catch/hold antifreeze.

Back home I removed the seat and back cushions from the sofa and stacked them on the chairs. I removed the temporary plywood top from the desk and stored it in the garage. I then uninstalled the desk pedestals from the wall and from their bases. There wasn’t much else I could do without Linda’s help, so her return soon thereafter was timely. We had a light lunch and then moved the pedestals to the sofa. That left the bases free for me to work with. I still did not have all of the parts I needed to install the fan-coil heat exchangers in the bases. I also needed to remove the heater hoses in order to mount the heat exchangers and replace the hoses with different lengths and angled fittings.

As I was contemplating all of that I got a call from Chuck Spera. He was in the process of setting up an appointment to have the lower windshields replaced on both of our rigs and wanted to make sure I was still interested and check my availability. He called back a little while later to let me know we were set for next week Tuesday in the morning.

I then got a call from Joe Cannarozzi. Joe has done a lot of work on our bus over the last five years, especially the chassis. He called to confirm that I still wanted him to stop at our place on his way back to Chicago around Halloween and discuss what I needed done. Yes, I did, and what I needed was routine maintenance; lube, oil, filter(s), brakes, and possibly axle hub seals.

When we first started working with Joe he had an active, full-time mobile bus repair business, specializing in Prevost chassis service. The last couple of years he has worked a regular gig in upstate New York from April through October. He still services a few buses, like ours, starting in the north in the late fall and working his way to Florida for the winter where he tries to get to the Keys and take 4 to 6 weeks off before working his way back up to New York in the spring. When we wrapped up the call I texted Chuck to let him know that Joe would be coming this way.

I called Ferman again and this time he answered the phone. He had gotten my two previous messages and I was correct that there was not enough material in the large sheet of Corian to make the table. He had not had a chance to check his stock to see if he had any more of the Sandstone. I mentioned that Josh had another vendor with a 30″ by 40″ piece. Ferman indicated that if he doesn’t have another piece he would be willing to work with that piece if Josh got it. I called Josh and he answered this time so I walked him through the current status. He called the other vendor and called me back. The piece is 30″ by 48″ and he was willing to sell it for $175. Josh and I agreed to give Ferman a couple of days to check his stock before pursuing it.

Linda was working at her desk on a proposal for the bakery and preparing a bank deposit for our GLCC chapter. I went to the garage and began soldering 3/4″ copper plumbing fittings. I need to route the 3/4″ rubber heater hose around corners that were too sharp to just bend the hose so the copper fittings will take care of that.

Linda called me to dinner at 6 PM. We had a nice salad, vegan Italian sausage with onions, and Brussels sprouts as a side. A small glass of Moscato made a nice accompaniment. After dinner I checked my e-mail and took care of the cats’ liter tray. I then drove to Lowe’s for two more 45 degree street elbows. On the drive home I talked to Mike (W8HX) on the South Lyon 2m repeater. We discussed getting me back up our tower sometime in the next 9 days if my work on the bus progressed to the point where I could afford the time. We went to bed early enough to watch a few TV programs and then fell asleep.

2015/09/18 (F) RBus Anniversary

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

2015/09/17 (R) Counter This

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I went to breakfast before Linda as she was still asleep. I wanted coffee but it wasn’t ready so I toasted a blueberry bagel and ate that. Eventually the coffee was ready and I had some. Linda showed up a little while later with our granola and fruit and most of the rally attendees arrived and had breakfast. I got a call from Josh regarding the Corian desktop. He indicated that Ferman Miller of Countertops Plus in Shipshewana had a piece of Sandstone Corian big enough to make our desk top and was expecting us to call or visit.

After breakfast we gave Vickie a tour of the bus and visited for a while. We then drove to Countertops Plus, located east of downtown Shipshewana, and met with Ferman Miller. He had a piece of 1/2″ Sandstone Corian that was a perfect match to our existing counters. It was 96″ long by 30″ wide. He needed a 72-3/4″ by 25-3/4″ piece for the desktop plus a 72-3/4” by 1″ piece and a 25-1/4″ by 1″ piece for the front and left edge returns. It looked like he might have enough Corian left to make our dining room table so I made a quick sketch but left off the length and width dimensions. We ordered the desktop and the table. He figured out the price and we gave him a deposit. I need to determine the length and width of the table and call him in the morning with those dimensions.

We set the GPS for Jarel Beatty Cabinetry and headed for Logansport. I called Jarel to let him know we were on our way and verify that it was still OK to come. We drove through the pleasant Amish/Mennonite countryside on small count roads we had not previously traversed and passed a school where the children were playing softball dressed in their plain, traditional clothing. It was an odd yet delightful sight. Once we were on US-20 we were on familiar roads. We stopped along US-20 for fuel and a break and bought some peanuts and water. We arrived at Jarel’s place at 2:11 PM.

We brought a 60″ long piece of 1/4″ walnut veneer plywood and had Jarel rip two pieces 4-3/4″ wide. He actually cut them slightly wider and then trimmed off a small edge to get the long edges clean and square. We loaded the half sheet (96″ by 24″) of 3/4″ walnut veneered plywood in the car and then loaded the half box cover for the forward passenger side OTR HVAC duct. There were other pieces of plywood and hardwood left so we loaded all of those as well. We only realized after we left that we forgot to get the drawings back from Jarel. I sent him a TXT message and asked him to hang on to them until I could get them from him and he agreed to do that.

We stopped at the Martin’s supermarket about a mile from Elkhart Campground and made salads for dinner at their excellent salad bar. It was 5:30 PM by the time we got back to the campground. Dinner was nominally at 6 PM but was ready to eat closer to 6:30. Linda reheated seitan stroganoff (vegan, of course) for our main course.

After dinner we gave Charles and Connie Martin the tour of our interior remodeling project and chatted for a while. There were thunderstorms in the overnight forecast so I rolled up the two driver side awnings. We then joined Scott and Tami Bruner at the fire pit by their bus. I took a couple of folding chairs over and Linda brought our glasses of Franzia Moscato. Charles joined us and so did Dan. Tami had interviewed for a new job this morning, gotten the offer, and accepted the position, so it was a big day for her. She and Scott have also been successful finding things they need for their bus conversion projects (they own two buses) so it has been a very good week for them.

Tami was tired and headed off to bed and Linda had the same idea a short while later. There was a fairly high probability of rain starting at 2 AM with but we got occasional drops starting at 10 PM. By midnight we were all getting tired and the raindrops were becoming frequent enough that they gave us an excuse to call it a night as we needed to put our lawn chairs away so they did not get soaking wet. I wrote for a while in bed but I was too tired to work efficiently and went to sleep around 1 AM.

2015/09/16 (W) CSD to GLCC

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I spent the night in the coach at Coach Supply Direct, in the fenced in parking lot, next to the train tracks that run parallel to M-62 through Edwardsburg, Michigan. I was up late and went to bed tired. The trains did not bother me (they run at every hour of the day and night) but aching knees and joints in my hands, especially the base of my thumbs, made for a less than sound sleep. I had also not leveled the coach when I arrived yesterday but it was slightly low to the front passenger side so it did not bother me as me head was higher than my feet, the head of the bed being on the driver’s side of the bedroom.

I had granola for breakfast, checked my e-mail, and was just settling in to start today’s post using my iPad when Josh showed up at 7:30 AM. He opened the building and retrieved a small desk/cabinet and loaded it into his car to take back to the cabinet maker. A portion of the back needed to be finished as it will be exposed when installed. Having just been through the process of designing built-in RV furniture and interacting with a cabinet maker I understood how a detail like this could easily be missed. We were fortunate in our choice of Jarel Beatty, as recommended by our friend Butch Williams, to build our pieces. Jarel’s meticulous attention to the details of how something would be constructed, installed, viewed, and used, resulted in our not having any post-construction issues.

After Josh left I checked the status of the house batteries. They were at 81% SOC (State Of Charge). Not bad after 11 hours of use. Extrapolating, it appears that given some reasonable energy management we could go 24 hours without recharging before hitting the 50% SOC level. I did not, for instance, use the microwave oven. That is much better than before we replaced the refrigerator so it appears that the new one is clearly more energy efficient than the old one.

I also checked the coolant levels in the Aqua-Hot and generator expansion tanks. The Aqua-Hot tank was still above max cold but the unit was also still a bit warm to the touch. The level in the generator tank yesterday was very low with the engine fully warmed up and operating under load so I added antifreeze up to the “hot” mark. If was slightly above that level this morning although I expected it to be lower as the system cooled off and drew the coolant back in.

Tyler showed up at 8:15 AM and knocked on the door. He had stopped at McDonald’s and bought me a large coffee, half regular half decaf. He had asked about this before leaving yesterday and remembered it this morning. I was impressed with both his memory and thoughtfulness. He got right to work on the cockpit seats, starting with the driver’s seat. Before installing it, however, I had him repair the swivel plate.

That plate has always wobbled which was an uncomfortable and annoying sensation while driving. Now that I had a clear view of the top of the plate it was “obvious” that there was once a washer under the retaining nut but it was no longer there. Tyler removed the retaining nut, found a large washer with the correct hole size, put it on the threaded shaft, replaced the retaining nut, and tightened it. No more wobble.

I am always trying to deconstruct the details of how this coach was built or serviced. My best guess is that old seat was removed when CMI installed the tile floor in the cockpit area right after we bought the bus. The installer probably removed the seat from the swivel plate in order to have better access to the pedestal and the area around it to lay the tile and either did not replace the washer or failed to recognize that it was missing and needed to be replaced. I will never know for sure, but that’s my best guess.

Tyler bolts the new Flexsteel driver’s seat to the existing pedestal swivel base. There is not a lot of room to work around the base of this seat.

I connected the chassis batteries so Tyler could connect the 12V DC power to the seat and reposition it. The outside rear mounting bolt was particularly difficult to reach but with the power on he was able to slide the seat forward and swivel the front to the left creating better access to the left rear. Once it was bolted down he had me sit in it and make sure all of the adjustments worked. They did! The seat is comfortable, fits better in the available space, and has a range of adjustment that should allow either of us to position it comfortably. It is still a little tight on the left side, but not like the old chair, and the only control there is a manual level for adjusting the back tilt that I can reach it without difficulty and generally do not change once I have it adjusted.

When Josh returned at 10 AM with the parts for the living room slider bases he and Tyler got busy prepping them. Linda texted me around 10:20 for a status update and I suggested that she not leave before 1 PM. There was more custom work required to get the chairs assembled and mounted than I thought there would be, but as I was able to watch every step of the process, and talk to Josh and Tyler as they worked, I could clearly see what the problems were and what they were doing to solve them. They were on task and focused on getting it done correctly.

One of the new Flexsteel 529 captain’ chairs with the new swivel/slide pedestal base attached. Note the handle for the swivel release.

The problem this morning was getting the swivel release cables on the cockpit seats to stay in place when the swivel tang was released from the detent in the base. The reason for the problem is that we are reusing the old swivel bases because they have base plates that match the mounting bolt locations in the floor. The way the swivel release cable is retained on these bases, however, is different from the attachments on the ends of the new cables. Tyler was able to figure out a solution but it took a little time. I don’t mind paying for that kind of experience and problem-solving.

I texted Jarel to give him a status update and indicated that we could come down Thursday, Friday, or Saturday to pick stuff up. He texted back that any of those days would work. I checked the Magnum remote and the SOC status had gone back to “Think’n”. Nuts. This has happened before with the Battery Monitor Kit and I think it has to do with the 4-pin connector that plugs into the bottom of it. Whatever the case I need to investigate and fix it if I can.

The two class C captain’s chairs installed on the passenger side of the living room.

With the driver’s seat installed I sat and tested its various adjustments and found a position that I liked. Next came the two class C captain’s chairs for the passenger side of the living room. Tyler and I worked for quite a while using a base with no chair on it to determine the correct location for the bases. The seats needed to be far enough from the passenger side wall, the desk, and the co-pilot seat to swivel without interference but no farther as we did not want them to encroach into the center isle one inch more than necessary. We also ran them through their full range of slide and swivel motions to make sure we could pull them up to the table.

We ended up with the edge of the front seat 16″ from the front edge of the main floor and 16″ from the HVAC duct. We checked it for square and marked the holes. Tyler drilled pilot holes using nuts to limit the depth. We set the chair in position and secured it with four lag screws. We measured 36.5″ to the front edge of the second base and positioned the base 16″ from the HVAC duct. We made sure it looked right and then Tyler marked the hole locations and we removed the temporary base. He drilled the pilot holes, we set the chair in place, and lag screwed them into floor.

The new navigator (L) and pilot (R) seats installed in the cockpit. The navigator seat has a powered footrest. We reused the old 6-way power bases for both seats.

With the captain’s chairs installed in the living room Tyler installed the co-pilot seat. Once that was done the job was finished except for the cleanup and paperwork. Josh and I chatted some more about the Corian desk top. He had inquiries out to three suppliers but was having trouble getting replies from them. We needed a temporary desk surface, so Tyler cleaned off the 4’x8′ piece of 1/2″ plywood that had served as the workbench for integrating the seating components. He marked and cut a 72″ long x 24.5″ deep piece. I notched the center of the back edge 18″ wide by 3″ deep. Tyler and I installed it while Josh totaled up the bill. I wrote him a check for the balance due, prepared the coach for departure, and left a little after 2 PM.

I could have titled this post “Edwardsburg to Elkhart” but I like to keep my titles short. The trip from Coach Supply Direct in Edwardsburg, Michigan to Elkhart Campground in Elkhart, Indiana was a short trip of approximately 15 miles that took about 25 minutes. Upon arrival I parked the coach to the side of the entrance road and went in to the office to register.

We have been to this campground many times before but I managed to miss the turn for the row with our assigned site so I had to go all the way around a second time. Once I had the bus in the site I leveled it and then shut it down. I texted Linda our site number and then chatted with other GLCC chapter members who were already there and parked.

While I helped set up tables in the meeting room Linda arrived and got the cats, litter tray, etc. on board our coach. After settling in for a few minutes I called Terry at A-1 Upholstery. She was there so we drove over to pick up the sofa cushions, wrote her a check for the balance, and drove back to camp. We were unloading the cushions when Dan stopped by. He had retired at the end of July and bought a converted GM4104 a couple of weeks later. His wife Kathy and son James had made the trip up from Huntsville, Alabama just for this rally. They planned to join FMCA and GLCC but wanted to check us out first.

Linda had cleared the sofa earlier and put stuff away under the bed. By the time I came in she had the new sofa cushions in place. They were a tight fit but they looked nice. We might make a small adjustment to the depth of the plywood seat but I think they are going to work out OK.

Linda went to the meeting room to help prep dinner and heat our vegan chili. I took a short nap and joined her at 6 PM to eat. We went back to the coach and gave Ed Roelle the tour and chatted for a while. We then went back to the club house, met up with Vickie, and went for a walk. When we got back to our coach I opened the box of Franzia Moscato and poured two glasses of wine. We took two lawn chairs over to Scott and Tami’s bus to sit and chat. Scott Crosby of www.busgreasemonkey.com was also there. He arrived after I did in his 1948 GM 3751 “Silverside” bus. It eventually got chilly so we went inside and went to bed where I worked on blog posts for a while on my iPad.

2015/09/14 (M) Final Prep (for now)

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We were up at 8 AM and had breakfast but I did not take the time to make coffee. I gathered up the laundry and started a load. I then headed to Lowe’s to buy an outlet strip that I could easily hardwire. I looked at angle iron to support the upper back edge of the interpedestal desk cover at the wall but did not buy any. The iron has holes and slots manufactured into it that I thought might allow me to adjust its location vertically without having to move the location of the screws. Alas, the slotted openings were horizontal rather than vertical.

Linda was cooking a batch of granola when I got home and made a pot of coffee. I decided to tend to some travel preparation items before getting back to work on the remodeling project. I wanted to check/adjust the tire pressures while it was still cool. The tires were all down about 1.5 PSI, which was very good given how long it has been sitting. I used the new 6-gallon air-compressor to bring them up to the pressures I like to run and it worked OK. I will have to pause a little more often while it re-pressurizes but it is less than half the size of the 15-gallon DeWalt and will travel with much more easily.

My next task was to unload the front bay which I did while Linda continued to work on our food for the week. We find it much easier to deal with food at rallies if she “cooks ahead” and “reheats to serve.” I set everything in the driveway in front of the bus and tried to sort it into two groups; things were staying home for this trip and things that were going with us.

I then opened the drain valve on the fresh water tank, which goes through the floor of the water bay, and let the water run onto a container lid so it wouldn’t dig a hole in the gravel driveway. I was getting ready to deploy the fresh water hose(s) when I noticed that they were in need of some serious cleaning. Linda agreed to take care of that and cleaned their storage tub too. Ditto for the waste water (sewage) hoses and their storage tub. Her taking on this task allowed me to return to working on the installation of the desk.

I had a 12″ long piece of 1/8″ aluminum angle and decided to use it to support the upper back edge of the interpedestal shelf/cover. I drilled and countersunk five holes in one of the flanges. Linda finished cleaning the hoses and then got our wireless thermometer from the house. It has a base thermometer and two wireless remotes so she put one remote in the freezer and the other one in the fresh food compartment. We wanted to monitor the temperature and dial it in to where we needed it before loading the refrigerator with food.

The stacked mending plates used to create a tongue-&-groove alignment system between the center cover and both the left and right desk pedestals/bases.

I removed the interpedestal cover and set the left pedestal aside so I could complete the AC wiring connections. I mounted the outlet strip to the wall centered between the two pedestals and about two inches below the level of the underside of the plywood that will support the Corian top. The outlet strip had a 15 foot cord. I determined how much of that length I needed to get through the right pedestal and forward along the wiring chase to where the other wires were located. I cut off the extra length, routed the power cord into the right pedestal at the left upper rear corner, down the inside left rear corner, and out the left end of the upper base. From there it ran forward to the other wires where I connected them. I turned on the circuit breaker and then turned on the outlet strip. The switch lit up, indicating the presence of 120V AC. I used my Etcon tester to check the duplex outlet by the passenger seat. It also had power so the wiring was good.

I set the interpedestal shelf/cover back in place, aligned with the right base, and then aligned the left base to it. I checked the distance from each end of the base to the HVAC duct and adjusted it to be the same. We then adjusted the position of the left pedestal until we were satisfied with the alignment with the interpedestal cover. We checked the alignment of the front top edges of the pedestals with a 6′ metal ruler. Everything looked OK so I secured the pedestal to the base using two screws that will be hidden by the laser printer in normal use.

I needed to screw the pedestal to the wall in the two upper corners to minimize the visibility of those screws. It was not flush to the wall at those points so I used a shim in the upper right. We will have to cover the vertical gap at the left rear with molding.

Bruce finds the center of a drawer front by finding the point where the diagonals of the face intersect. The handle mounting holes were located horizontally 1-1/2” to either side of this center point.

We put the removable plates back in the bottom of each pedestal. I drilled the holes for the pulls in the four desk drawers, installed the pulls, and put the drawers back in the desk. To find the correct location for the holes Linda suggested that we put a piece of painter’s tape in the center of the face and then draw a small segment of the two diagonals to find their intersection. For the two small drawers that was all we needed as they got single knob style pulls. For the two larger drawers we needed to locate the holes 1-1/2″ to either side of the center on a line through the center parallel to the top and bottom edges. I measured carefully and I think we did a pretty good job.

Sometime during the morning I texted Jarel the dimensions for a 3/4″ thick piece of walnut 1-7/8″ high by 34″ long to use as a face for the edges of the three layers of plywood under the refrigerator. He texted back and said “no problem” which lead to an exchange of a dozen e-mails clarifying just exactly what I wanted. I did not mind, better that than assumptions that result in wasted time making parts that don’t fit. Jarel is an experienced cabinet maker and is meticulous in his work. He knows all the questions to ask about things I did not specify and does so before cutting any wood.

Our last construction task before departure tomorrow was rehanging the bathroom door. I measured the distance from the bottom hinge to the bottom edge of the door and compared it to the distance from the hinge in the door frame to the floor. It looked like it should fit without rubbing so we hung the door. (The old ceramic tile rubbed as the door was swung to its fully open position, but the thickness of the underlayment and vinyl tile is less than the ceramic and thinset, at least in that area.)

Linda was still trying to prepare our food for the rally as there will be very little of the included food that we can eat. She made a grocery run while I returned to emptying out the front bay of the bus. I plan to leave most of the stuff that was stored in that bay at home so Josh has access to the ceiling to see if we can through-bolt mount the two captain’s chairs in the living room. I might also store all of the GLCC stuff down there as Linda will be coming down on Wednesday in the car with the cats and we want to minimize the amount of other stuff in the car.

I thought about sanitizing the fresh water system by using the 12V DC water pump and the winterizing valves/tubes to draw a dilute chlorine solution from a bucket and pump it through the fresh water pipes. I decided against it based on available time and higher priority items that needed to be done. I connected the clean fresh water hoses to the coach and started filling the tank. I checked that the fuel polishing pump was off and checked the air springs and latch on the generator. I made a mental note that the aft air springs (front of the Yanmar diesel engine) needed air and made sure the slide tray was latched in place. I was going to start the generator and let it power the air conditioners but decided to forego for now that as well.

We had unlatched and removed the towbar from the bus receiver earlier in the summer. I used one of our hand trucks to move it over by the car. I put the passenger side rear seat down and loaded the towbar in behind it along with the bag that holds all of the other pieces. That left plenty of room for the two cat carriers, litter tray, and any miscellaneous things she may bring along on Wednesday.

We put the mattress back onboard and Linda made the bed, but forgot the electric heating pad. Linda did some cleaning and then we loaded clothing and food. Computers, cameras, and other technology will go on first thing tomorrow morning. We then got the various GLCC items out of the garage and staged them by the passenger side of the bus. I loaded our personal items onto the driver’s side half of the slide tray and loaded the GLCC stuff onto passenger side half.

Our goal was to be done by 5 PM but it was 6 PM when I finally had the pressure washer ready to use. It took me a little over an hour to spray the car and the coach and I wrapped up for the day at 7:30 PM. We had seitan stroganoff for dinner with the 2013 Egri Merlot and had watermelon for dessert. It was another long day but we got a lot accomplished and most it did not require me to work on my hands and knees, for which I was grateful.

2015/09/13 (N) Club Business

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Linda is still fighting her cold and I was up way too late last night so we slept until 9 AM this morning. Because we were getting a late start, and neither of us was hungry, I made coffee but we skipped breakfast.

It was 51 degrees F in the bus so I turned on all three electric toe kick heaters and put on my zip front sweatshirt that I use to work in cool situations. We took all of the freezer packs out of the house refrigerator freezer compartment and moved them to the freezer compartment in the bus fridge. Linda also filled four large containers with water and snapped the lids on. We put those in the refrigerator compartment on the bus, turned on the power, and put the wireless remote thermometer in the freezer compartment.

I was going to raise the front of the refrigerator until the top hinge for the freezer door just touched the ceiling of the alcove but our relatively inexpensive model apparently lacks that adjustment. Linda was also concerned about how we will latch the doors for travel. She remembered seeing a very clever latch for a fridge with doors like ours at the GLAMARAMA rally in early June and found a picture of it on her phone. It is actually fairly simple and if custom made could be installed using the holes for the center hinge (between the doors) on the handle side (right side) of the fridge.

(I still like Scott Bruner’s solution best. He devised an electromagnet system that is activated by turning the ignition on but has an override switch. He and Tami have a cafe door, bottom freezer drawer unit. One electromagnet holds plates on top of the cafe doors where they meet at the center of the fridge. A second electromagnet is mounted on the right side of the lower case and holds a plate on the side edge of the freezer drawer front. Very clever, and very fail safe.)

Bruce installs the fixed side of the piano hinge to the top of the wiring chase above the OTR HVAC duct.

Our first construction task for today was to finish installing the built-in sofa. This was a semi-permanent installation with everything in its final place and screwed in. We will have to disassemble it once to finish cutting it and screening off the openings in the OTR HVAC duct and to drill the 4″ diameter holes in the vertical front panel for the circular registers. We also need to find a pair of suitable length lifts to support the seat in the open position. Finally, we need to find and mount some 12V DC LED lights and replace the momentary contact switches in the aft end cabinet with on-off versions.

It took us until 12:25 PM to finish the sofa (for now). We took a brief break and had an apple for a snack. Our next task was to put the plywood bed platform back in the coach. That sounds simple enough but we knew from taking it out that it would be difficult to put back in. The platform is the size of a queen size mattress, in two sections joined by a piano hinge. It’s big, bulky, and very heavy, with no good handholds but we managed to get it into the bedroom and setting flat on the storage box base.

The physically hard part was behind us but now we had to get the fixed part of the platform screwed back down to the base, requiring us to put 18 screws back in the holes they came out of. I rewired the aisle lights before we did that as I was easier to get to the wires. We used two screws to index the location, checked the reveal along the length of each side, and screwed it down. I then reconnected the two gas springs while Linda held the platform up. I also connected the wiring for the two cargo lights but they did not come on. I will have to change the bulbs and see if that’s the problem but for now we had more pressing tasks.

A view from near the co-pilot/navigator seat of the built-in sofa with the hinged seat base lifted up to reveal internal pieces and storage space.

We went inside, each had an apple, and then returned to the bus. I had planned to temporarily mount two 12V DC switches but did not have time to fabricate a temporary mounting plate. We needed the switches hooked up so I just reconnected the female spade connectors on the cable to the spade lugs on the switches and draped the wires over the arm of the passenger chair.

Our next task was to temporarily install the desk. The installation was only temporary in the sense that we would need to disassemble it to get the Aqua-Hot fan-coil heat exchangers installed in the bases. My preference was to get the heating system configured as part of the desk installation but we ran out of time before our appointment at Coach Supply Direct.

Our first sub-task was to cut the 1/4″ Baltic birch plywood spacer to fit on the right side of the right pedestal/base. I cut it to be shorter than the desk and not as deep as the base, which is recessed at the front to create a toe kick space. I cut the lower back corner out so the space would fit around the HVAC duct / wiring chase. We peeled off some clear tape from the mirrors in the right rear corner down below the level of the top of the desk and set the spacer in place.

Our next task was to redo some AC wiring to get power to the space between the pedestals and reconnect the passenger side front duplex outlet. To get power to the interpedestal space I decided to run 2C+G (Romex) cable from the wiring chase through a hole in the bottom of the pedestal, up the inside rear left, and out through a hole in the upper rear left side. This hole and cable will not be visible unless someone crawls under the center of the desk.

In order to get the cover/shelf in the foot well aligned with the left and right pedestal/base components I decided to use mending plates attached to the back side of the bases and pedestals. We started with the right hand components. I attached a plate to the back side of the left rear base projection and one to the underside of the left end of the upper bottom section of the pedestal. We set the base in place, put the pedestal on top of it, and set the cover/shelf in place.

We carefully shifted the components until we had them aligned the way we wanted. I then secured the pedestal to the wall (which is 5/8” or 3/4″ plywood not sure which) with a single screw through the back panel centered from side-to-side and a couple of inches down from the top edge. We double-checked the alignment of the pieces and then secured the pedestal to the base with three screws. The base is not screwed to the floor or anything else except the pedestal.

We set the left base and pedestal in place and fussed with the alignment for but it was already 4:15 PM. We had planned to quit working at 4 PM to get cleaned up for our SLAARC meeting and have dinner. We still have a lot to do tomorrow for me to be ready to leave on Tuesday morning, but it should be manageable.

We went to Panera in Brighton for dinner and both had the Edamame Soba Noodle Bowl. It was a generous serving that was tasty and filling even though it was only 390 calories. It was very high in sodium, a common but unfortunate problem with most of Panera’s food, so not something we would eat often.

We arrived at the South Lyon Witches Hat Depot Freight House at 6:30 PM for the monthly meeting of the South Lyon Area Amateur Radio Club (SLAARC). We had a larger group than usual, at least 30 people. The business meeting was brief and followed by a program by Steve (N8AR) on the Yaesu Fusion technology. Steve and several other club members brought different radios to demonstrate and let the attendees try.

We left in time to get home by 9 PM and watch an episode of Sherlock on Detroit PBS, followed by Rick Steve’s Europe and then Music Voyager. We’ve been working long, hard hours and it was nice to take an evening to relax and do something other than work on the bus.

2015/09/12 (S) Making It Usable

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In spite of all that we still have to get done on the bus we got up at 7:15 AM and went to our SLAARC breakfast. We did not get to go last week because our grand-daughter (Madeline) was here and we won’t get to go next week because we will be at an RV rally. We did not hang around like we sometimes do and left at 9 AM, but at least we got to go.

When I quit working on the toilet in the bus at 10 PM last night I had come to the conclusion that I had spent six hours trying to fix the wrong thing. I assumed that the leak was due to a faulty O-ring or a misalignment of two pieces with the slip fit, presumably caused by the 9″ piece of Qest pipe with 1/2″ NPT lavatory fittings on each end. After hours of effort and numerous attempts it occurred to me that the problem could be the threaded fitting in the first piece. The fitting is unusual in that it is hollow and has an inside hex shape. I got my SAE and metric Allen wrench sets but the largest wrenches, 3/8″ and 10mm, were too small and would not engage the fitting.

After dropping Linda at home I went in search of a 7/16″ and 1/2″ Allen wrenches. I stopped at our bank for a little cash and then went to The Home Depot as they are next door to one another. No luck there, but I did buy a 20″ flexible supply line with 1/2″ FIP threads. I tried Lowe’s next but that was another strike out. I tried O’Reilly’s auto parts store, the Tractor Supply store, and the Sears store across the street. Nope, nada, nothing. The guy at Sears suggested ACE hardware back in Howell so I headed that way but pulled into an Advance Auto Parts. They had a set of Allen wrench (hex key) stubs, with 1/2″ drive sockets. It included sizes smaller and larger than what I was looking for, in addition to the ones I was looking for, so I bought it.

Back home we installed the three large drawers in the rear of the bedroom. I then spent several more hours working on the toilet while Linda changed out the handles on all of the cabinet doors. She even figured out how to remove the handle on the built-in laundry hamper in the bathroom. As I have said here before, she is a clever girl. I unscrewed the insert with a 7/16″ hex key, cleaned off the old thread compound, wrapped the threads with Teflon tape, and screwed it back in. I mated the air/water sequence valve with the vacuum breaker and got them mounted to the support bracket, getting them aligned and snug in the process.

The last step was to attach the 20″ flexible supply line to the air/water sequence valve and water supply line. I attached it to the air/water sequence valve first, looped it around, and attached it to the incoming water supply fitting. Easy to say but tough to do. There is a lot of stuff crammed into the back portion of this toilet and there is barely room to get one hand in there to work, never mind two. To make matters worse (for me) the only hand I could get in there was my left one. Being right-handed that made a difficult task even more so.

I turned on the water and checked for connection leaks. I did not see any so I applied air pressure and initiated the flush cycle but it did not work. Nothing, nada, zilch, no movement of the valve, drain flapper opening, and no flow of water. The air-water sequence valve is mounted to a horizontal plate. It installs from underneath and is held in place by a large nut that threads over the top. I thought perhaps this nut was too tight and causing the valve to bind so I loosened it and the valve started working. I flushed it several times looking for leaks and did not see any. We made tiny adjustments to the location and decided to screw it down. It was 3 PM.

I found the four screws that were originally used to mount the toilet to the floor. They are very large and quite unusual. They are 2.25″ long with coarse threads and hex heads with large Philips screwdriver slots. The center of the heads, where the screwdriver slots cross, are drilled and tapped and there are four black caps with screws built into them that screw into them to conceal them and give the toilet a finished look. I was concerned, however, about their length. The underlayment and tile are somewhere between 5/16″ and 7/16″ thick, slightly thinner than the ceramic tile I removed, and the bus subfloor is (presumably) 3/4″ thick. Anything that penetrates the tile by more than 1″ risks coming through the bottom side of the plywood and potentially screwing into something it should not. I measured the base of the toilet and it was an honest one inch thick so I decided I would reuse the screws when we got to that point.

At this point we took about 45 minutes to clean up tools and put things away in the garage. We then turned our attention to getting the built-in sofa installed. I removed a piece of expanded metal mesh and cut a piece of aluminum sheet metal to cover a hole and used heavy duty double sided 3M tape to attach it to the HVAC duct. While Linda cut pieces of felt to go under any pieces of the sofa that touched the floor I cut and attached foam weatherstripping to the back edges of the two plenum/support boxes and the return air duct/shelf.

We put the two plenum/support boxes in place against the end cabinets and HVAC duct but did not take the time to cut and screen openings into the duct. We set the return air duct/shelf in place and put in the vertical front panel but the shelf held it out so I removed the weatherstripping from the back edge. We also did not take the time to drill the 4″ holes at either end of the vertical panel for the round diffusers as there was no point doing this until the HVAC duct was modified.

We secured each of the plenum/support boxes to the wiring chase with a single angle bracket and to the front panel with a pair of brackets. I drilled and countersunk a three foot length of 1/8″ aluminum angle and we installed it against the inside of the vertical panel and the top of the shelf. The shelf is 45″ wide (side-to-side) and there is a 3″ high by 44″ long piece of the vertical panel missing at the floor and centered side-to-side. The aluminum angle will transfer vertical loads on the central portion of the vertical panel to the shelf, which is 3/4″ plywood with full depth pieces along each edge and a slightly shorter central support piece.

We had been making a list throughout the day of parts that we needed. When we got to a point with the sofa where we did not have the screws we needed we took a break. We went to Qdoba in Howell for dinner, our first visit to this particular eatery since we moved to the Brighton/Hartland/Howell area, and both had vegan taco salads. The salads were good enough although the taco shell bowels were not the best we have had. The servers seemed a bit stingy with the various ingredients but in the end the salad was substantial and tasty. It was also a convenient and efficient location being on an out lot of the Meijer’s supermarket property and right across the street from Lowe’s.

After dinner we went to Lowe’s and bought felt drawer/door bumper pads, screws, and two more angle brackets. Back home we worked on the built-in sofa until 9 PM and called it quits for the night. I spent two hours at my desk and finalized a featured bus article for Bus Conversion Magazine on Larry and Carol Hall’s GM4106. I uploaded the article and photo files it to my Dropbox BCM folder, and then e-mailed the publisher, editor, layout person, and Larry to let them know it was there.

I try to finish these posts each night before I go to sleep or first thing the next morning. If I fail to do that I quickly lose the sequence of events and details. I tend to be up too late as a result, but if I fall behind by even one day it is very difficult to catch up while also trying to keep up. As much as I have enjoyed the remodeling project I will be glad to not be so busy this winter and be able to write shorter posts about the interesting people, places, and things we experience.

2015/09/11 (F) Reassembling

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I’m sure everyone who is old enough to remember September 11, 2001 remembers exactly where they were and what they were doing that morning. Along with Pearl Harbor and the Invasion of Normandy 9/11 is certainly one of the most somber days of the year.

I was up late last night so I did not get up until 8 this morning. I took a warm shower which was very refreshing. (It was chilly overnight.) I then fed the cats and made the coffee. Linda got up and washed the blueberries, and we had granola for breakfast. She worked at her desk while I researched expanded metal mesh. It is readily available online in a wide variety of forms and basic stuff is apparently in stock at The Home Depot in Howell.

Linda needed to make deposits at two banks in Howell so we added The Home Depot to our errand run. We picked up two small sheets of decorative metal screen and some other miscellaneous items. By the time we got back to the car I had already decided that would probably not use the metal screens but we took them home anyway.

We finally got busy in the bus at noon. Linda started putting the drawers back in and changing the handles in the cabinets. It turned out that we needed #8-32×3/4 machine screws for at least some of the cabinet doors. It also turned out that every drawer in the coach fit in a unique location. In most cases it was obvious where a drawer went, but not all. While she dealt with that I worked in the bathroom.

A portion of the OTR HVAC return air grill in the bathroom had been cut out, presumably by Royale Coach, but was not being used to pass plumbing or wiring. It was yet another point of access for mice to get into the coach via the HVAC system (if that’s how they are getting in) but I wanted to seal it up while I had the chance (just in case it was). I wanted to preserve the return air flow functionality of that area, however, buy covering it with expanded metal mesh. I had salvaged some from the old furniture but had already used it as temporary screening on the HVAC duct by the living room sofa. I had to uninstall a piece from there and cut it down to the right size.

It took way too much time to find my metal shears but I eventually did, in a tub with garden tools of all places. I hate it when that happens. It was an inauspicious and inefficient start to the day’s work. Some of the inefficiency in this project can be directly attributed to the fact that we are still not fully moved in to this house after 2-1/2 years and do not have all of the tools and supplies unpacked and organized in a proper shop. We spend too much time looking for things and even more time driving to the store to buy something we probably already own but cannot find.

The Microphor LF-210 air-flush toilet set back in place in the bathroom.

We moved the toilet from the bedroom storage box to the bathroom and set it approximately in place. We left the wood cover off the HVAC/wiring chase and then moved the toilet into position as far as possible. Final positioning required the drain to be connected. It was difficult to disconnect and even more difficult to reconnect.

The toilet outlet and the drain pipe get connected by a rubber sleeve with a stop in the middle. A metal compression sleeve with two integral worm gear band clamps then goes around the rubber sleeve. In order to get this assembled I left the compression sleeve off and got the rubber sleeve over both pieces. We were the able to move the toilet back and make sure the two pipes were fully seated but it was a lot harder than this makes it sound and took a lot longer to do that it did to write these few words.

To get the compression sleeve on I had to unwind the worm screws until the bands popped out. I spread it open and slipped it over the rubber sleeve. I then put a zip tie around it to compress it and hold it in place while I bent the compression bands around and back into the worm gear. Once I got them to “bite” I was able to use a 5/16ths socket on a very long extension to reach inside the back housing and tighten the bands. Again, it was a lot harder to do than this description suggests and took quite a while to accomplish. There is very little room to work inside the back of his toilet and the drain/clamps are at the very bottom near the floor with the only access being from above.

Next was hooking up the water and that was ordeal in its own right as I could not get the water line to line up with the plumbing in the toilet. I eventually realized that the tile floor extended back over the bottom flange of the HVAC duct where the water supply line used to sit. We heated the tile behind the toilet with a hair dryer and I then used sharp utility knife to trim it. The nine inch piece of Qest pipe with nuts on both ends still did not want to line up with the supply pipe or toilet connection. I eventually got it connected but it was a struggle.

The vacuum breaker (L, in my hand) and the air/water sequence valve (R) as viewed looking straight down into the back of the toilet. The Microphor LF-210 toilet does not have a water tank. The entire back of the toilet is full of valves, air lines, and water lines.

Last, but not least, was the air. The Microphor LF-210 is an air-flush toilet that uses 1/2 gallon of water per flush. I started the bus to pressurize all of the air systems. Once the auxiliary air tank was full I had Linda hold a rag over the open end of the air line and gave it five good blasts of air to blow out any debris that might have gotten in there. I then shut off the air supply and connected the air tube to the flush actuator. I turned the air supply back on, turned on the water pump, and opened the water valve. Everything looked OK so I flushed the toilet. Everything worked but we had a leak between two components where we had never had a leak before; at least not as far as I knew. It was 4:30 PM and it was now obvious that we were not going to accomplish most of what we planned/needed to get done today.

The leak was between two of the fresh water components, the air/water sequence valve and the vacuum breaker. The air/water sequence valve has a pipe with an O-ring that slides into a matching hole on the vacuum breaker and the leak was at that junction. The vacuum breaker has a second hole, at a right angle to the first one, which slides over another stub with an O-ring that is screwed into the back of the toilet (inside) and feeds water to the bowl. I ASSumed that the leak was due to the O-ring between the two parts having failed. All told I spent another 6 hours on trying to fix the leak, including trips to various stores for O-rings, etc.

About 1/2 hour before I quit working for the night it occurred to me that the leak might not be the O-ring as the pipe with the O-ring is threaded into the air/water sequence valve. It’s a pipe, so it’s hollow, but it threads into something and is smooth on the outside with nothing to put a wrench on. Looking in the end, I saw that internally it was a hex socket. I got my Allen wrench sets to see if I had the right size, but I didn’t. My hex keys only go to 3/8″ and this was bigger than that. It was 10 PM and I had spent 10 hours working on the installation and repair of the toilet without successfully completing the task. Some days are like that and you have to take them in stride. If you can’t (or won’t), converting (or reconverting) a bus is probably a bad choice of hobby. For that matter so is owning a house and trying to maintain it yourself. I guess life really is easier if you can just throw money at problems.

Given the progress of the work today we realized that we would have to delay our departure for Edwardsburg/Elkhart until at least Tuesday morning, and might not be able to leave at all if I could not get the toilet repaired without ordering parts. We considered alternatives, including me taking the bus by myself to Coach Supply Direct and then bringing it home, skipping the GLCC rally in Elkhart.

2015/09/10 (R) Illuminating

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Linda had to go to the bakery today so she was up at 5:45 AM and out the door by 6:15. I was vaguely aware of the activity but fell back asleep and finally woke up a little before 8 AM. I skipped breakfast save for a glass of juice to wash down my vitamin and allergy pill. I spent time finishing yesterday’s blog post and thinking about what I absolutely had to get done in next four days.

I was working at the dining room table instead of in the living room so I got to watch a Red squirrel dart back and forth across the deck all morning. It was gathering walnuts from the tree northeast of our house and taking them somewhere west of our upper deck. It would run (hop) across the deck with a giant walnut in its mouth and then return by way of the deck railing. While it was gathering another walnut I moved to our library where I had a good view of our lower deck. It came down the stairs from the upper deck and disappeared behind the grill. It may be storing them under the deck or under the cover on the grill, in which case we will have to move them.

The main pieces of the desk set in place but not yet assembled or secured, and without the temporary plywood top or permanent Corian countertop.

Once I was in the bus I continued pondering how to get the desk installed so that everything would line up. Built-in furniture is just that, and I had not spent a lot of time in advance figuring out how I was going to fasten pieces together and secure them to the coach. I retrieved the piece of 1/4″ Baltic birch plywood from the garage to use as a spacer at the right end and just slid it in place temporarily. I decided I would use mending plates attached to the back and underside of the left and right bases and pedestals to align the center cover. I also decided to use a length of angle against the wall to support and align the pedestals and cover. Along the same lines I decided to use smaller angle brackets to attach the vertical front panel of the built-in sofa to the two plenum/support boxes and the air return shelf, and to attach the plenum boxes and shelf to the HVAC/wiring chase.

One of the original living room AC light fixtures. These were no doubt high-end fixtures but no longer worked in our remodeled interior.

Feeling like I should get something tangible accomplished I decided to re-install the AC light fixture and the three DC reading lights under the overhead cabinets above the desk. Linda and I agreed last night that we needed to replace the three 120V AC light fixtures in the front of the coach so I turned my attention to that issue. I removed the fixture on the driver’s side by the kitchen end of the sofa alcove and removed the mounting ring. I also measured the size of the base and the overall size of the fixture and wrote them down. Ideally I will find a fixture that has a similar size base but with most of the light fixture above the center point. One of the problems with the current fixtures is that they hang down far enough that a person sitting on the sofa would bump them with their head and probably break them as they are made of glass rods.

I headed towards The Home Depot in Howell and stopped at McDonald’s first for French fries and a soda beverage. I looked at all of their wall sconce light fixtures. They had two different ones that I thought might work but deferred a purchase until I had checked at Lowe’s. THD had 72″ piano (continuous) hinges, however, so I bought one. I also looked at PEX plumbing parts as Butch mentioned last night that I could use them to plumb the fan-coil heat exchangers.

Lowe’s had a wall sconce that was a little more to my liking. I needed three but they only had one in stock, which I bought. The Associate checked inventory at other stores and indicated that there were two more in stock in New Hudson. He wrote down the Model number and the phone number for the store and said I could call and they would hold the items for me. I picked up a couple of 75W GE Reveal light bulbs, the mending plates, angle brackets, and two different pieces of aluminum angle while I was there. I looked for pieces of felt but all they had were very thick furniture pads which was not what I needed.

The new living room light fixture. The color, style, and fit are a better match to the remodeled interior.

I was going to stop at O’Reilly’s Auto Parts to check on heater hose, fittings, and band clamps but decided to skip that stop in favor of getting home and installing the new wall sconce light fixture. It installed without too much difficulty and I liked the look. The fixture, however, was rated for a maximum 60W bulb.

I closed up the house and bus and drove to the Lowe’s in New Hudson. They did indeed have two more of the wall sconce light fixtures that I needed so I bought them. I also picked up three 60W (equivalent, 8.5W actual) 800 lumens dimmable LED warm white light bulbs. Linda texted me while I was at the store to let me know she was leaving the bakery and heading home.

I stopped at Michael’s Arts and Crafts in Brighton and bought a 36″ x 36″ piece of walnut brown felt. I plan to use the felt underneath all of the pieces of the desk and sofa that contact the floor, and possibly in some other areas as well, to keep the wood from marring the tile.

When I got home I called Elkhart Campground to make a reservation for the GLCC rally next week. I also called A-1 Upholstery in Elkhart, Indiana to check on our sofa cushions. Terry said they were almost done and we could pick them up on Monday. I then sent several text messages to Jarel with photos attached of the desk and sofa in place on the bus and indicated I had some questions and would call him later.

I was getting ready to install the other two light fixtures when Linda got home. The timing was good as she got to see the first one and approve it before I installed the other two. We discussed the covering up of the mirror strips in the corner and decided we would leave them for now. We can cover them up later if desired. Linda went in the house to fix dinner. I got the second sconce installed and went inside.

I had a few minutes until dinner was ready and used it to send an e-mail to Jarel. Dinner was couscous on power greens and small slices of bread from a baguette Linda bought the other day. I also had the leftover corn on the cob.

After dinner I called Jarel. We had a long chat and it was 8 PM by the time we finished. Linda headed to bed and I went back to the bus to install the third/final light fixture. I also installed four small frosted bulbs in the light fixture under the overhead cabinets above the desk, replacing the clear bulbs that were there. This light fixture is part of the same collection as the ones I removed from the living room walls but its design and location do interfere with anything. We might replace it someday, if we find something we like better for use over the desk that is the right size and shape, but for now it will remain in place. I locked up the bus, closed up the garage, and headed to my office.

I dealt with some BCM-related e-mail and then off-loaded today’s photos from the Sony a-100 DSLR. I went through all of the photos from September, selected about a dozen, and processed them into 300×200 pixel size images so I could share them with friends and family via e-mail. I have written extensive blog posts everyday but last posted to the website in mid-July. I don’t like being that far behind but getting the posts uploaded is just not as important as other things I have to do at this time.

I was heading to bed when I decided to replace the two light bulbs in our home kitchen that were burned out. I had the two 75W GE Reveal bulbs that I could not use in the bus, so I installed them in the kitchen downlights, and that really brightened things up.

I got to bed just before midnight. It had been a beautiful day, weather wise, and a cool night was in store portending good sleep. But first I had to capture the details of today’s work for this post.

2015/09/09 (W) Move In Day

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We had a slow start to our morning. I was up at 7:30 AM, finished loading the dishwasher, and made a cup of organic English Breakfast tea. I fed the cats and then settled in to continue reading Oystein Ore’s Number Theory and Its History. Jasper wanted attention and sat on my lap until Linda got up at 8:30 AM. I made a cup of tea for her and brewed a second cup for me.

Linda developed a sore throat yesterday and did not feel like working last night so we deferred final cleanup of the grout on the new floor tiles in the bus until this morning. She was obviously still not feeling well and was tired from not having slept well last night but she was willing to help with cleaning the grout reside off of the new tiles. Before jumping into that task, however, we stripped the bed so I could launder the sheets and pillow cases. We needed a mop for the floor cleaning so Linda went to Meijer’s and got one and picked up some blue Scotch Brite sponge pads. While she was gone I went to the garage, smoothed the top surface of the return air shelf for the built-in sofa with 4/0 steel wool, and applied a second coat of polyurethane. I had just enough to finish it. I then started preparing for the tile cleaning.

I filled two 5-gallon pails half full of warm water and added 1-1/2 capfuls of Armstrong Once & Done concentrate. The other pail was clean water for rinsing. Cleaning the grout residue off of the tiles in the bus involved lightly scrubbing along and across the grout lines as well as the center of each tile. I then went over the area with the square edged sponge side of the pad. I went on to the next set of tiles while Linda trailed along behind mopping the area. It took us a couple of hours to do the entire floor.

Part of the kitchen and living room floor after being cleaned as viewed from the hallway looking towards the built-in sofa.

We moved all eight pieces of the built-in sofa into the bus and set them in place. They all fit nicely and I was especially pleased that the vertical front panel, which is walnut veneered plywood, would not have to be trimmed.

We needed to strip the wallpaper behind the sofa but could do that later. We also needed to strip the wallpaper behind the desk and really needed to do that before installing the desk. Ideally we would have the new wallpaper installed too but we do not have it in our possession yet. Linda also wants/needs to get back to work on cleaning/waxing the woodwork as we wanted that done before we put the drawers back in the cabinets. She was very tired by this point, however, and took a much needed nap.

The built-in sofa with the plywood seat raised to reveal the plenum/support boxes on both ends and the center shelf that forms the air return duct for the OTR HVAC. The empty space will be used for storage.

I had some electrical things to take care of before we could assembly and secure the desk so I worked on those. There was a 120V AC duplex outlet in a metal box on the wall where the left desk pedestal will go. There was also a flexible plastic split loom conduit with 11 wires in it that ran from the panel next to the passenger seat to the four switches in the triangular panel and to the first of two door chimes. This conduit was originally on the floor behind the furniture where it could not be seen but was now very visible and something needed to be done with it. I started with the AC outlet.

I shut off the power to the AC outlet, tested it to make sure it was off, unwired the receptacle, unscrewed the box from the wall, and got the wires out of it. I reenergized the circuit and verified which wire pair was the line (source, supply) and which was the load (power was fed from this box to another outlet by the passenger seat). I was thinking about where to relocate the box so I would have power available under the center of the desk when I realized I had not made any provision in the design of the desk for getting power to that location. I sat and thought about that for a while but an obvious solution did not present itself so I worked on the other wiring.

I made a diagram of the connections to the four switches so I could remove the wires and be able to put them back in the right place if needed. All of the connections were spade lugs, male on the switch and female on the wire ends, so they were easy to remove. The two switches with the most wiring originally controlled a motorized drawer and a motorized table. The two DC power supply wires also had spade lugs as did the cabling from the switches to the motor connectors so I was able to remove all of that wiring and set it aside after labeling it to match my diagram.

The two wires from the doorbell switch also ran through the flexible plastic conduit to the first door chime. Another pair of wires was spliced into the first pair and ran back to the bedroom where a second door chime was installed at the junction of the HVAC duct and dresser cabinet. I cut all the wires at the splice, labeled the pair from the switch, and wrapped the end of each wire. I wrapped the wires for the front chime around the box. I then determined that I could pull the wires for the bedroom chime from the bedroom end, after disconnecting them from the chime, and remove them along with the chime box. I coiled and taped the wires and set them aside with the box.

I now had all of the extra wires out of the way but still did not have a good solution to my electrical issues. Two of the four switches were still functional, so the switches needed to be installed somewhere, but it was not obvious to me where they could/should go or how to mount them. I also had two AC cables to relocate. I decided to go inside and work at my desk.

When Linda got up she wasn’t feeling any better but she was at least somewhat rested. We had simple, easy, but tasty meal of vegan riblets and corn-on-the-cob for dinner. I was anxious to see how the desk was going to fit so we moved the nine pieces from the library into the bus. It was getting near sunset by this time and we had a few moments of spectacular color before the world turned to gray and faded into night.

I folded the two AC cables down so they would be out of the way temporarily (they were still de-energized). We set the two bases in approximately the right locations and put the two pedestal boxes on top of them. I need to install a panel to cover the vertical mirror tiles before permanently installing the desk so I left an appropriate space for now. I need to make a decision about the panel, however, so I can give Jarel the final dimensions for the HVAC duct / wiring chase cover. With everything snugged up we put the drawers back in the right pedestal and sat on the sofa contemplating the new look and functionality of our bus.

I was also contemplating how I might “force” the pieces into alignment. My first thought is to use metal or wood plates attached to the back/underside of the two pedestals to position the knee space connector piece. I will probably also put a piece of 1×1 or a metal angle bracket on the wall to hold the back edge of the connector shelf as it will have a heavy UPS on it along with a NAS.

The installation of the new custom walnut desk may be temporary in that I may not be able to get the fan-coil heat exchangers for the Aqua-Hot hydronic heating system installed until after the upcoming GLCC rally. I need to attach some sort of screen material to the back of the air inlet and outlet openings. I also need to install new pieces of heater hose of the correct length and rig up some things to help get the hoses around tight corners. This, however, will require draining and then opening some of the coolant lines.

Linda was surprised both by how big the desk is but also by how much extra room she will have in the kitchen. I think that speaks to the inefficiency/inappropriateness of what was there before. We were discussing the problem of getting AC electrical power to the wall area between the pedestals when the solution presented itself. There is space at the inside rear of the right pedestal box so I can bring AC wiring from the chase through the bottom of the box, up the inside the left rear corner, and out through a hole just below the counter top and wire it to an outlet strip. It will be completely invisible unless you get down on the floor and look up in the knee space of the desk. It will also be conveniently located just below the notch in the center back of the countertop where power and data cables will drop through.

Linda went off to bed a little earlier than normal as she has to go to the bakery tomorrow. I went back to my office to deal with computer updates, e-mails, and off-loading photos from my camera to my computer and the NAS units.

2015/09/08 (T) Polyurethane

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

2015/09/07 (M) Grouted

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Linda got up at 6:45 AM to get a shower before Madeline woke up. She peeked in the bedroom at 7:30 and there was no Madeline to be seen! She pushed the door open a little farther and felt some resistance. She looked behind the door and there was Ms. M, playing hide and seek with Grandma Linda. 🙂 Madeline was not fully awake, however, and sat with Linda on the living room sofa and read stories for a while.

All of this was retold to me as I was up late last night working on yesterday’s blog post and did not get up this morning until 8 AM, just in time for breakfast. Breakfast was gluten-free toaster waffles with real maple syrup and mixed berries on the side (blackberries, blueberries, raspberries, and strawberries); simple but delicious.

After breakfast Linda took Madeline to the Brighton Mill Pond Imagination Station Playscape. They needed to return a book to the lending library and Linda wanted to make sure Ms. M had an active morning so she would be tired enough to lie down for her nap at 1 PM.

Bruce grouting the tiles in the hallway by the new bus refrigerator.

I got back to work on the grout immediately after breakfast. My goal was to be done by noon as it needed to cure, undisturbed, for 24 hours before we could clean it and resume working inside the bus. I picked up where I left off last night with the area in front of the refrigerator where the kitchen blends into the hallway. I was now out into the front half of the bus which is much more open than the hallway, bathroom, and bedroom. Also, most of the tiles in this area are full 16 inch squares so I thought I might be able to work faster. That was optimistic to say the least.

It was forecast to be hot today with a high near 90 degrees F and elevated relative humidity. I turned on the front and middle air-conditioners initially but eventually had to turn off the middle unit when I got to the point where I would no longer be able to reach it. I was a bit surprised that the front A-C alone kept the coach comfortable but we are approaching the autumnal Equinox so the transit of the sun is enough lower in the southern sky that the coach is in shade for most of the day.

It felt like I was moving right along but by noon it was obvious that this was going to be an all-day task so I stopped to have lunch. Linda served vegan hotdogs with pickle relish and onions and set out a large bunch of grapes. After lunch I resumed the grouting while Linda and Madeline watched a video. Madeline laid down for her nap right on schedule. Linda then took a few minutes to help me move the Aqua-Hot fan-coil heat exchangers so I could grout the area where they had been sitting on the floor. Linda cleaned up the kitchen and then had some well-deserved and needed quiet time.

I had a call from Butch around 1:30 PM. I was in the middle of applying grout and said I would call him back later. They left on Saturday for the southwest U.S. and were planning to spend this evening at a Walmart near Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. By 5:25 PM I had one small set of inter tile spaces to grout when Linda and Madeline came out to tell me that dinner was ready. I had just finished a section so I had already cleaned my tools. I put the lid back on the grout container and went inside to eat.

Dinner was mock chicken tenders (vegan), green beans, kale chips, sliced plums, and grapes. There was a little left over “gravy” (vegan) from last night so I had that on my chicken. Madeline helped make the kale chips and really liked them. As soon as I was done eating I excused myself from the table and went back to the bus.

I finished grouting the last four grout spaces and then cleaned up the tools and put them away. I also cleaned up the cockpit area of the bus which is where everything ended up as I worked my way out of the living area. I turned off the front A-C and locked the bus. While I did that Linda cleaned up the kitchen and then gathered up all of Madeline’s things.

When I was done with my chores I cleaned up and changed clothes. The three of us then loaded all of Madeline’s things into Linda’s car which has had the car seat in it all weekend. We closed up the house and headed for Ann Arbor. Linda drove so that I could return Butch’s phone call.

Butch had a possible issue with his house battery bank and wanted to discuss it. He bought eight AGM batteries last winter in Quartzsite, Arizona and finally installed them over the summer. They are 12V DC batteries and he has them in a series-parallel configuration to make a 24V DC battery pack with a 12V DC center tap. A 24V Magnum 4024 inverter/charger is connected to the +24V and DC ground and a Vanner Equalizer is connected to those same points and to the 12V center tap, which is where 12V DC loads, like the water pump, draw their power. In addition, Butch wired three LED display voltmeters to the battery pack; one for the lower 12V bank, one for the upper 12V bank, and one for the overall 24V bank.

His issue/concern was that the upper and lower 12V banks were not reading the same voltage. They were different by one volt, which is a lot, and the upper bank had the lower voltage, which I agreed was an odd situation. Without the Vanner Equalizer 12V loads would draw their energy from the lower 12 V bank and as the charge in that bank got depleted the voltage would drop. The Vanner Equalizer’s purpose in the system is to draw charge from the upper battery bank to make up for this depletion and keep the voltage the same, or equalized, on both banks. I presumed that all three voltmeters were accurate and that the Vanner was connected correctly, all of which would be easy enough to check.

After talking about all of this his plan was to temporarily disable the Vanner by removing its connection to battery ground and see what affect that had. He also thought the Vanner might have a circuit breaker and would check to see if it had tripped. I could not confirm or deny whether this would work. I have looked for information on how the Vanner does what it does and not found much although I have found circuit diagrams for other battery equalizers. My presumption is that it is a small inverter/charger, taking DC power from the upper 12V bank, creating some sort of AC waveform, and applying it to one side of a 1:1 transformer. The other side of the transformer sees the same AC waveform, converts it back to 12V DC, and applies it to the lower battery. The transformer is the key as it isolates the two banks relative to ground. I wrapped up the call a few minutes before we got to our destination.

We arrived at Brendan and Shawna’s house at 7:45 PM. They had pulled up just minutes before us and were unloading their car. They had not dropped Jorge at his home yet so we got to visit with him too. Madeline had me read her a book about what happens if you give a cat a cupcake. We stayed until 8:15 PM and offered to drive Jorge home as Brendan and Shawna had to get Madeline to bed and then eat something for dinner. Madeline got out the cupcakes she helped make and offered those for their evening meal. Tomorrow is a work day for her parents and she has to go to her new school. Jorge is also starting a new job as the wine department manager at the new Plum Market on the northeast side of Ann Arbor, so everyone needed their rest this evening.

We were going to stop at Meijer’s supermarket on the way home but encountered rain before we got to the Brighton exit. We stopped at the Shell station instead, filled up the gas tank, and bought two large decaf coffees at the Dunkin Donuts co-located with the station. Back at the house we each had a vegan cupcake and then sat quietly in the living room working on our iPads while enjoying our brew and the company of our cats. By 10 PM Linda was sleepy and went to bed. I was also tired but stayed up longer to finish this post. Scattered thunderstorms were forecast over a several hour period starting at 11:30 PM. That is when I turned off the light but they had not yet started. We could use a good soaking rain so I hope we get one overnight.

2015/09/06 (N) Grouting

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We got up quietly at 7:30 AM as Madeline was still sound asleep. Linda did not want to let her sleep too long and get off schedule so I got the “all clear” to grind the coffee beans just before 8 AM. I made the Costa Rican half-caff because I am trying to use it up so we can replace it with something we like better. Madeline emerged with Grandma Linda a few minutes later. After stretching they decided to sit quietly on the living room sofa and read stories while everyone woke up and the adults enjoyed our coffee.

Sometime between 9:30 and 10 AM we left for the Howell Farmers Market. We walked from one end to the other, with Madeline in her stroller, scoping out this week’s bounty. We then walked back through and Linda bought a few things including hard stem garlic which we had never seen before. We stopped and chatted with our favorite vendor, Marjorie.

When we got home and put the produce away Linda prepared a snack lunch for herself and Madeline. The two of them then went on an outing to the farm at Kensington Metropark (KMP) while I stayed behind to work on bus projects. I decided to start by finishing the assembly of the pieces for the built-in sofa. I attached the center support for the return air shelf as follows:

I determined the center of the long edges of the shelf and drew a line between them.
I carried these center marks to the other side and then measured 3/8″ to either side.
I connected corresponding marks to create a pair of parallel lines 3/4″ apart and centered on the underside of the shelf.
I placed the support in position, determined its fore-aft position, and marked the ends.
I then marked a piece of scrap wood, cut it into four pieces, and used them to hold the support in place; two long pieces the same length as the support, and two short pieces across the ends.
This allowed me to turn the shelf right side up with the center support held in the correct place and then mark and drill countersunk pilot holes for the screws.
I removed the support piece, sanded off any rough spots, put Titebond II wood glue on the edge, and replaced it between the temporary blocking.
I stood on the shelf to force the pieces together and ran all the screws down tight.
I then removed the temporary blocking.

After sleeping on it last night I decided I would attach the plenum/support boxes to the vertical front panel and the wood wire chase on top of the HVAC chase rather than to the adjacent cabinets or to the floor. That meant I could go ahead and assemble them as complete, single units. Easier said than done.

Even though I used right angle corner clamps the two halves I built for each box did not want to go together perfectly. I managed to get one of them assembled but could not complete the other one by myself. The problem was that I needed both hands to pull the pieces into alignment and two more hands to operate the drill and screw gun.

By now it was 1 PM, which is Madeline’s normal nap time, but they were not back from the Metropark yet so I gathered up all of the tools and materials I needed to grout the floor tiles in the bus. That included the special Armstrong S-288 Glacier White sanded vinyl grout, a flat blade screwdriver, the 4″x8″ hard edge float, the smaller margin trowel, the 2″ putty knife (wall scraper), the ScotchBrite sponges, the Revel scrubber, two large buckets for rinse water, paper towels, a large cloth towel, and paper bags.

Madeline pets one of the sheep at the Kensington Metropark animal farm.

Since Linda and Madeline had still not returned I had a few pretzels with hummus. They finally got home around 1:30 PM and I heard all about the farm and the animals Ms. M got to see and touch. The 2-day old piglets were apparently a big hit but so was the playroom. It was a good outing and I wish I could have gone but I got stuff done that needed to be done.

Madeline finally laid down for her nap at 2 PM but Linda could not help me with the tile grouting as she needed to be within earshot of Madeline’s bedroom. I decided that we could not afford any further delay for this aspect of the interior remodeling project and resolved to do it by myself. Without Linda to walk me through the steps, have materials ready, and clean the tools, I needed to be very clear about the steps and their timing. I must have read the directions on the container of grout a dozen times in an attempt to internalize them but they just would not stick with me. I needed a spray bottle for water so Linda found one for me.

The afternoon was very warm so I turned off the air-conditioning in our home library, closed up the coach, and turned on two of the three air-conditioners, making sure they were on opposite legs of the electrical service. I staged all of the stuff in the bedroom storage box as I planned to start on the back side of the bed in the driver side corner by the head of the bed and work my way out.

I finally got started at 2:30 PM. The grouting involved a specific set of steps that got repeated many times as the directions said to only do 6 – 10 sq. ft. at a time. That range had to do with the time required to apply and strike the grout, setup time (3 – 8 minutes), misting with water, waiting 20-30 seconds, scrubbing, and finally wiping with a square edged cellulose sponge. I had to divide the U-shaped bedroom floor into six sections and it took me until 5:30 PM to do that much so my average time was 30 minutes per section, each of which was smaller than 6 square feet.

I took a short break, had something to drink, and checked with Linda on the timing of dinner. We settled on 6:30 PM and I returned to my grouting. I had to do the bathroom floor in two sections, which got me into the hallway and joined up with the work from the bedroom. I went in to clean up for dinner and was greeted by the smell of something baking. Madeline wanted to make cupcakes so Linda assembled the ingredients and walked her through the steps, letting her do as much of the work as possible. For not even being three years old yet she is very interested in cooking, but only if it is something she will get to eat! 🙂

Dinner was vegan cheeseburgers, corn-on-the-cob (from the Farmers Market), left over black beans and edamame, and sliced pears. I worked in the bus from 7 to 8 PM and finished the hallway as far as the bend that transitions into the kitchen. I cleaned all of the tools and sealed the grout container using Cling-Wrap pressed down onto the surface of the grout to keep air away from it, and locked up the bus.

I washed up and turned on the Yaesu FTM-400 2m/70cm radio in the ham shack while Linda helped Madeline take a bath. Steve, N8AR, was serving as net control for the weekly SLAARC information net and had already started the net but not yet called for check-ins so I got to participate in the entire net. We had a small group this evening, most likely due to it being a holiday weekend, but it was still a good net.

I came upstairs to have dessert with Linda and Madeline; chocolate cupcakes (vegan) with sprinkles. Yum. I then returned to my office to re-read an article I wrote about replacing the speedometer in the bus and editing it to indicate where the pictures should be placed. I dealt with several BCM related e-mails and then came upstairs.

Madeline was in her pajamas and sitting in her portable bed while Linda read a story. She decided that she wanted me to read a couple stories too, so I did. We got her tucked in with her stuffed animals arranged at the four corners of her bed, turned on the night light, and left her to fall asleep.

I opened the bottle of Apricot wine that Brendan and Shawna picked up from Leelenau Cellars and we each had a small glass. I worked on this post while Linda cleaned up the kitchen. It had been a long and very tiring day for both of us but a very satisfying and productive day as well. We don’t mind that kind of tired.

2015/09/05 (S) Building the Built-in

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We set the alarm for 7 AM as we had to return the 100 pound floor roller to The Home Depot by 8:08 AM. We got the roller out of the bus, reattached the transport wheels, and loaded it into the back of my car. We positioned it so that Linda could hold on to the handle while I drove. One-hundred pounds that is designed to roll is not something you want loose in your car. We got to the store at 7:40 AM but the associate was busy renting a ditch digging machine to someone. We had to wait 15 minutes but that was OK. After returning the roller we drove back to the house so Linda could get her car and our iPads and then drove separately to Panera in Brighton.

Linda had her usual Everything bagel and I had my usual Cinnamon Swirl & Raisin bagel, both sliced and toasted with nothing on them. Two large coffees rounded out the order. The coffee was hot and did not have grounds in it (for a change). For some reason we got an extra Everything bagel that we did not order so which we split it.

Linda left at 9 AM to drive to Ann Arbor to pick up grand-daughter Madeline who will be with us until sometime on Monday. Her mom and dad are attending a wedding on Sunday in Madison, Wisconsin so they are driving over today and driving back on Monday. I stayed at Panera getting my money’s worth of coffee while finishing yesterday’s blog post and starting on today’s missive.

I left Panera at 9:45 and stopped for gasoline at the Shell station on the way home. $2.29/gallon. I would love to see $2/gallon gasoline again. Better yet, I would love to see $2/gallon diesel fuel. Linda planned to stop at the grocery store on the way back but I wanted to start a load of laundry and be home when Linda got back to the house with Madeline.

I got the laundry sorted and the first load started and then spent a little time at my desk. I had to reset a password for someone on the SLAARC website and I logged in I was reminded that WordPress 4.3 was now available. There were seven other updates available as well; three plug-ins and four themes. I don’t use any of those themes and should probably delete them, but for now I just updated WP and then updated everything else. I then logged in to our personal website, the FMCA-GLCC website, and the FMCA Freethinkers website and did the same updates.

While I was in our personal website I cleared out the 104 spam comments that had accumulated since my last house cleaning. In the Freethinkers website I activated all of the plug-ins except Wordfence. I have problems with this website and tech support at iPower says it is the Wordfence plug-in that is at fault. They ask for permission to deactivate it and I give them permission but ask that they only disable that one plug-in. Instead they disable ALL of them; every time. I would really like to move this website to QTH.com and I may just do that as an add-on domain to our account. Unfortunately our e-mail reflectors are set up on through the iPower account and I doubt that the club will want to pay for two different web hosting services.

It was a nicer day than we have had for most of the week, cooler with clearer skies and a nice breeze, so I opened up the windows in the motorcoach and turned on all three ceiling exhaust fans to air out the interior and get rid of the lingering smell from the floor tile adhesive. (Yes, that is one, long sentence, but since I have added this one, it is now a proper paragraph rather than a single sentence paragraph.)

Linda and Madeline stopped at the Whole Foods Market in Ann Arbor, which is not far from our son and daughter-in-law’s house, and got to our house at 11 AM. Madeline and I helped Grandma Linda unload the groceries and put them away. I moved a few things from the front hallway into the library where Linda put most of the bus drawers last night (three of them are in our bedroom). Madeline wanted her inflatable porta-bed set up so Linda took care of that. Once her bedroom was arranged we got out her toy box and started playing with things. She also had a couple of bags of things she brought with her and got a small soccer ball out of one of them. We had a great time throwing and rolling it around the living room. It is always wonderful to see the pure joy of a young child at play doing something as simple as this.

By 12:30 PM Madeline was ready for lunch so Linda made a PB&J sandwich and washed some green grapes. She washed some black organic grapes for us and I had a few pretzels dipped I Sabra Roasted Red Pepper Hummus. It’s my favorite hummus from them, or pretty much anyone else.

After Madeline laid down for her afternoon nap at 1 PM Linda and I both got busy with chores. As much as I would like to have taken today off, at least from hands and knees work, we only had eight days left to get some significant tasks accomplished on the bus. In terms of a critical path view of the overall project the critical task is grouting the floor tile that we finished installing at 9 PM last night. Not only will it take some time to do but once it is done it cannot be walked on for 24 hours. As much as it needed to be done, however, I needed a day of not being on my hands and knees. If I get it done on Sunday I can resume work inside the coach on Monday.

While Linda made a batch of granola I worked on assembling some of the pieces for the built-in sofa. My plan was to fully assemble the two plenum boxes that will support the ends of the plywood seat, and I intended to do that by gluing and screwing the four pieces together for each. In order to do that I needed screws of the appropriate type (#6 SR) and length (1-1/4″) so I went to Lowe’s to get them. While I was there I looked at continuous hinges and angle brackets but did not buy any. I need a 72″ hinge but all they had were 48″, 30″, and 12″. I may be able to use two 30″ and one 12″ but I need to check the actual dimension. I also needed a #6 drill but with an integral countersink but Lowe’s did not seem to have what I needed so I went to The Home Depot and found something there.

I think this marking scribe belonged to my mother’s father and is at least 100 years old.

Back home I was getting all of my tools and supplies ready when I realized that I would not be able to attach the plenum/support boxes to the adjacent cabinets if they were fully assembled. This was an example of incomplete design; either I have forgotten how I planned to anchor these boxes, changed my thinking about this in the time since I did the design work, or never figured out this detail in the first place.

Ideally I could anchor them in a way that does not destroy the cabinets or the floor. One way to accomplish that would be to attach them to the HVAC plenum at the back and the vertical front support board using angle brackets, and to the top of the wiring chase above the HVAC plenum via the two filler strips on either side of the seat. If I do that I can fully assemble the two plenum/support boxes before installing them.

For now I only assembled half-boxes with one side piece attached to the bottom piece and the other side piece attached to the top piece. I built one of them for the left end and the other one for the right end. What this leaves open as an option is screwing the side/bottom assembly to its adjacent cabinet and then screwing the other assembly to the first one without using any glue. The dry assembly would allow everything to be disassembled later if needed.

Madeline was up by this time and helped Grandma Linda put the new seed block in the bird feeder. They then walked around to the front of the garage to see what Grandpa Bruce was doing. I showed them my tools and the pieces of wood and explained how everything was going to work and fit together.

Two pieces of one of the plenum boxes held at right angles for gluing and screwing.

I aligned the pieces being joined, which are all 3/4″ cabinet grade 13 ply plywood, using two corner clamps. I then scribed a line 3/8″ from the edge of the piece that was sitting on the edge of the other piece. I marked screw locations every two inches with the spacing centered along the line. I drilled pilot holes with countersinking to ensure the screw heads would be below the surface of the wood. I disassembled the two pieces, leaving the piece that the screws would go in first in the clamps, and sanded off any rough edges. I ran screws part way into each hole so the tips protruded just enough to put the two pieces back into alignment when they were rejoined. I applied Titebond II wood glue to the edge piece spread it out, and wiped off my finger with a wet cloth. I inserted the edge piece back into the clamps, used the screws to make sure it was aligned, tightened the clamps, and ran the screws most of the way down. I then loosened the clamps holding the edge piece and drew it up tight by running the screws all the way down. I used a wet towel to wipe off the excess glue that was squeezed from the joint and set it aside to dry. I took a lot of pictures too.

The center portion of the storage space under the seat will have an elevated platform with closed ends to create a plenum for the OTR HVAC return air. I assembled the two end pieces to the ends of the platform using the same method I used for the plenum/support boxes. There is also a support piece for the middle of the platform but I cannot use the clamps to hold it in position relative to the platform so I will have to do something else. I was thinking that I did not feel like tackling that task when Linda and Madeline came back to the garage to let me know it was almost time for dinner. Saved by the food bell, I closed up the garage and went inside to eat.

Linda set out some carrot slivers, diced peaches, and home grown cherry tomatoes. She cooked some mock chicken patties and heated up some vegan gravy to go with them as a main course. For sides she heated black beans, edamame, and vegan Mac-n-cheese. We all enjoyed our meal.

Madeline really enjoys the swings at the Brighton Mill Pond Imagination Station Playscape.

Our son let Linda know that Madeline had not been sleeping through the night recently and had developed a sensitivity to noises. Linda figured Madeline might sleep better if she engaged in some vigorous play after dinner and suggested that we go to the Brighton Mill Pond Imagination Station Playscape. Ms. M liked the idea but wanted to make sure I was coming too. I found a reasonably good parking spot and pushed her over in the stroller because she does not like to walk for the sake of walking. But once we got to the playscape she was in “go mode.” As the sun set and the light faded we strollered her over to Jack’s for a scoop of vanilla ice cream with sprinklers. We then strollered her back to the car and drove home.

Linda had promised Madeline that she could watch a video before she went to bed. She had selected an episode of Daniel Tiger, an animated children’s program based on the Daniel Striped Tiger character from the old Mr. Rogers TV program. We had Shawna’s iPad with access to her Netflix account but the program was downloading slower than molasses poured on a cold day. We had problems with video, then audio, but eventually got it to work after I turned off the Wi-Fi transceiver on my smartphone. Linda got Madeline ready for bed while fiddled with the technology.

After the video Grandma Linda carried Ms. M around to look at all her favorite artwork, a bedtime ritual that goes back to the first time she ever stayed at our house overnight.

2015/09/04 (F) 100 Pounds

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We set our alarm for 6 AM, got up, had granola for breakfast, and then went to The Home Depot to rent a 100 pound floor roller. The roller consists of three steel rollers, each about 4″ wide and 6″ in diameter, on a common axle. A three foot long handle attaches to the axle between the middle and outside rollers. A pair of small wheels attach to the crossbar at the base of the handle for transport and can be swung up out of the way or removed. We rolled the roller out to our car and loaded it into the back. We then went back inside and purchased up a hard edge grout float, a small offset float, sponges, a bucket, and a bottle of Armstrong Once and Done floor cleaning concentrate.

Bruce rolls the floor tiles in the kitchen with the 100 lb. roller.

Once we got home we got right to work on the bus. We had a few pieces of vinyl tile that still needed to be cut and installed at the front of the bus and that took us over an hour. Once that was done it was time to glue the tiles down. I got the Armstrong S-288 adhesive and the trowel. We read the directions on the adhesive bucket and finally figured out that I should probably not spread more adhesive than could apply in about 20 minutes as the product is time sensitive. The adhesive would then have to set until it was tacky but did not transfer to my finger when touched, which would be 10 to 30 minutes, but we would need to have the tiles set within an hour of when I started spreading the adhesive. The tiles then needed to be rolled with the 100 pound roller.

We started in the center of the coach and installed the tiles as follows: 1) Remove selected tiles; 2) Spread adhesive; 3) Clean up tools while adhesive cured; 4) Lay tiles carefully back in place; and 5) Roll the freshly set tiles. It sounds easy and straightforward enough, but each step had its own issues.

For Step 1) we had to agree on how to remove and stack the tiles so they were in the correct order for installation and to remove them so as not to disturb the surrounding tiles. At Step 2) I had to be careful not get adhesive on anything except the area of the floor I was working on. I also had to make sure the working area was completely covered but also completely troweled off correctly. In Step 3) the tools needed to be cleaned before the adhesive set so we could use warm soapy water to clean them. Once set, the adhesive would have to be cleaned off with mineral spirits. Step 4) was the most critical. The tiles get installed once the adhesive has set to the touch, i.e. still pliable but no transfer when touched. The adhesive effectively acts like a contact cement–it is not possible to slide a tile once it is down–so getting each tile correctly positioned on the first try was critical. Step 5) was the easiest, once we got the 100 pound floor roller out of the car and into the bus. The tiles needed to be rolled as soon as they were installed, which was easy except for the limited confines of the bus interior.

We ended up doing this six times in the following order:

Kitchen;
Built-in sofa portion of the living room;
Front passenger side of living room’
Hallway;
Foot and front side of bed;
Rear side of bed; and
Bathroom.

This corresponded roughly to the order in which we had done the dry fit and it was critical that the central tiles get installed in exactly the right locations. We used plastic spacers at all tile intersections and between tile edges where needed. (The spacers were 2-sided. One side was an X for use where four tile corners meet. The other side had three tabs in line for use between the edges of two adjacent tiles.) These spacers were removed when we pulled the tiles out and replaced when we installed them. We also divided the job up to keep the number of tiles being set to a small enough number that we could meet the time requirements of the adhesive and to make sure we did not get trapped in the back of the coach. We finally installed the last piece (for now) at 9 PM. We had short breaks for lunch and dinner but each cycle of this process took about 90 minutes.

Bruce spreads Armstrong vinyl floor adhesive in the hallway.

My knees were sore by the time we quit. They have never done well with kneeling due to the boney lumps that resulted from Osgood-Slaughter’s disease in my late pre-teens. Occasionally kneeling down on one of the spacers, which had pointy centers on one side, did not help. I probably got down and up at least 100 times throughout the day, maybe more, which was hard enough all by itself. Although I am in better health and physical shape than I was in my 30’s and 40’s at 63 I am certainly not in the prime of my youth. At one time Linda and I had a hundred pounds or more to lose between us. Time, use, and the abuse of being overweight have inevitably taken their toll on our joints. At the end of the day I was left thinking that flooring work is a young person’s game. Whether hardwood, carpet, tile, or even continuous sheet vinyl, much of the work is done on your hands and knees, or bent over, and it is tough work.

I took a long, hot shower and then Linda took her shower while I checked e-mail. We had some Coconut Bliss ice cream with fresh strawberries and then turned in. We watched an episode of Joseph Rosendo’s Travelscope, set the alarm for 7 AM, and went to sleep.

2015/09/03 (R) Floored

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

2015/09/02 (W) Dry Fitting

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

2015/09/01 (T) Tiling Kate

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We both slept until 8 AM this morning and even then got up slowly and reluctantly. We probably need a day off to rest, relax, and catch up on some not-so-physical tasks, but now is not the time. There is too much to do and time is slipping by. The fact that hot weather, muggy weather is forecast for the rest of the week probably had some effect on our enthusiasm for getting back to work. We should probably get up at 6 AM and quit working by early afternoon, but I am not on a sleep schedule that accommodates those hours.

We had our usual homemade granola with blueberries, split a banana, and had OJ/GFJ to wash down our vitamins. I made Ethiopian Yirgacheffe half-caff coffee, but not as much as usual. We enjoyed our coffee in the living room with our cats and finally got back to work at 10 AM.

Dry fit of Armstrong Alterna floor tiles. The starting point was where the kitchen was where the kitchen transitions into the hallway.

Today was one of the milestone days we have been working towards all summer; we (finally) started laying out (dry fitting) the new floor tiles. I had done two layouts on 1/4″ grid paper back in early June; one with the sides of the tiles parallel and perpendicular to the centerline of the bus floor, the other with the sides turned 45 degrees. We both liked the turned layout better so I used it to estimate the number of tiles we needed and placed the order back in mid-June. They took a few weeks to arrive but they have been sitting flat in their boxes since early July waiting to be installed.

My original drawing has tiles lined up with opposite corners on the centerline of the floor, although it looks good on paper there was no way I could draw it at a scale that allowed me to accurately account for the 1/8″ grout spacing. The drawing was just a “proof of concept” and a starting point for the actual layout.

We laid tiles out according to the plan from a starting point in front of the refrigerator that would allow one of the grout lines to go down the center of the hallway in front of the pantry. Unfortunately that did not allow the tiles to reach the front edge of the floor by the cockpit or work out well for the toe kick space under the kitchen base cabinets or hallway running back to the bathroom and bedroom.

A famous problem in mathematics is finding convex polygons that can “tile the plane.” What this means is that the polygon can fit together with itself perfectly so that there are no gaps. Some of Escher’s artwork was based on the use of such polygons and that is the context in which most people would be familiar with this concept. Among “regular” polygons, which are equilateral and equiangular, triangles, squares, and pentagons can tile the plane. So can right triangles and parallelograms, which includes the rhombus. Beyond that it gets a bit tricky and someone just recently discovered a previously unknown irregular pentagon using a computer program to systematically examine a very large number of possibilities.

What does that have to do with our bus remodeling project? Not much, really, beyond the obvious fact that the new vinyl floor tiles for our motorcoach are squares with an edge length of 16 inches. Floor tiles are almost universally square in shape because they are easy to manufacture and can be laid out on a floor in several different ways. Finding a way that fits a particular space in a balanced way is the tricky part, however, and more so in this case because the tiles need to form a continuous pattern of grout lines (if possible) while working their way down the hall and into the bathroom and bedroom.

We shifted the string of tiles running down the centerline towards the kitchen cabinets on the driver’s side of the bus so the corners just reached the recessed base. We then shifted them towards the rear of the coach to get reasonable size pieces at the front edge by the cockpit. We filled in some tiles to either side of the main fore-aft string to make sure they would make it to the edges with reasonable size pieces. When it was clear that this positioning was going to provide a balanced installation in the kitchen and living room we started working our way down the hallway and into the bathroom.

The tiles continued to fall into place and fit well in the bathroom but did not flow into the bedroom quite the way we wanted. We may have to offset a grout line as we transition from the hallway to the bedroom but were otherwise satisfied with our dry fitting. We returned to the front of the coach and placed every full tile that we could. We then started trimming tiles to fill in smaller pieces. We limited ourselves to pieces that had one or two straight cuts and no notches or tabs.

It was 4:30 PM by the time we got to the door of the bathroom and bedroom threshold, where a critical decision would need to be made regarding the offsetting of a grout line. We have learned that the end of the work day is not a good time to make critical decisions. With company coming in a couple of hours we quit working and got cleaned up.

I sat in the living room and worked on this post. Kate sent a text message at 5:30 PM that she was leaving Wayne RESA and heading our way. We figured she would get here at 6:30 and that is when she arrived. She brought a dip that she made from cannelloni beans, garlic, and lemon juice, some baby carrots, and some pretzel chips. We enjoyed the appetizers with some Bell’s Oberon beer while we chatted about work, travel, and family. Kate travels every chance she gets, usually with her S.O. Brian but sometimes by herself. Europe is a favorite destination but she frequently visits family members all across the U.S.A. and sometimes overseas.

After catching up a bit we gave Kate a tour of the bus interior. She liked the new floor tiles and our choice of seat fabric but was suitably impressed with the pull-out pantry which pleased us. I turned off the three residential air-conditioners as we exited the bus. Linda then got busy preparing dinner while I showed Kate the pieces of the custom desk and built-in sofa. I turned on the A-C in the library (where the desk and sofa pieces are stored) to cool it off and lower the humidity. It had been off all day since we were running the main house A-C plus the three A-C units in the coach.

Dinner was ready at 8:30 PM, a simple but tasty meal of burgers and fries with a second round of Bell’s Oberon beer. (Linda bought a real beef patty and got a slice of real cheddar cheese for Kate.) We had fresh strawberries and Coconut Bliss non-dairy ice cream for dessert and then continued to chat about photography, cameras, travel, and the low power Radio station, AM 1700, that Brian runs in Ypsilanti. A local blogger does a weekly interview show that Brian then podcasts. The most recent one was an interview with a professor from U of M Ann Arbor who wrote a book that was recently made into a movie (Diary of a Young Girl). The podcast was “liked” by Sarah Vowel, who is sometimes featured on “This American Life.” Very cool.

Kate had to go to work in the morning and left around 10:15 PM. Linda went straight to bed but I had a couple of things to take care of first. I had initiated the download of an updated NVidia GeForce driver for my ASUS laptop computer. I e-mailed several documents to my sister Patty, and then downloaded the final draft of the August/September Bus Conversion Magazine, proofread my two articles, and e-mailed a couple corrections to the publisher. I installed the driver update and then went to bed. I wrote for a while and finally turned out the light at midnight and fell asleep.

2015/08/31 (M) A Major Sub-Project Done

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We both took Advil PM before bed last night as both of us were sore and tired from a long day of work and needed a good night’s sleep. We awoke at 8 AM to dense fog but it was not unexpected as I saw the advisory on the weather forecast before I went to sleep last night. I made a pot of the Costa Rican half-caff coffee while Linda washed blueberries and got our granola ready. We enjoyed our coffee in the living room with the cats on our laps and listened to Dr. Michael Greger’s daily research summary on NutrionFacts.org.

We were still a bit tired and sore but finally got back to work on the bus at 10:30 AM just as Keith showed up to mow the grass. After opening up the bus and the “workshop”(garage), and getting out the air-compressor and hooking it up, we got the piece of underlayment out of the bedroom that we cut last night but still needed to trim. I cut about 1/8″ off of the passenger side end and cut off the front corner on that end so it would clear the piece of vertical trim. With those adjustments it dropped into place and I stapled most of it to the subfloor. I would have stapled the whole piece but we ran out of staples.

We had already measured and drawn the second piece for the bedroom but without staples we were at a standstill. Linda needed to pick up a few things at the grocery store, so we closed up the house and bus and made an errand run. I dropped her at Meijer’s and drove across the street to Lowe’s. I bought another pack of 1,000 #18 staples, 3/4″ with 1/4” crown because that was the smallest quantity they sell. I also picked up a small bottle of pneumatic tool oil. I drove back to Meijer’s and waited in the parking lot for Linda to emerge. When she did she had eight grocery bags. I guess “a few things” is relative. She got a real hamburger patty and one slice of real cheese from the deli to serve to Kate tomorrow night.

Once we had the groceries unloaded and put away we got back to work on the underlayment. I laid out the next piece for the bedroom which had 11 angles. Even though I worked from a consistent reference point the numbers did not quite work out so I took additional measurements and made adjustments accordingly. When I was satisfied that the layout was close to correct we cut the piece out of the partial panel. I then cut it in half crossways to create two pieces each of which could be installed. We started with the half piece closest to the driver side.

Keith finished cutting the grass and came to get his check so we gave him the inside tour of the bus. He had seen the front part before but never been all the way to the back. He recognized that it was an ambitious project.

The other half of the back bedroom piece, towards the passenger side, took some tweaking but we finally got it in and stapled. The last piece for the bedroom should have been the easiest, a 42″ x 18″ rectangle for the aisle at the foot of the bed/storage box. It wasn’t a perfect rectangle, of course, so it also required adjustments. Things that should be at right angles rarely are and the flanges on the bottom of the HVAC chases do not have straight edges as I assumed they would. The adjustments are usually small but necessary to get the pieces to fit. So it was with the last piece for the main floor.

We thought we were done when Linda noticed a small “L” shaped area around the media cabinet behind the driver’s seat. We still had pieces of underlayment left over that were big enough to cut this piece. After measuring carefully and laying it out the numbers were once again not adding up. We still had the piece of art board that I used to create the templates for the base of the refrigerator alcove so I laid out the “L” shape on that but made it larger than needed. We positioned the template in the bus, trimmed the inside corner (not 90 degrees) and then marked where all the edges needed to be by tracing from underneath. I trimmed the template down and checked the fit. It looked good so I transferred it to the underlayment and we cut it.

We were finally done with the main floor underlayment so we cleaned up the bus by moving stuff to the garage/workshop. I disconnected the DeWalt 15 gallon air-compressor, moved it to the driveway by the garage, and opened the drain valve on the bottom, it had a LOT of water inside which reminded me that I really need to set up a water separator and inline oiler for use with this thing. Linda coiled up the power cord while I coiled up the air hose and stored it with the air-compressor in the front corner of the garage.

Somewhere in the middle of all this work we stopped and had lunch around 3 PM. It was now 6 PM, too early for dinner, so we decided to get cleaned up and go to Lowe’s to look for metal tile edging. As long as we were going to be out I thought we might drive over to Chuck’s shop in Novi to look at the air ride seat base. I called Chuck to see if that would work and he was headed that way anyway, so that is what we did. The Lowe’s in New Hudson did not have what we were looking for but the associate suggested that we try Blakely’s on West Road near Beck Road in Wixom. Chuck was still at his shop when we arrived so we had a nice chat, got the air ride base, and then went our separate ways.

It was 8:30 PM by the time we got home. I spent a few minutes checking e-mails and then we sat down to dinner at 9:15, a simple meal of mock fish fillets with vegan tartar sauce and fresh steamed Brussels sprouts.

I continued checking and responding to e-mails after dinner and then checked into RVillage. I posted a comment on a new topic in the Friends of Curtis YAY! group and a few minutes later got a call from Curtis. After catching up on each other’s activities and whereabouts he e-mailed me a couple of things to read and react to. When we concluded our chat I watched the 3rd installment of the video update series from Technomadia about the renovation of their vintage GM4106 bus conversion at MasterTech in Elkhart, Indiana. I sent them an e-mail regarding a pet friendly hotel that we used years ago when our Golden Retriever (Einstein) was still alive and went with us on a week-long visit to Elkhart to tour motorhome factories. (Einstein’s AKC name was Karie Jame Ricky Ricardo. We got him from the Karie Jame breeders and he was from the Latin Lovers litter.) It was then off to bed to write for a while before going to sleep.

2015/08/29 (S) Up and Down

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

2015/08/27 (R) In and Out

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Linda was up at 5:45 AM and on her way to the bakery at 6:15. I got up an hour later and also got an early start to my day; early is relative, after all. After a bowl of granola I brewed some Cafe Europe / Columbian decaf coffee, turned on the gas fireplace, and continued reading Number Theory and its History. A week ago Jim (N8KUE) e-mailed some questions to us regarding RVing and bus conversions. I felt that too much time had passed without a response so I settled in at my computer to answer his questions as best I could. I sent my reply at 9:30 and turned my attention to our bus project.

I got the pull-out pantry (mostly) installed yesterday. Before we could place the refrigerator in the alcove, however, I needed to do four things:

Install a piece of aluminum angle to prevent the fridge from sliding to the left;
Secure the water line that went to the old refrigerator;
Plug up openings in the cabinet with steel wool; and
Install the 10th drawer slide on top of the pantry to reduce lateral movement at full extension.

I decided to tackle these tasks in that order, which meant a trip to Lowe’s to get the aluminum angle. I chatted briefly with Mike (W8XH) on the drive and stopped at The Home Depot first but did not find what I wanted. Lowe’s had a 3 foot length of 1/8″ thick 1.5″X1.5″ angle. I wanted aluminum because it is light, easy for me to work, and won’t rust or need to be painted, but I wanted the 1/8″ thickness for strength. While I was there I picked up another foam brush, a bottle of Mineral Spirits, and a package of #8-1.75″ stainless steel self-drilling exterior wood screws.

The road graders were out today in our part of the county and I passed the one working on Golf Club Road going to, and returning from, Lowe’s. There was also one working on our road that I could not get around, so I followed it slowly until it reached our driveway and I could turn in.

Back home I cut the aluminum angle to a length of 26.5 inches, the same as the depth of the refrigerator base section and the top piece of plywood in the base of the alcove. I selected a drill bit that was just barely larger in diameter than the stainless steel screws. Starting with the midpoint I drilled holes every three inches along the centerline of one side of the angle. I then countersunk each hole, checking with a screw until the head was just slightly recessed. A light back bore with the countersink bit removed any rough edges.

With the pantry pulled all the way out I placed the side of the angle with the holes on the 2nd piece of plywood in the alcove base with the other side of the angle against the edge of the 3rd piece of the base. Since these pieces of plywood are all 3/4″ thick the vertical side of the angle extended above the plywood by 3/4 of an inch, more than enough to catch the left side of the refrigerator. I held the angle tight against the edge of the 3rd piece of plywood, with the front edge back about 1/2″, and used the #8 VIX self-centering drill bit to drill a pilot hole in the back hole. I then secured it with one of the stainless steel screws, penetrating both the 2nd and 1st layers of plywood and probably a heavy 1/8″ of the subfloor. I held the front of the angle tight and secured the 2nd hole from the front in the same way, as I could not access the first hole due to the pantry. I drilled all the remaining holes except the first and put in the screws. I then pushed the pantry all the way in so I could access the front hole and secured it. The angle was now held in place by nine strong screws fastened into a lot of wood.

The pantry and refrigerator installed in the alcove.

The old refrigerator had an ice maker and cold water dispenser in the freezer door so there is a flexible copper water line at the back of the alcove. The line runs through an inaccessible area and into the cabinet under the kitchen sink so removing it would be difficult and impractical. It was easier to secure the water line, and besides, we might want to use it again someday. I found some used screws with broad #2 SR heads and used them to secure cable ties with mounting tabs to the back wall of the alcove. I re-shaped the copper tube as best I could so it would lie relatively flat against the back of the alcove and used the cable ties to hold it in place.

I noticed when I moved the tube that a little water came out of the end. That struck me as odd as I had it in my head that the line was out of service. After a little investigation I remembered that the shutoff valve for this line was still attached to the water inlet tube on the back of the old refrigerator. If we had pressurized the fresh water system this would have been an open line. Yikes!

I now had another, unexpected, task that had to be done before I could do anything else. I gathered up a few tools, parts, and materials, got my head and arms into the under sink cabinet (which is never comfortable), shut off the supply line valves (just to be safe), and disconnected the copper tube to the refrigerator alcove. I wrapped the threads of the open end of the T-fitting with several turns of Teflon tape, threaded a cap into the fitting, and snugged it up tight. I did not, however, pressure test it as I did not want to take the time and I did not want to pressurize the fresh water system with the toilet disconnected.

With the water line secured I got one of the old packages of steel wool and used it to stuff the openings in the lower rear corners of the alcove where lots of wires, the water line, and two air lines pass in and out. I meant to use the #1 steel wool but grabbed the 4/0 by mistake. It will work just as well but the 4/0 is what Linda is using to clean all of the walnut woodwork, so it was a bit of a waste.

The pull-out pantry is very stable vertically and horizontally except when it is all the way out where it can move side-to-side about 1/2″. I decided to install the last of the 10 slides on the flat between the top of the pantry box and the ceiling of the alcove, which is also the base of the upper cabinet. The ceiling of the alcove is not parallel to the floor and so it was not parallel to the top of the pantry box. I was able to slide a piece of 3/4″ oak veneered plywood between the ceiling and the upper edge of the top slide. With the 10th slide on top of the pantry I had about a 1/8″ gap between the slide and the plywood at the front, opening to about a 1/4″ gap at the rear.

My first attempt at a solution was to try cutting blocks from the end of a 2×4 to be just the right thickness for the front, middle, and rear. That quickly proved to not be a workable solution without some form of stationary saw. After further pondering I decided to cut a 4.5″ wide piece of the oak veneered plywood from one of the leftover pieces that happened to be 26.5″ long.

The new refrigerator in the alcove with the doors open.

I set the piece of plywood in place on top of the two slides, one mounted to the alcove side panel and the other resting on top of the pantry box, and shimmed it with wood shims between the plywood and the ceiling to remove the gap between the plywood and the slide without making it tight. I pulled the pantry out slightly so I could drill and screw the rear hole of the stationary part of the slide. I then pulled the pantry all the way out, pushed the center section of the slide part way back in, and secured the front hole of the moveable part of the slide to the top of the pantry. I used a slot that allowed side-to-side adjustment, just in case. I also secured the center slot on the moveable slide to the top of the pantry box.

I fiddled with the slide until it went in and out smoothly. It is tight enough that I don’t think it will come open when driving, but it pulls out easily enough and will be easier once we get a handle on it. Linda called at 4 PM as I was finishing this task to let me know she was on her way home from the bakery. It would be 60 to 90 minutes before she got home so I moved on to the next task.

The first piece of underlayment to go in will be a full 4’x8′ sheet minus a notch for the middle air-conditioner drain line and part of one short side that has to fit around the built-in pantry. I measured for those cuts and then laid the sheet out in the driveway on top of 2x4s (on the flat). I tried plunge cutting most of the 21″ long by 1″ wide strip off the end with my circular saw without using a guide and finished the cut with my saber saw. My plunge cut wasn’t very good so I trimmed it with the saber saw. That edge will go under the mirror tiles against the back of the built-in pantry so it will be OK.

Linda got home around 5:30 PM. After unloading her car and changing clothes she examined my work for the day and was pleased with the way the pull-out pantry worked. She helped me carry the 4’x8′ sheet of underlayment into the bus at which point I decided that we needed to get the refrigerator into the alcove before doing anything else.

We set the underlayment aside and uncovered the fridge which we had previously wrapped in painter’s plastic to keep it clean while grinding and sanding. Linda cleaned off packing tape adhesive with Goo Gone, wiped it off with a wet rag, and then I wiped it off with a dry towel. We rolled it over to the alcove, shut off the circuit breaker, plugged it in, and secured the cord to the back. It rolls very easily but to get it into the alcove we had to tilt it forward to get the bottom back edge of the unit onto the 2.25″ high plywood base. Oops; the left edge of the fridge space overlapped the built-in pantry opposite and prevented the unit from tilting enough to get the back edge up high enough.

The pantry pulled out with the refrigerator installed.

We have learned not to panic, and after a moment’s thought we turned it slightly to the right, got the right rear bottom corner up onto the plywood and slid it into the alcove a couple inches. We were then able to turn it to the left and get the left rear bottom corner onto the plywood base, making sure it was inside the aluminum angle. Fortunately we had enough clearance above the unit to do that. (If not we would have used the leftover 3/4″ plywood in front of the alcove, gotten the fridge onto those pieces, and then rolled it straight into its space.). We lifted the front bottom of the unit and rolled it back into its cubby. It was a perfect fit; snug to the aluminum angle on the left, tight to the right side of the alcove at the rear with a small (3/16″) gap at the right front, and far enough into the alcove that we can open the three drawers to the left of the sink. High five! Good job team.

I turned on the breaker to make sure the refrigerator still worked. It did, and we were both pleased with how much quieter it is than the old one. We did not need it running at the moment, however, so I turned the breaker off. Linda got a towel and propped the doors open.

We got the underlayment flat on the floor and slid it into position. It needed to be trimmed in three spots and I did not want to get into that at this hour so Linda started preparing diner while I put tools and materials away, locked the bus, and closed up the garage/shop. I plugged in the old refrigerator (in the garage) to let it cool down overnight as DTE Energy’s recycling program is picking it up tomorrow between 8 AM and noon.

Dinner was mock riblets in BBQ sauce, green beans with onions and carrots, and fresh peaches, all very tasty. After dinner I worked at my desk. I replied to several e-mails from Gary at Bus Conversion Magazine, and looked at my Habitat For Humanity article to see if I could split it into two or three parts. It looked like that was possible so I let Gary know. I chatted briefly with Steve (N8AR) on the Novi 440 repeater and with Jim (N8KUE) on the South Lyon 2m repeater. I processed three photos of the finished pantry/fridge installation showing that everything goes in and out and e-mailed it to a dozen people.

I came to bed just before 10 PM. We watched TV for a while until Linda drifted off to sleep. I stayed up a bit longer to finish this post.

2015/08/25 (T) Turning The Corner

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

2015/08/18 (T) Walking Grind

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We were up at 8 AM and I made a pot of Ethiopian Yirgacheffe half-caff coffee while Linda got breakfast ready. She made a batch of granola yesterday so we had some with fresh blueberries and unsweetened soy milk. It’s our standard breakfast, but that’s because we like it so much. She had an e-mail from Robin at the bakery and had to deal with some issues related to the bakery’s new account, The University of Michigan Ann Arbor. As I do most mornings I sat in the living room working on my iPad, drinking my coffee, and paying attention to our two cats.

Being Tuesday Linda had a date with Diane to walk at 10 AM and left at 9:30 for Kensington Metropark. I continued working on my iPad for a while and enjoying my coffee. At 10:15 AM I called the Livingston County Sheriff and reported the mailbox incident from late Friday evening /early Saturday morning. Shelby took the call, was very nice, said she was not aware of any other mailbox reports, but would pass the info along to the Desk Sargent. I checked my e-mail and confirmed with Harvey for Friday at 10 AM to move the old bus refrigerator. I finally went out to work on the floor of the bus at 11 AM, by which time the outside air temperature was already in the 80’s.

I leave three of the awning style windows in the bus open a few inches so it doesn’t get too hot inside. I opened all three roof vents, turned on their ceiling fans, and set them to exhaust air rather than draw it in. I also left the entrance door open to allow more air to flow through the inside of the coach. I then sanded and vacuumed until about 1 PM. When I came back in the house I had two missed calls from Michele Henry of Phoenix Paint so I called her back. I was on the phone with her when Linda got back from her walk.

Once I wrapped up the call with Michele we had a light lunch of hummus with pita chips and both black and red grapes. While we were eating we were entertained by a gray squirrel who had gotten onto the bird feeder and was hanging upside down by its hind legs. It would curl its body to bring its mouth up to the bottom of the feeder, emancipate some seed, and then uncurl to the more relaxed stretched out position and eat it. All of this was also being watched with both interest and considerable skepticism by three crows who were hanging around on the ground under the feeder. They grabbed seeds that the squirrel dropped but seemed very wary of it, which surprised us. I speculated that perhaps they had never seen a squirrel behave in this way and were, therefore, understandably and appropriately cautious; crows are very smart, after all.

After lunch we took the three wallpaper sample books to the bus to look at them with the woodwork. Before we could do that, however, we discovered a small bird trapped in the coach and had to deal with it. I say “trapped” because it was up on the dashboard and obviously confused by the windshields as it kept trying to fly out through them. It did not realize it could get out the same way it came in, through the open door.

The bird seemed small and I think it was an immature sparrow but I’m not sure. It was seeking safe shelter in the space between the dashboard cover and the lower driver side windshield. I used a broom to try to gently encourage it to fly towards the door but it was understandably suspicious of my good intentions. I put on a pair of canvas work gloves and it allowed me to gently pick it up. I tried to release it at the door opening and it flew into the door causing Linda to make a comment about why we use the phrase “bird-brained.” I caught it again, got outside the bus clear of the door, and tossed it gently away from the bus. It immediately took flight and flew off to the southwest, apparently none the worse for its ordeal. I can only image the story it told the other birds.

I got a piece of the Armstrong Alterna Luxury Vinyl floor tile from the garage. Many of the wallpapers that we thought would look good with the floor tile turned out to be too yellow, and most of the ones with good color tone were too dark, but we found a few that we liked. Those tended to be lighter without a lot of pattern and a neutral, off-white color. We are, however, far from a final choice as we do not currently have a sample of the Lambright Notion Linen upholstery fabric or the MCD night shade material and the wallpaper has to work with all of these simultaneously.

We measured the areas that need to be repapered and in the process decided that we would leave the old wallpaper on the inner wall of the hallway, at least for now. (The paper in the bathroom, which is different from the rest of the coach, is generally in good condition and we are not currently planning on replacing it as part of this project.) The existing wallpaper in most of the coach is a string cloth with a beige base but distinct vertical threads that contain a noticeable amount of grey and a more subtle herringbone pattern. It looks good with the walnut woodwork and worked well with the old white carpet, black ceramic floor tile, and bone leather upholstery, so we think it will continue to look good with the new floor tile.

If Josh is at his shop tomorrow we will try to stop and pick up the Lambright Notion Linen sample as whatever wallpaper we choose has to work well with the furniture fabric. On Thursday we will revisit the papers in the three books we currently have with an eye towards something that has some grey in it.

It was another warm, humid day and I was done sanding so I closed up the roof vents, locked up the coach, and went inside. Linda prepared a pizza using the gluten-free crust recipe she got from Mara. Yum.

After dinner I went to Lowe’s and bought two bags of TEC Skill Set Universal Floor Patch and Skim Coat, a mixing bucket, two bags of tile spacers, and three 4’x8′ sheets of 1/4″ SurePly underlayment. I meant to buy a folding metal sawhorse but left it somewhere in the store. I was going to buy premixed floor leveling compound but they only had 1-quart containers for $10 each and the directions said it would only cover 1.5 square feet. I have about 80 square feet of floor to patch and level, so that clearly was not a good solution.

The Universal Floor Patch is a powder that has to be mixed with water, but each bag will cover 20 – 25 square feet at 1/8″ thickness and costs $13; much better than the premixed stuff. I have a few areas to patch that are deeper than 1/8″ but the material can be applied up to 1/2″ thick per coat, and most of the area just needs a much thinner skimcoat. It can also be sanded within 24 hours which will allow me to make it very smooth and keep the work moving along. My goal is to have the floor leveled and sanded smooth by bedtime on Saturday so I can install the 1/4″ underlayment on Sunday and start laying tile on Monday or Tuesday next week.

I stopped at Teeko’s Coffee and Teas to get some more of the Cafe Europe half-caff blend. They had the regular blend but not the decaf blend so I had Roger use the Columbian decaf instead. He roasted the beans for me while I waited and Jeff showed up along with his wife as I was leaving. They were married last September and are expecting their first child late next month. Jeff was wearing his Pepsi delivery shirt, confirming what the woman at the Kahuna Coffee Shop told us last Friday.

We turned in early as we will be getting up very early tomorrow to drive to Indiana again. Linda watched an episode of NCIS after which I watched a PBS special on the origins and evolution of the Navy Seals.

2015/08/13 (R) Sanding Success

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Linda was scheduled to go into the bakery today but knew before we went to bed last night that the visit was postponed. That was just as well; we were very tired from our long day yesterday and slept in this morning.

Before I even had a chance to make coffee I spotted wild turkeys by the road in our easternmost driveway entrance. They walked past the east end of the house into our backyard. They hung around by the deer block for quite a while so we had a good long look at them and I took a few pictures. There was a big tom, a younger/smaller tom, and a half-dozen hens, one with a surprisingly small chick for this late in the season. The turkeys eventually moved on and we got back to our normal routine. While I made the coffee Linda made her own version of raisin, date, walnut oatmeal with some quick oats that she had in the pantry. It was very good.

We read for a bit but I needed to finish the blog posts for the last several days and Linda needed to return some items to the Howell Library and run a couple other errands. While working on the blog post for yesterday I realized that we had not loaded all of the pieces for the built-in sofa. I checked the pieces we had against the drawings, which we should have done yesterday, and confirmed that we were missing the two top pieces (E) for the support boxes (HVAC plenums) and the top piece (H) for the return air plenum. I texted Jarel and he replied quickly that he would try to take care of it in time for me to drive back down on Wednesday to pick up them up. It’s a 12-17 hour, 550 mile day, for me and costs about $60 in gasoline, so hopefully he will have the pantry done by then as well.

Linda got word from our son via TXT message that Shawna’s father, Mick, had passed away. He had an aggressive but non-cancerous brain tumor that did respond to two separate surgeries and was moved to hospice care about two weeks ago. Brendan, Shawna, and Madeline are cutting their vacation short by a day to head to the Grand Rapids area but are still leaving Tuesday to fly to Denver to visit Shawna’s mother, Carol, and her husband, Cliff. It appears that a memorial service may be in the works for the weekend of the 22nd and 23rd, in which case we will probably drive over.

My sister tried to call me today. Linda was on the house phone quite a bit today with bakery-related business so Patty tried my cell phone but did not leave a message. I was working in the bus at the time, did not have it with me, and Linda could not find it in time when it was ringing. Being deaf in one ear she cannot locate where sounds are coming from. She does a little better when she uses her BAHA, but rarely wears it around the house. I called my sister back and left a message and she eventually called me back and we got to talk.

Our father, who is 90, had been admitted to a hospital near where he lives. The staff said he appeared to have severe dementia, but he was fine (for his age) just a couple of weeks ago, so I suspected a stroke or some other sudden change. Patty sent me a text latter that the CAT scan of his brain revealed two recent lesions (last few weeks), the telltale sign of two strokes. She also said he was being transferred to Missouri Baptist Hospital, which is much closer to where she lives, for further care.

Those two pieces of news certainly put a damper on the day, and may cause an adjustment in my plans if I have to travel to St. Louis. In the meantime there is stuff that has to get done, so even though it was warm today and I wasn’t really in the humor, I kept working in the bus, off and on. I vacuumed up loose material, including inside the bases of cabinets, and then cleaned the wiring in the refrigerator alcove with Lysol. I decided to make a template for the refrigerator alcove plywood base filler panels so I could cut them the right size/shape on the first try. I then used one of the new ceramic sanding belts on the residual thin-set and mastic, and it worked! My sense of hope was renewed that I will be able to install the new floor correctly.

By 7 PM I was feeling drained so I wrapped up my work and took a shower. For dinner Linda made pan-grilled BBQ tofu with caramelized onions and served it open faced on a hamburger bun with a side of fresh steamed asparagus. It was delicious.

After dinner I went to Lowe’s and The Home Depot in search of several items but only ended up buying another 36 grit sanding belt. I needed floor leveling compound but was not prepared to choose between their limited options. I also needed a self-centering drill bit but neither store had them. Lowe’s and THD really are focused on the tools and materials one needs to work on a house and its surrounding property. Things like self-centering drill bits, though useful for things like drilling holes for door hinges, are really cabinet-making tools. As big as these stores are they can’t, and don’t, sell everything.

I talked to Butch on the drive home. The self-centering drill bit that Jarel recommended for installing the pull-out pantry slides is a Vix and Butch suggested four places where I could buy it: Rockler, Custom Service Hardware, McFeeley’s, and Grizzly’s. Before ordering one I need to e-mail or text Jarel and ask him what size screw I need to mount the pull-out pantry extension slides.

Back home I thought of four other things I could have bought while I was out so I added them to my list. I then went to my office and worked on blog posts, updated the BCM Group page on RVillage, e-mailed Gary Hatt at BCM, responded to an e-mail from Howard (PlayaDog) re: screens for sliding bus windows, and started downloading Adobe Creative Cloud 2015 updates. Jack Conrad had responded to my earlier e-mail asking if he knew what was going on with the Arcadia rally and I sent him a reply. By the time I dealt with all that I was ready to recline and rest.

2015/08/11 (T) Sanding Prep

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Our day started with our usual morning routine. We were out of Linda’s homemade granola, so she made Quaker brand Raisins, Dates, and Walnuts instant oatmeal. This has long been my favorite oatmeal and I still like the taste and texture.

After breakfast we removed the containers of water from the bus fridge, rolled it out of the alcove, and unplugged it. We then moved it farther up into the coach, behind the front passenger seat, so I could work in the alcove and on the floor. We then got the Shop Vac up into the coach.

Linda left around 9:30 AM to meet Diane at Kensington Metropark. They decided they want to get together and walk once a week and the Metropark, which is about half way between their houses, has as an extensive trail system.

While Linda was away I went to the FedEx Office store in Brighton and got a copy of the 11″ x 17″ sheet with the drawings of the seat and back cushions for the built-in sofa. I stopped at the Shell station and filled the tank as we would be leaving very early in the morning for Indiana.

Back at the house I vacuumed up as much loose debris as I could inside the coach. After checking my pantry drawings I decided I could stack at least two pieces of 3/4″ plywood, one atop the other, to get the base of the refrigerator high enough to allow the back to go over the bundle of wires that run along the junction of the floor and back wall without interfering with the pull-out pantry. This will allow the refrigerator to go into the alcove far enough that we can open the kitchen cabinet drawers under the counter to the left of the sink.

Linda got back around 12:30 PM. After lunch we were going to mask off the inside of the coach with painter’s plastic and tape. Our goal was to upkeep the dust that resulted from sanding the thinset and mastic out of cabinets and off of counters and woodwork. We planned to run the Shop Vac while sanding but knew, a priori, that it won’t suck up all of the dust.

After considering what would be involved in masking off the inside of the coach we decided instead to wrap the refrigerator in plastic to protect it and then tried using the belt sander on the residual thin-set from the old ceramic tiles. The old aluminum oxide belts failed fairly quickly, which was discouraging, but the sanding did generate a lot of airborne dust, which was encouraging as it indicated the sanding was actually removing material. Our Craftsman belt sander has a built-in dust collection bag and Linda was running the vacuum so both of those things helped.

Late afternoon we went to Lowe’s and bought a 4′ x 8′ sheet of 3/4″ (nominal) maple veneered plywood and a 4′ x 8′ sheet of 1/4″ SurePly underlayment plywood. We also got two #36 (very coarse) 4″ x 24″ ceramic particle sanding belts and a box of 200 3/4″ self-drilling screws.

Back home we unloaded everything and I then called Josh to confirm that he could still meet us at the Martin’s supermarket in Elkhart in the morning. I also called Butch to remind him that we were still coming down. The rest of the evening is lost to me, as I did not record our activities soon enough, but they probably involved e-mails, computer updates, and iPads.

2015/08/09 (N) Sounds of Silence

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Sunday usually means a trip to the Howell Farmers Market if the weather is nice. The weather was OK but Linda did some major grocery shopping last night and did not need anything from the market so we did not go. We were both tired from yesterday’s refrigerator swap, physically and emotionally, and wanted to take it easy today. I brewed a pot of Ethiopian Yirgacheffe half-caff coffee and we enjoyed that while reading in the living room. We eventually ate breakfast and then got ready for the rest of our day. For me that meant doing three loads of laundry.

I put the first load of laundry in the washer and then drove to The Home Depot to get two more drawer pulls. We also wanted to look at wall paper but they do not stock any. Lowe’s had a very limited selection of wallpapers, but we thought a couple of them might work if we could not find anything else. One, in particular, was scrubable and another was paintable. We also found one that we liked in a book of Allen-Roth samples. This was not something we needed to decide on the spot but it is something we need to get settled sooner rather than later.

When we got home we pulled the new refrigerator out of its alcove and plugged it in. I set the freezer and fresh food compartment controls to the “normal” mark. Linda filled containers with water and placed them in both compartments. I found the remote thermometer for the unit that is still mounted on the wall next to the alcove and set it in the fresh food compartment. The two thermometers are off by a couple of degrees in opposite directions, but close enough for what I needed to do as it will allow me to monitor the temperature without opening the door. The new refrigerator was much quieter than the old one, which was one of the improvements we were looking for in a new unit.

New fridge in alcove. Kitchen drawers removed. Floor being prepped.

When we got home we had a phone message from Jim, N8KUE, regarding motorhomes. Jim plans to retire from the Ford Research Labs in March. He and Pam are seriously considering getting a motorhome and are starting to research the market. We’ve said for a while that we would be glad to meet for coffee and talk motorhomes, bus conversions, and the RV lifestyle. I called Jim back, suggested that we meet them at the Biggby’s Coffee in South Lyon at 4:30 PM, and they agreed.

Linda tried to pull up the Arcadia Bus Rally website to get the registration form but the domain name appeared to be for sale. I e-mailed Brenda Phelan to find out what is going on. She and her husband, Bill, operate the rally. I then worked on the drawings for the built-in sofa cushions.

We had an early dinner at 3:30 PM and left for South Lyon at 4 PM and got to Biggby’s Coffee just after 4:30 PM. Jim, Pam, and their son Adam, were already there. We talked until after 6:30 PM and then drove the short distance to the Witch’s Hat Depot in the South Lyon Historic Village where our South Lyon Area Amateur Radio Club (SLAARC) holds its monthly business meeting and program. One of the members, John (NU8M), a materials science engineer who works for Bosch, gave a very interesting presentation on the various processes that affect electronics as they age and can ultimately cause them to fail. It was a pleasant evening, weather-wise, and some of us lingered in conversation for a while after the meeting before heading home.

We arrived home hungry and had some hummus with sourdough pretzel nibblers and pita chips and a small piece of watermelon. I checked the bus refrigerator and the fresh food compartment was down to 34.4 degrees F indicated. The remote thermometer is off by about 2 degrees F but I don’t recall in which direction. I turned the thermostat to a warmer setting and will check it again tomorrow. We turned in for the night and Linda read while I wrote for a while before turning off the lights.

2015/08/07 (F) Arrangements

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We had our usual, but never boring, homemade granola with fresh blueberries for breakfast. I brewed a pot of the Costa Rican half-caff coffee we bought yesterday without tasting it first. We found it to be somewhat bitter, which is not our taste in coffee, so we probably will not buy more after this batch is gone.

We spent a good part of the morning researching cabinet pulls on the Cabinet Service Hardware (CSH) website. We found a pull on the CSH website that appeared to be identical to the one from The Home Depot, which is a Rockefeller Antique Brass from Liberty Hardware. The one from CSH was a Belwith Keeler HH.P135-AB for $2.47 each. The one from The Home Depot was $2.48 plus tax but no S&H. Since we have the one from THD in hand and like how it looks we will probably buy them locally.

Many of the drawers in the bus have the pulls attached to the walnut face and then the face attached to the front of the drawer box. Thus, the only way to remove the pulls is to first unscrew the box from the face. I took the face off of one drawer and installed the new pull. It fit perfectly, confirming that the mounting hole spacing is 3″ center-to-center. The one from THD comes with 1″ and 1.5″ #8-32 machine screws but it looks like we will need something shorter than 1″ for the framed drawers and shorter than 1.5″ for the solid drawers. The cabinet doors have 3/4″ thick frames so the 1″ machine screws may work for those. Thus we should be able to use some of the machine screws that come with the pulls from THD but will have to buy some as well. The pulls from CSH do not come with screws so we would have to buy those anyway.

Linda left around noon to meet Diane in Livonia to see a movie (Ricki and the Flash) starring Meryl Streep, Kevin Kline, and Rick Springfield. I went on an errand run while she was away. At The Home Depot in Howell I found 10 packs of the drawer pull we like so the price came out to under $2 per pull compared to $2.48 when purchased individually. We need 58 to replace all the ones in the coach plus at least four for the new desk drawers so I bought six 10-packs. We have not decided if we will replace the single screw round pulls on the two TV cabinet doors with the double screw pulls. If we do we will need a couple more pulls. If not, we will need two round pulls in the same style and finish, which THD also carries. I bought small packs of #8-32×3/4″ and #8-32×1-1/4″ lengths so I can figure out what lengths work best in each location.

Jarel called while at was THD. The plans for the built-in sofa had arrived in today’s mail and he had a few questions. We talked through the issues and came to the conclusion that it would be better for us to come down on Wednesday instead of Tuesday to pick up the desk. That will give him time to cut the sofa pieces and do some minor assembly and finishing. The plywood seat and side pieces need to be stained to resemble the walnut hardwood and a 3/4″x3/4″ piece of walnut hardwood needs to be attached to the front edge. He also needs to cut the piece of walnut veneered plywood for the front and then spray everything with the same lacquer he has used on all of the walnut desk pieces.

As I was finishing up at THD I also got a call from Chuck letting me know that everything was on track for the refrigerator swap tomorrow. My next stop was at the Howell Lowe’s for a 4′ x 4′ sheet of 3/4″ plywood but I did not like their selection any better than THD. I ended up buying two quarter sheets (24″ x 48″) of birch plywood. This plywood has a lot of thin layers, so it is very flat and dimensionally stable, with defect free surfaces that are sanded smooth and very clean edges. These sheets will go on the bottom of the refrigerator alcove in the bus to elevate the new refrigerator above the new vinyl tile floor.

Back home I texted Josh at Coach Supply Direct, called Terry at A-1 Upholstery, and called Butch regarding the change in our visit date for next week. Linda got home shortly thereafter and helped me reattach the edge trim to the two doors of the old refrigerator and load them into the back of my car. We covered everything with blankets and then loaded all of the drawers, shelves, racks, and bins. Once the old fridge is out of the bus we will clean it, reassemble it, plug it in, and make sure it is cooling. We will then call DTE Energy to arrange pick up through their recycling program.

Loading pieces of the old refrigerator into the back of the Element to take to Chuck’s shop.

Linda bought an Amy’s Roasted Vegetable Pizza while she was out and cooked it for dinner. It is our favorite store bought pizza, and much better (for us) than what we can usually get at restaurants and pizzerias (with the exception of Satchel’s in Gainesville, Florida), but not as good as the pizza we had while Mara was here. That pizza was memorable.

After dinner I got a shower and then worked on the design/drawings for the seat and back cushions for the built-in sofa for the bus. I started editing blog posts for July but did feel like uploading them. We went to bed earlier than usual as we had to up at 7 AM tomorrow to go to our weekly ham radio club breakfast.

2015/08/05 (W) No Mask Wednesday

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Linda was up at 6 AM and left for the bakery around 6:20 AM, I think. I was more asleep than awake and did not get up until later. I wanted to do a load of laundry but needed powdered detergent which I did not have. I also needed to make a run to Lowe’s so I left to take care of my errands without making coffee or having breakfast.

I picked up a couple of 2x4s at Lowe’s that I will use to cut a pair of support arms for propping open the fixed window in the bus while we exchange the refrigerators. I was going to buy a 4’x4′ (half sheet) of plywood to cut for the base of the refrigerator alcove but did not care for the selection. I also did want to wrestle with the size and weight by myself. I will have to go back to The Home Depot with Linda to get what I need. I got my laundry supplies across the street at Meijer’s and headed home.

After unloading the 2x4s I thought I would program the remote control in my car for the new garage door opener. The procedure is very simple but much to my dismay the remote would not connect with the opener. The remote is a 3-button model made by Chamberlin, and both garage door openers are identical Chamberlin models. We have four of these 3-button remotes, one for me, one for Linda, and one for each of our children. We got the 3-button model because we have two overhead doors on our garage and plan (hope) to have a barn someday with an overhead door. All four of the 3-button remotes programmed to the large garage door without a problem and the new door opener came with a single button remote that works just fine, as did the large garage door opener. I won’t know if the problem is the opener or my remote until I can try programming Linda’s remote. If her remote will program then I know it’s my remote, but if it won’t program I still won’t know where the problem lies.

I had originally planned to mask off the interior of the bus today so I could start sanding the floor tomorrow but decided to put it off. Not only would the painter’s plastic be difficult to manage by myself, I realized that it did not make a lot of sense to tape it up in advance of doing the refrigerator swap. I was on the phone with Chuck arranging to bring our bus to his shop this weekend to take care of the refrigerators when our USPS carrier, Michelle, came to the door bearing gifts. Well, OK, they were packages, but I did not expect them until tomorrow so that made them more like gifts in my mind. One was from Amateur Electronics Supply (AES) and the other was from Morgan Manufacturing, so it was all ham radio stuff.

I went to my ham shack/office and mounted the control head for the Yaesu FTM-400 on the stand that just arrived from AES. I e-mailed Steve (N8AR) to arrange a time to test the lightning arrestor before installing it in our cable entry box. I then e-mailed Jarel to start trying to arrange a day next week to drive to his shop in Logansport, Indiana to pick up the custom walnut desk. Finally, I e-mailed Josh at Coach Supply Direct to make sure he was going to be around. I was checking out the TVFool.com website, which Steve recommended, when the art frame shop in Howell called to let us know that three of our four paintings were ready to pick up. They would have all been done but he ordered the forth frame the wrong size and had to reorder it. Linda then called to let me know she was on her way home from the bakery. So much communication, so little time.

When Linda got home we discussed going out to dinner and researched a new place that had opened in Howell. As usually happens, however, there is almost no place that serves anything we choose to eat and we ended up staying home. Linda had a couple of Boca burgers in the freezer and we had those with corn-on-the-cob and fresh fruit (peaches, nectarines, and strawberries). We eat better food, and in smaller quantities, when we dine at home.

After dinner I caught Steve (N8AR) on the radio and we agreed that I would bring the lightning arrestor over to his QTH at 8 PM. I had an e-mail related to the draft of the July issue of Bus Conversion Magazine and checked to make sure a correction had been made correctly.

At Steve’s house my lightning arrestor tested better than the previous one, and should work OK in my system, but it was very clear that there is something wrong with the design and/or manufacturing of these VHF/UHF I.C.E. units. We also came to the conclusion that the quality control testing the manufacturer was doing (if any) was inadequate to reveal the problem. I expect, however, that this one will work when I install it so if it is typical of their units most hams would not have a reason to suspect that it was flawed. Someone would have a problem with it, however, as it is clearly not usable for all frequencies from 40 MHz to 1 GHz as stated on the label. My unit has a 0.31 dB loss at 445 MHz (it should be 0.01) but has an 11.59 dB loss around 635 MHz, which is a huge factor of 16 times loos of signal, and the loss from 500 MHz to 1 GHz is unacceptably large making it useless in that range of frequencies.

Steve captured all of the data and e-mailed it to me. He then tested one of his Polyphaser lightning arrestors and sent me that data file. He also sent me the link to the VNWA software from SDR-Kits.com that I needed to work with the data file. We spent a few minutes talking about the problem we are having at home with our ham radio transmissions interfering with our OTA TV signals. He sent me a link to the free student version of the ELSIE (“L”,”C”) filter design software.

I left about 9:45 PM and called my friend, John Rauch, to see if Saturday noon would work for him in terms of our refrigerator swap. He said it would and that he would check with his son (also John) to see if he could/would also help. I will let Chuck know tomorrow that it looks like Saturday is a “go.”

Linda was asleep by the time I got home so I worked in my office until after midnight. I captured the data attached to the e-mails from Steve and then downloaded and installed both the VNWA and the ELSIE software. I then uploaded my personal blog posts for June 28, 29, and 30. I logged in to the FMCA Freethinkers website, the FMCA GLCC website, and the SLAARC website and installed updates for the themes and numerous plug-ins. With that I came back upstairs and worked on this post in the living room so as not to disturb Linda and finally went to bed around 1 AM.

The Phase Place

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

Tag Archives: interior remodel (H3-40)

2015/09/23 (W) Autumnal Equinox

2015/09/22 (T) Bench Work

2015/09/21 (M) Back to Bus Work

2015/09/18 (F) RBus Anniversary

2015/09/17 (R) Counter This

2015/09/16 (W) CSD to GLCC

2015/09/14 (M) Final Prep (for now)

2015/09/13 (N) Club Business

2015/09/12 (S) Making It Usable

2015/09/11 (F) Reassembling

2015/09/10 (R) Illuminating

2015/09/09 (W) Move In Day

2015/09/08 (T) Polyurethane

2015/09/07 (M) Grouted

2015/09/06 (N) Grouting

2015/09/05 (S) Building the Built-in

2015/09/04 (F) 100 Pounds

2015/09/03 (R) Floored

2015/09/02 (W) Dry Fitting

2015/09/01 (T) Tiling Kate

2015/08/31 (M) A Major Sub-Project Done

2015/08/29 (S) Up and Down

2015/08/27 (R) In and Out

2015/08/25 (T) Turning The Corner

2015/08/18 (T) Walking Grind

2015/08/13 (R) Sanding Success

2015/08/11 (T) Sanding Prep

2015/08/09 (N) Sounds of Silence

2015/08/07 (F) Arrangements

2015/08/05 (W) No Mask Wednesday