Rusty 87 build thread

[musigenesis]

Squared up and built my threshold.









Cut my first piece of floor underlayment.





One of my trim pieces is already badly delaminating so I need to replace it.



Underlayment fit perfectly the first time! Yeah right.

Underlayment is attached to the plywood underneath with a bunch of wood screws in a 10" grid (kinda a grid, anyway) and also concentrated in pairs along the seams between the plywood pieces. Feels very solid and flat.



With the underlayment down, I was able to complete the threshold with a piece of corner guard.



Door fits almost snug against it. There should be just enough space for a thin brass kick plate at the bottom of the door.



Replaced bit of trim.



With the threshold done, I can now complete the trim on the door.

[musigenesis]

Last piece of door trim.



Built a pair of new handles for my front door since I got pretty tired of opening it with an adjustable wrench. Since I don't have the capacity to drill square holes (I have the bit but not a drill press that can use it) it occurred to me that I could instead notch out one corner of the handle and wrap an angle bracket around the square shaft.







In addition to grasping the shaft more firmly than the two pieces of oak screwed together did in my last attempt at this, having the shaft in the corner gives more clearance around this middle trim tab sticking out.



Same deal in reverse on the outside of the door.







The mini-step between living room and kitchen was getting a bit squooshy since it's only supported by XPS foam, so I put in this block of 1" thick step tread to firm it up.



Another big piece of underlayment. It was a bit warpy from sitting in my shed for two (three?) years.



Flattened out nicely with all the screws, though. I ran out of 3/4" #8s so I started on the process of pulling the steel #8s out of the ceiling and walls and replacing them with brass screws. That's why these screws all have white heads.



Corner piece which will be under the freezer/fridge.



Extra bit in the side door opening.



Corner guard on the mini-step.



This second piece I cut and then crushed with my knee accidentally, so I had to go buy a second 8' piece of this stuff for $25.

[musigenesis]

Completed the underlayment in the front section.







And the threshold for the side exit door.





All ready to start the floor planking.

[musigenesis]

Calculations for my living room floor layout.



Scribed everything onto the floor. Instead of using spacers for the strips of plank, I scribed the layout for 1" and 1.75" strips and I'll be laying down strips about 1/32" thinner than that.

[musigenesis]

Put down the "redwood" inlay first.







Started on the "rustic oak" in the center of the pattern.







I've absolutely never been a fan of any kind of faux wood - I'm still traumatized by all that '70s wood paneling. But these 6"x36" peel'n'stick planks look pretty good, and they're embossed like real wood. There are four or five different prints/textures, and with each one sliced into 1.75" strips like this, there's enough variety to the strips that it doesn't look like any kind repeating pattern.

No idea how durable this will prove to be, but any pieces that come up I plan to glue down more solidly. It's a really slow process, of course. I wish I could have my miter saw inside the bus to speed this up, but the problem with cutting these vinyl planks is that it produces giant piles of little plastic pellets that get everywhere, and I don't want that mess in my bus. My table saw has already produced a huge pile from ripping the strips.

[musigenesis]

I wasn't originally expecting to have to leave this little cutout in the subfloor for my desk latch, but it doesn't look too horrible after painting.



Finished the part of the floor inside the inlay.



Started on the zebra stripe part of the inlay, which I can use scraps for.



The part outside the inlay is going a lot faster since it uses a lot of whole 3' strips without any angle cutting.



I realized I'm short about one pack of the lighter-colored planks but I have a big surplus of the darker-colored ones. I'm thinking that for the rest of the floor I'll alternate the dark and light strips although I'm not really sure how good that'll look. What the hell, it's a skoolie - it's not like I'm breaking with any woodworking tradition.

[musigenesis]

More scribing of the floor layout.



That moment when you realize your measurements are fatally contaminated and you're going to have to improvise somehow. Fortunately this part will be under my fridge.



More work on the inlay. I'm working around kind of randomly so I don't use bits from the same planks all in the same spot.



Planking under the folding kitchen table.



Final edge pieces.



I have less than two weeks now to finish my floors, get all the trim painted and get everything reinstalled. Really slow going now since my father was in the hospital last weekend+ for pneumonia and I had to take him to the ER last night and again this morning, since doctors put no weight on what a patient actually has to say about their own condition and medical history.

[musigenesis]

Covering up the strike plate for my dumbbell drawer deadbolt. I decide to leave it underneath the flooring for aesthetics and because it would have gotten in the way of the bottom piece of trim for the drawer.



A little piece of 1/8" plywood to come up flush with the underlayment.



Then the peel-and-stick goes over that.





With the flooring in place, these catchblocks on the inside of the drawer don't fit under the trim so I needed to sand down the edges.



Which didn't work - need the big gun flap disk.



Drawer goes in and the deadbolt works better than ever now. Originally it would always catch on the lip of the strike plate when I tried to push it down, but now the bevel I put on the hole in the peel-and-stick makes the deadbolt slide in smoothly every time.



Finishing up the inlay part of the floor.



These corners were a lot trickier to get right than I thought they'd be. I had to do a lot of micro-trimming of the lighter-shaded triangles.



Inlay all done. I showed my mother and she swooned.



Finally ran out of tiles. One more box of 10 is on its way, hopefully will be here soon.

[musigenesis]

My extra pack of floor planks arrived yesterday, so before ripping them I decided to lay them all out and see how many unique planks there actually are in a set. I was surprised to see at least 7 unique ones, and even the duplicates weren't exact duplicates, the repeating pattern just overlapped partially. I think they produce very big sheets of this material and then randomly offset how they slice them, which helps prevents the appearance of any pattern duplication, even without ripping them like I'm doing.



I want to still be able to use my bus for hauling lumber and insulation and sheetrock and whatnot without trashing my interior. My plan for the back section is to have a piece of carpet attached with velcro that is easily removable. I'll then have two post thingies that I can attach to the floor to secure 4'x8' sheets of whatever to.

I ordered these tee nuts so that I can easily bolt these two posts in place. The posts will also have sections of dowel that fit into holes in the floor, so these tee nuts will only have to hold the things down and not be subjected to any shear.



More work on the floor. I badly underestimated how much material this section outside the inlay part will required. I'm just barely going to make it even with my extra pack.



Underlayment screws that are just barely not flush show through.



I didn't intend for the planks to break leaving this thin a strip adjacent to the edge, but it seems to be OK.



Ran out of light and gas to finish this tonight and had pizza sauce to make anyway.



Straight as an arrow, measurements be damned.



One thing I'm noticing about these plank strips is that while they're not bowing up, they do slide around very slightly when I walk on them. I might end up putting tiny brads into the ends to prevent this. It will be a bit of a pain but at least it will make it look even more like a real wood floor.

[musigenesis]

I originally took my pics with an iPod Touch 6th gen but it stopped being able to connect to my computer, so I switched to using my 5th gen iPod Touch. Yesterday that stopped being able to connect as well, so against my better judgement I went and found a Youtube video on the subject and lo and behold the problem (very common) turns out to be my connector cable and not the devices themselves. Apple cables completely suck because their designers years ago decided conventional strain reliefs look aesthetically terrible, so they replaced them with ... nothing. For me the essence of great design is the marriage of form and function; Apple just takes a leak on the function part.

Nice to have my newer iPod working again since the camera is better quality. These are some pics from it that I never imported for some reason.

This may or may not be me:





Heh, I remember looking at this and thinking "no big deal".



My "SCHOOL BUS" opening covers were made from 30 ga. sheet from Lowe's. 30 ga. is very prone to oil-canning, but you can prevent this from happening by making some angle steel out of strips of the sheet bent in a sheet metal brake and riveting it to the back side.











My replacement wiring job is a bit of a mess, but to be fair the original job from the factory was a mess, too.







Can't remember if this is the top of my air tank or the top of my diesel tank.











No way a Gator would ever wear an LSU hoodie, right?





And of course:

[TJones]

Beautiful work on the floor...and cinnabun!

Ted

[musigenesis]

Finally finished with the "hard wood" floor. I have one 1.75" strip of the material left.





I think I'll be able to leave this part without any baseboard trim.





Mound of probably-toxic vinyl plank dust.

[musigenesis]

Originally Posted by TJones

Beautiful work on the floor...and cinnabun!

Ted

Thanks! ... and it's a sourbun, I suppose.

[Jolly Roger bus 223]

for your planks slipping around under foot it could be the glue needs more time to cure?
i dont know what your working temps are but when my wife and i did her bus flooring it was in the 80's outside and probably 90 in the bus with a breeze and our glue was almost drying before we could get the LVT down.
had to set up for three tile at a time but it was nothing as intricate as yours. maybe the glue needs a little time instead of brads in it.
and they make a heavy duty floor protection for construction by many names.
i call it ram board because it comes from one of my suppliers ramtool its a good heavy floor protection that is temporary and comes in i think 300' rolls instead of carpet and poles.
for the poles?
in the trucking world?
bid truck/medium truck they have ratcheting poles/bars to secure the loads removable and stowed as needed.

[musigenesis]

Laid down the baseboard in the front. I'm using 1/4" x 1.125" trim instead of my usual strips of underlayment to solidify the wall base, which is a bit ripply.

[musigenesis]

Originally Posted by Jolly Roger bus 223

for your planks slipping around under foot it could be the glue needs more time to cure?
i dont know what your working temps are but when my wife and i did her bus flooring it was in the 80's outside and probably 90 in the bus with a breeze and our glue was almost drying before we could get the LVT down.
had to set up for three tile at a time but it was nothing as intricate as yours. maybe the glue needs a little time instead of brads in it.
and they make a heavy duty floor protection for construction by many names.
i call it ram board because it comes from one of my suppliers ramtool its a good heavy floor protection that is temporary and comes in i think 300' rolls instead of carpet and poles.
for the poles?
in the trucking world?
bid truck/medium truck they have ratcheting poles/bars to secure the loads removable and stowed as needed.

I hope the glue will cure over time. I checked out my little sample board that I made two years ago that I've had sitting in the bus, and the tiles are rock-solid on that thing, they don't slide around at all. I wonder if maybe that underlayment (Revolutionply) is better for peel-and-stick adhesion that what I'm using here.

I'll check out that ramboard stuff, thanks. I really need something of that variety to protect this floor while I continue working on other stuff.

[musigenesis]

Cut a piece of plywood to attach to the bottom of my dumbbell drawer face. Because the drawer has wheels, I couldn't have the bottom trim attached to the floor since it would need to have cutouts for the wheels.



Oh hell no, can't have a gap this big.





More like it.



Completely forgot how I built the back transition into the lowered section so I took it out.



Ah yes, trim piece for the cross-conduit held in place with angle brackets



Cut off 1" strips on each side and attached them permanently. The remaining center section will be hinged so I can easily access that conduit.

[musigenesis]

I want to be able to use my bus to haul lumber and whatnot without bunging up my interior, so I built some removable rack thingies.



Sturdy enough and not all that heavy.





I was going to build a different rack to carry bicycles with, but it occurred to me that the same racks could be used to mount bikes as well, although I'll probably need to add some kind of connector rod between the two.



Temporarily screwed into the floor so I can go pick up some sheets of Revolutionply at Lowe's so I can finish my floor. With the underlayment in place, I'll mount these more securely but still removably with dowel pins and 3/8" bolts into my tee nuts.



Got this set of 4 ratchet tie-downs and Home Depot for $10. Have to figure out how these work and how to mount them since I've never used these before.

[musigenesis]

Finished up the rear "step" between the dropped kitchen and the back bedroom.







I've bought many pairs of crappy kneepads during this project, but these take the cake. They're like three days old!



Back hinged section in place. It floats slightly because of the insulation, so I either need to sand that down a little or add a couple of catches to this.





My ratchet straps came with hooks on each end, but since they're $2.50 each I just cut off the hooks and permanently attached the straps with pinch blocks. Tested it out on a scrap of plywood and it works well. It took me about ten minutes to figure out how to release the strap.



This block attaches the lower strap and also reinforces the thingie.



Off to Lowe's for some more Revolutionply. This is the first time in 3.5 years that I've hauled anything in the bus reasonably well secured.

[johnbloem1974]

Cool! Really dig the strap/holder thing and a great way to transport stuff without it flopping all over!
Love how your rig is coming together - really impressed by the wood flooring with the inlays! Nice work.

John