The Millicent Chronicles; two foot roof raise, big tailgate

[Elliot Naess]

Ah! Where are my manners! Welcome aboard, Moose!

Oh, and... I am also considering relocating the door. I never built a proper door yet, so....

What we seem to need -- from ten seasons of travels -- is something like a conversation group up front. People sit on the dog-house and on an ice chest by the driver's right elbow. And even stand in the stairwell, sometimes.
And whoever sits in the navigator's seat has no foot-rest, since that's where the stair-well is.

So once the roof is all the way up, the floor plan could change drastically.

One more thing.... (said Detective Colombo -- if I remember right) Another example of The Low Ceiling Problem: The bathroom door smacks into one of the upper bunks. So the victim in that bunk is often startled from sleep with a bang. That's just not acceptable. We're a rough bunch, but we are civilized ruffians.

[Moose]

I am planning a roof raise, being 6'6" it seems a necessity. also will allow triple bunks I hope

[Elliot Naess]

As for the loft(y) idea, the idea is indeed to... effectively have a sleeping loft. I just hadn't thought of the word.

[Elliot Naess]

Moose, you are posting faster than I can reply.

Three bunks above each other on the wall? Sure. It all depends on your needs and priorities.

Millicent has one bunk at floor level (about 12 inches off the floor, with storage under). That bunk serves as a couch/sofa in daytime. So it needs safe headroom above it. So only one bunk above that, up high.

We have tried tilting that second bunk up for sofa-headroom, but this has proven unworkable, because that bunk is usually in use, either for a person resting, or for luggage.
Says... 60,000 miles of experience.

[Moose]

How much higher are you going to raise the roof

[Elliot Naess]

That's still to be determined.
Before I decide, I should tend to the springs. The springs (the chassis springs - axle springs) have sagged quite a bit and probably ought to be replaced. This is most noticeable side to side -- she leans as much as four inches to the right when fully loaded.

Once that's sorted out, I can measure accurately to the top of the roof.

Then I will need to decide on which maximum height to work with... 13' 6" versus 14', since many States still have 13' 6" on the books. From my career in trucking, I know that 13' 6" is not always enforced, but....

Next, decide how much safety margin I want. Might be wise to be two or three inches on the safe (legal) side.

Then, how much height I want for anything mounted on the roof. Two inches should do it -- just enough for a deck which rests on the roof in the middle.

And that's how I will determine the additional raise.

She's well below 12' now. New springs would take her closer to 12'.
If I use 13' 6" as the standard, and subtract two for deck and two for margin, she would be 13' 2". So I can raise her at least 14", maybe a couple more.

One might say that I could lift the bunks above skull height now. But that would mean crawling in and out of the bunks on our bellies, with little overhead space. And that's just not nice. Ideally, we should be able to sit up in bed, which I can do now in my "Captain's bunk", but it is too low for driving when the bunk is down.
With another 14 or 16 inches, we can all be comfortable in all respects.

[Moose]

La Literal | Resource Furniture| Bunk Beds & Wall Beds

Would like to try something like this but 3 high in raised roof bus. Also figure out how to use lower as couch

[Elliot Naess]

Whoa! Nasty leverage there. But... Whoa!... what a clever idea! I have never seen that design before, nor thought of it. Verrrry interesting.

Main advantage I see... is that the La Literal design requires less force to tilt up. When a bunk is hinged at the wall, you have to lift half the weight. But with La Literal, you are lifting only... whoa again... my first thought is 1/3. But this could get complicated, and school was a looong time ago.

You could even add ballast to the inner edge, and tilt it with truly minimal effort.

As for the leverage on the outside edge.... Of course it can be built strong enough. That factory does. But I would probably still support them with cables or something.

One drawback.... The folded bunk takes up more space -- distance outward from the wall -- than when a conventional hinged bunk is folded up. Maybe the pivot point could be closer to the wall. The mattress would rub on the wall, but some of that might be OK -- a matter of degree.

Just what I needed. Something brand new for my mind to chew on. LOL

I'll get back to this shortly.

[Moose]

Foldaway Bunk Bed | Sellex Bunk Bed | Folding Bunk Wall Bed | Wall Bunk Bed

[Moose]

they show 11" fully folded is all

[Elliot Naess]

I'm seeing 13".
And note: 15" for wider mattress -- wider base for the additional leverage.

Holding a ruler against my computer screen... the mattresses in the illustrations are only around 8" thick. They recommend 13" mattress, and 15" as absolute maximum. So that would be no wasted space.

I have bought two fairly decent mattresses lately, and they are around 9". Of course, if we narrow the structure so a 9" mattress is flush against the wall, the structure and the mattress frame must both be stronger. This could be done with heavier materials, but I would rather use cables or such to the outer edge.

In Millicent, weight is a concern, so I would probably build a lighter structure and add cables.

The pressurized "hatchback" struts were not visible on the other website. Nice touch, but not needed. Notice they can be deleted when ordering.

By the way.... Millicent does not yet have safety bars to keep sleepers from falling to the floor, but she will get them. Meanwhile, her bunks are slanted a bit toward the wall.

To use the bottom bunk as a couch, it could have even more tilt. More importantly, you need thick back cushions, so people's backs can rest normally against it, with their knees in front of the edge.

Now....
I just measured a couple things in Millicent. The top of the couch is around 20", which is on the high side, but works. Above that there is 32" to the bottom of the upper bunk, and it is much too low. 40" would be more like it.

That would put the surface of the upper mattress against the ceiling of the original bus. So that means a 3 foot roof raise.

3 feet? Well, that's how much distance (average) I have in my "Captain's" bunk, and it is barely enough for comfort. Again... YMMV. LOL

My "regular" bunks are around 30" wide. That's too narrow for comfort.
The Captain's mattress is 38" - American "twin" width -- and is good. (34" would be OK for me.) In a pinch, 38" can hold two, but not comfortably at all. That requires at the very minimum 48", and much better 54" (American "full" width).

Are we making progress?

[cadillackid]

The issue with going over 13"6 you will now be. Kind in many states as they don't mark anything shorter typically... so if you travel east much you'll find yourself bound up.. there's a ton of just at 13"6 stuff out this way.. buddy of mine drives oversize loads and is well aware that the Midwest and east often have older and shorter overpasses ... even on the interstates ESP through cities.. I also think you just become more susceptible to wind and work that drivetrain even harder.. the 12 foot height gets you through most stuff except for the occasional under 12 overpass that's typically very well marked..
Christopher

[Moose]

maybe hang a couch on the folded bottom bunk. Should be enough room for it to lay flat against bunk and hang under when bunk out

[Elliot Naess]

Christopher, you are very much correct.
I used to have a book -- a book, not just a map -- of clearances in Chicago. Chicago is perhaps the worst city, because of the elevated trains -- which are not always so very elevated! (Blues Brothers movie!)

Yeah, I drove 18-wheelers for 27 years. Did some Oversize loads. The 75 foot long pipes were the most fun. Took them to a shale oil fracking place in Colorado.

As for New York City, I have unloaded in Manhattan, and other places thereabouts.
But nowadays... Over The Road drivers simply do not go into NYC. They drop the trailer at a terminal in New Jersey or elsewhere, and a local man takes it into NYC.

Moose.... I haven't started sketching yet, but I'm thinking that the middle bunk -- of three -- would not be in the way when using the bottom bunk as a sofa, since you need a "spacer" for the sofa backrest anyway. You would just pad the bottom of the middle bunk. And add cushions below it.

[family wagon]

In the interest of adding fuel to the bunkbed mental fire: I too would like to do a 3-high stack of 30 inch bunk beds with the bottom and middle beds capable of transforming into a usable couch. Concerns about how to hinge the middle bed so that it's stable for sleeping, forms a comfortable angle and depth with the lower bed for sitting, and moves relatively easily weighed on me for some time. One Sunday I was putting away Clarin brand folding chairs at church and noticed the peculiar way that their seat moves. It's different to other kinds of chairs I've used and its motion looked similar to how I'd imagined that middle bed moving. A mechanical engineer friend informed me that the mechanism is called a "4-bar linkage" and that there are techniques for their design. Unfortunately this is all the progress I've made -- I have to finish out some other things first so I can determine the angles and distances more precisely before attempting the design.

[Moose]

I think comfort comes from lots of cushions

[Elliot Naess]

Excellent point, Family Wagon. I'm looking at such a chair right now.

And there is even better stuff in the hide-a-bed behind me.

Simple mechanical linkages can perform amazing feats.
An easy way to design them is with cardboard and pins, on a suitable "pin cushion" board. Draw the proposed pieces on thin cardboard and cut them out. Use pins for their pivot points. Experiment until the design works as desired. Scale up or down as needed and fabricate in desired material. Impress your friends.

(A "four bar" linkage is a parallelogram with pivots at the corners. By juggling the lengths of the sides, and cheerfully abandoning the "parallel" element, you can make it do all sorts of things. [Trapezoid?] )

Yes, much can be accomplished with loose cushions, but we also need to store them somewhere when not in use. That storage has been a problem in Millicent. There just isn't much room in a bus.

For sitting, the base should be lower in the back. If you have ever traveled by airliner, you know this. An airline seat base is level, even when the back is reclined, and we are constantly sliding forward and getting our pants "wedgied". Not amusing on 11-hour flights.

A bottom bunk doubling as couch could easily have two heights at the front.

The second bunk could perfectly well have a reclined angle when stowed. I'm even thinking... it might not be too difficult to slide it downward to form the entire backrest of the couch. I'm thinking... (still ) cables with springs for counter-weighting. Might be possible to have those cables double as outer supports in the sleeping position. That would be downright nifty.

I do enjoy brainstorming.

I'm lousy at drawing, but I may have to give it a try.

[Elliot Naess]

Is there a quick simple way to make a .gif out of a handful drawings?

[AlleyCat67]

If you have a digital camera or a smartphone you could take a photo of each drawing....

[Elliot Naess]

I have cameras, and a very good tripod; but I also have a flat-bed scanner, which I expect would be more accurate than a camera.
And I just signed up with Makeagif.com.
Let me play for a while.