Tag Archives: ISRI seats (Suburban Seating)

2015/06/08 (M) Home for a While

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It rained until well after midnight last night.  The rain was not steady but more in the form of heavy downpours associated with thunderstorms.  The gutter along the rear of our house was not able to handle the volume of water and it was spilling over onto our deck making a sound that we are not used to.  I noted that I should check the gutters for clogs at the downspouts today.  My phone chirped, which meant I had an e-mail, and I presumed it was from our whole house generator.  When I got up this morning the clocks on the microwave and range were flashing “2:06”, so my first thought was that we must have taken a power hit then, but the messages on my phone indicated that utility power had been lost and restored around 3:45 AM; at least that was the date/time stamp on the e-mails.  I got up just before 6 AM and finally figured out that the clocks probably reset to 00:00 when the power blipped (3:45 AM + 2:06 elapsed time = 5:51 AM).

I sat in the living room writing with my iPad and playing games until a little after 7 AM and then made coffee, which got Linda out of bed.  We had planned to empty out more of the bus today but the weather was gloomy and we were tired from the rally so we had a long, leisurely morning before busying ourselves with inside chores.  Linda worked at her desk and I wasn’t in the humor to work downstairs in my office so I set my computer up on the dining room table.  Other than an occasional trip to the bus or the garage I mostly sat in front of my computer and talked on the phone all day.

Linda called Alchin’s, our regular trash collection company, to see if they would pick up the old RV furniture.  They do not have a special truck they can send and could not take the steel furniture even if they could get it into their garbage truck.  Linda suggested we find a company like “Got Junk” and searched online for one in the area.  We decided to call “Chuck It Junk Removal” as they are located relatively close to our house.  Keith, from Kish Lawn Care, showed up around 11 AM to cut the grass and Brad, from Chuck It Junk Removal, showed up around 12:45 PM to look at the furniture and flooring we pulled out of the bus and give us a quote on the cost to haul it away.  As Keith was finishing mowing the grass dark clouds were rolling in from the west and not long after he left we had more rain, although nothing like last night.

My dentist thinks my current intermittent teeth issues are the result of clenching my teeth at night so I made an appointment to get fitted for a mouth guard to wear while sleeping.  I also got hold of Phil Jarrell and he decided that tomorrow morning at 8 AM would be a good time for him to stop by and take some elevation readings for the driveway extension and a French drain for the far west end of the property.  Besides the obvious economy of having him do both jobs while he is on site, we need a place to put the topsoil he will dig out for the driveway and we need topsoil to fill in low spots on the west end of the yard.

I managed to finally get some orders placed today.  The big one was for a SureCall Fusion5s multi-band cell phone booster (transceiver) system from Cellular Solutions in Mt. Pleasant, Michigan.  The other was for a window seal from Prevost.  This is not the seal that holds the glass in the frame but rather a large rubber part that seals the space between the window frame and the structure of the coach.  We may need to unlatch the large fixed window on the passenger side and use it to get the old refrigerator out and the new one in.  This window frame has not been opened since we bought the bus and may not have been opened for many years before that, possibly not ever since the bus was built.  I want the new seal on hand in case the current one gets damaged trying to open the window frame.

Besides these two purchases I talked to someone at A-1 Upholstery and described our home made sofa plans.  She suggested that we would need ~9 yards of 54″ wide material for the sofa seats and back cushions.  I sent an e-mail to Josh at Coach Supply Direct reminding him of some things we had discussed at the rally last week and Rick Short at Isringhausen with questions about their 6800 series bus driver seats.  I also finally got to talk to Mike at Suburban Seating in New Jersey.  As I suspected we cannot buy the seat directly from ISRI, but I may be able to order it through Suburban Seating and pick it up from ISRI USA in Galesburg, Michigan.  That would be much nicer than having it shipped to our house on a truck from New Jersey.

I called Rupes/Cyclo to try to get answers to a few questions about the Cyclo 5-Pro Mark II Dual Head Orbital Polisher and its various pads but could not figure out how to talk to a real person.  I submitted the online Contact Form with my questions and got a speedy reply from Cory as a result of which I now know what to order.  All I have to do is figure out how many of each thing I need.  The Cyclo 5 is available on Amazon Prime, by itself, but it did not appear to be the Mark II model.  Some of the major distributors claim to give you a set of “free” ProGuard Orbital Backing Plates, but the Rupes/Cyclo website clearly states that the polisher is not sold without one of the three head options.  I prefer not to patronize businesses that misrepresent their offerings and will probably order the polisher, pads, and chemicals directly from Cyclo even if I am paying MSRP.

I got a call from Gary Hatt at Bus Conversion Magazine.  I had not looked at or replied to e-mails in over a week and he wanted to make sure everything was OK.  While we were talking we got a call from Curtis Coleman of RVillage so Linda took that initially until my other call was concluded.  I had e-mailed Curtis earlier in the day and he was responding to that communique.

Somewhere in the middle of all that we had chickpea salad on a bed of greens for lunch.  Linda then went for a walk, met Chris (K8VJ) at Lowe’s to pick up some SLAARC mail, and roasted vegetables for our dinner when she got home.  I sent Chuck Spera a short e-mail inquiring about how to open the latches on our emergency escape window and then called it a night.

 

2015/06/03 (W) GLAMARAMA 2015 (Day 1)

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Today was the opening day of the 2015 rally of the Family Motor Coach Association (FMCA) Great Lakes Area MotorCoach Association (GLAMA).  We were expecting three more arrivals from our Great Lakes Converted Coaches (GLCC) chapter but only two of them made it in before the 5 PM parking cutoff.  Jim and Lydia Marin, who parked next to us at Elkhart Campground on Sunday, arrived during the morning while Linda and I were out running errands.  Larry and Alma Baker arrived mid-afternoon.

Linda and I had our usual breakfast and then left around 8:30 AM.  Our first stop was Martin’s supermarket on US-33 northwest of downtown Goshen where Linda ordered the food for our chapter social tomorrow.  She and Karen Gerrie will pick up the deli trays, chips, pop, plates, napkins, and eating utensils tomorrow just before the social begins.

When we were done at Martin’s we continued up US-33 towards Elkhart, took CR-20 over to SR-19 and followed that north to W. Franklin Street where we headed west to the Elk Park Industrial Park and Paul’s Seating.  We met with Paul who was as helpful as he could be but it was basically a wasted trip.  He did not have a showroom, did not have additional information about the products shown on his website, and no longer carried any form of barrel chair.  His business appeared to mostly be recovering existing furniture, although later in the day we were looking at Pleasureway motorhomes (made in Elkhart) that featured furniture from Paul’s Seating.  It did not impress us as the highest quality RV furniture we have seen.

Paul suggested we look at MasterCraft for barrel chairs.  Linda pulled them up on the web browser on her phone.  They were in LaGrange, Indiana, which was quite a drive to the east on US-20, and did not have anything illustrated on their website that looked like the kind of chair we wanted/needed.  We went back down US-33 to Goshen, stopped along the way for a soft pretzel at Ben’s, and then returned to the fairgrounds.

I made phone calls to Isringhausen, Suburban Seating, Villa International, and Glastop RV Furniture.  I chatted with someone at Isri, Carlos at Suburban, Melanie at Villa (in Elkhart), and Peter from Glastop.  The calls to ISRI and Suburban were in connection with getting an ISRI 6800/6832/6860 bus driver seat.  The calls to Villa and Glastop were for barrel chairs.

We sat outside our coach for a while and chatted with Mike Dickson.  He and Kathy are in the Jayco Class C next to us.  We eventually got hungry and Linda made faux deli slice sandwiches for lunch.  By that point I was ready for a nap and slept for about two hours.  We had some of the seitan stroganoff for dinner around 5:30 PM.  I put on my nice GLCC shirt and at 6:05 PM we took the GLCC chapter flag over to Building A to line up for the opening ceremonies.  I thought I could handle the flag alone but we decided to have Linda help carry it.  She was wearing her Desert Bar T-shirt so she went back and changed into her GLCC shirt.

The opening ceremonies started at 6:30 PM.  After the presentation of the Canadian and American colors, the singing of both national anthems, the pledge of allegiance to the U.S. flag, and a very religious invocation, we had the parade of chapter flags.  That was followed by the introductions of a long list of FMCA dignitaries and announcements.  Fortunately it was all done by 7 PM.  There was a short break before the Frustrated Maestros started playing and we took that opportunity to return to our coach as did many of our other chapter members.  Several groups of us stood around and chatted until it got chilly and we all went inside.  The rest of the evening was spent in our coach using our iPads.

 

2015/05/25 (M) Memorial Day

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We spent the morning lounging around drinking coffee and enjoying the holiday.  Hey, even retired people need a day off.  Actually, we continued to research refrigerator, seating, and upholstery options for the bus, taking a break to have a tofu scramble and toast for breakfast.

We stumbled upon the Yale Appliance blog which proved to be very informative.  Yale is a very large appliance store in the Boston area and maintains a blog about appliances.  After reading what they had to say in some fairly recent postings we realized that we should probably not be looking for a “counter depth” refrigerator.  It also appeared that our best bet in terms of case dimensions and interior volume might be a standard top freezer design and our best bet in terms of both price and reliability might be a Frigidaire.

We went to the Frigidaire website and found that the FFHT1621QB might fit our needs perfectly.  It is a 16.3 cu. ft. top freezer design available in black, white, or stainless steel with doors that can be hinged left or right.  (We need a fridge with doors the hinge on the left.)  It is 28″ W x 30-1/8″ D x 64-3/8″ H and only needs 3/8″ clearance on the top and sides and 1″ in the rear.  The depth includes the doors and handles; the depth of the case alone is only is 26-5/8″.  Our refrigerator alcove is 33-3/4″ W x 29-1/2″ D x 66-3/4″ H so it will fit easily, recessing a bit more than our current 22.6 cu. ft. Jenn-Air and leaving 5″ to its left for a pull out pantry.  The pantry will have be custom built and measure approximately 5″ W x 28″ D x 66″ H including top and bottom mounted slides/guides.  Also of importance, we will not have to modify the cabinet above the refrigerator alcove.

In terms of seating we checked out Gilbreath Upholstery’s website but then concentrated on the Bradd & Hall website.  Bradd & Hall is a well-known RV (& marine) furniture supplier in Elkhart, Indiana.  They handle the Flexsteel RV and marine product lines and also sell the Lambright Comfort Chair product line, although the latter is available directly from Lambright in Shipshewana, Indiana.  We have sat in the Lambright Lazy Relaxor Lite swivel recliner (wall hugger) at RV rallies and found it nicely sized and very comfortable for us.  It is 24″ W x 33″ D x 38″ H and needs 2.4″ clearance from the wall.  It is normally a free-standing chair so we are unclear whether it can be secured to the floor or be used with seat belts.  We plan to visit Bradd & Hall on Monday, June 1 before we check into the GLAMARAMA rally and this is one of the things we will ask about.

Bradd & Hall also sells a Flexsteel Barrel Chair with a bolt down pedestal base that locks in different positions and includes a bar for attaching seat belts.  It is 26″ W x 30″ D x 34″ high and might be a better fit for our bus and what we are trying to accomplish with our remodeling project.  Last, but not least, they sell Flexsteel Captain’s Chairs (which Flexsteel calls “bucket seats” on its website).  We need a chair of this type to replace the oversized front passenger chair and possibly to replace the driver’s chair.  My hope, however, is to get an ISRI 6800 seat for the driver’s position.  These are the seats that are normally installed on tour buses.

An advantage to getting everything from Bradd & Hall, except for the ISRI driver’s seat, is that we can get the same fabric on the passenger Captain’s chair and living room chairs and buy additional materials to have the seat and back cushions made for the sofa that I will build (with storage underneath).  We will probably find a folding chair for the desk and can have the seat recovered in the same material so that everything is coordinated.

Linda called the J. C. Penney’s salon to see if Renee was working and had openings.  She was, and she did, so Linda booked a time, grabbed her car keys, and headed to Twelve Oaks Mall.  That seemed like an opportune time for me to head to the bus to double check measurements and ponder design solutions.  I checked the dimensions of our refrigerator alcove and the Frigidaire FFHT1621QB will definitely fit very nicely.  The front part of the passenger side of the bus has 13′ 3″ of flat floor space available for a desk and two chairs with a small dining table between them.  On the driver side of the bus the aft end of the sofa nook is 7′ 2″ from the entrance step.  If I can fit both chairs and the table in the first 7′ 2″ on the passenger side we will have room for a 6′ long desk that is 26-1/2″ deep.  That’s long enough to have a file drawer on one end and a printer shelf on the other end with plenty of room in between for a chair.

We have been planning on reusing the Corian top from the old dinette table so I decided to disassemble the top from its base.  I had never really looked at the construction before now and discovered that the Corian is glued to a wood panel that is secured to the two massive posts that are screwed to the base.  I was able to disconnect the base from the posts easily enough but there did not appear to be any way to separate the Corian from the support structure.  I took a few whacks at it with a pry bar and small sledge hammer and it was clearly not going to come loose.

The good news is that we can now select a new table top in whatever size, shape, and material suits us and use the same material for the desk top, which will double as additional kitchen counter space.  Our assumption has been that we will use Corian, but Corian is heavy so we will consider other options before making a final decision.  We discussed extending the desk top all the way down the wall to the front of the living room, although it would only be about 6″ deep at most, and building shallow cabinetry to go under it and fill in the space above the HVAC chase and below the window trim.  That space will essentially be wasted otherwise, and have to be finished in some way, so building small storage spaces is worth considering with or without the extended desk top.

What all of this comes down to is that we have to select the two chairs we want to use in conjunction with figuring out the table size and support system, and then finalize the design of the desk.  We plan to recondition all of the woodwork (with Touch of Oranges and Touch of Beeswax) and replace the refrigerator before we install the new floor, which has to go in before the furniture.  That’s the order in which decisions have to be made and the work has to be done.  Chairs and custom woodwork are potentially long lead items so we need to get them finalized and ordered, but they are the last things to get installed, so it should work out OK in the end.

It rained hard for a brief time mid-afternoon, after which Linda went for a long walk.  She was walking almost daily this winter in Quartzsite, Arizona but has not walked much since we got home.  That gave me time to work on this blog post.

Earlier in the day we snacked on nuts instead of having lunch.  Linda made whole wheat capellini for dinner using the Portobello mushrooms and some of the asparagus we bought yesterday at the Howell Farmers Market.  It was delicious.

I had intended to work at my computer most of the day but that obviously did not happen.  When I finally went to my office after dinner I had a long chat on the phone with Butch about hardware for the slide out pantry and other bus-related things and then checked a few websites that he suggested as good sources of specialized hardware.  I then e-mailed GLCC members about parking with the chapter and took care of some other e-mail.  In addition to computer-based work I need to keep working on the bus but I am also at the point where I need to order some things and then settle in and work on drawings for the desk, pantry, and sofa.