Rusty 87 build thread

[Native]

Your hammock looks comfy ... I could never get the "hang" of them.

[musigenesis]

Originally Posted by Native

Your hammock looks comfy ... I could never get the "hang" of them.

Yeah, I actually don't generally like hammocks, or at least my lower back doesn't like them. But this one is really huge, so you can lay across it sort of diagonally and be nearly flat. I've slept in it a few times and wasn't completely immobile the next day, at least.

This hammock is making me think more about suspending stuff from the ceiling as opposed to supporting it from underneath. Like, I plan to have a sort of dinette table / extra countertop, half of which folds over (or under?) to be out of the way. Rather than supporting the folding part with something like a folding leg, maybe a cable that hooks onto the ceiling?

[musigenesis]

BTW: one thing that makes hammocks a lot more comfortable is one of those horseshoe collar pillows like you use to sleep on an airplane. A hammock usually naturally puts you in a comfy position except it leaves your head unsupported by anything, which the neck pillow fixes. Add in a hot pad and you're in heaven - for the 7 minutes until you have to pee again.

[musigenesis]

Rats, naturally I find this right after finishing my ceiling with store-bought 1.5" XPS: https://philadelphia.craigslist.org/...229680425.html

[Native]

Apparently, that is a popular item ... the post is already gone. Someone got some XPS!

[musigenesis]

Originally Posted by Native

Apparently, that is a popular item ... the post is already gone. Someone got some XPS!

Yeah, folks love their salvaged insulation around here. This stuff was actually polyiso, with some kind of fiberglass facing on both sides (roofing insulation). I've never actually held any polyiso in my hands so I'm not sure how bendy it is.

[musigenesis]

Some fine condensation in the bus this morning.



Not sure why this is blue in the pic; it was regular ol' water in real life.



Built the corner frame for the driver's side.



Ripped and sculpted the posts for the side exit door.



Ready for painting. I think this would all be going ten times faster if I wasn't painting all the wood.

[musigenesis]

Framing around the side door. These posts are attached with 2.75" Teks wood-to-metal screws, so much easier than how I did the back door with 1/4-20 bolts and nuts.









Installed the other corner section. Just realized looking at this that I didn't insulate behind the top right of this section, so I'll have to uninstall this or else try to wedge a piece up from underneath. Grrrr.



Starting on the projecting box over my shower that I'll be mounting my MaxxAir fan on so it can be level.





I hooked the fan up last night to my car battery to make sure it's functional, and it took me a bit to realize it was actually running because it's completely silent on its lowest speed. And it moves a huge amount of air on full speed, pretty impressive. Not bad for $85.

[musigenesis]

Tacked together the box for mounting my exhaust fan on the roof.

[musigenesis]

Added a gutter strip sort of thing to my vent fan projection, to keep water from sweeping over the roof and into the side of the fan. The fan should be watertight without it, but it can't hurt.



Finished welding the vent fan projection. Now it just needs grinding, priming, dynatroning and painting. Hopefully finished tonight so I can install it and the fan tomorrow with the nice weather.







Structural duct tape (actually Gorilla Tape) holding in this little bit of corner insulation.



Slide-in block of insulation on the driver's side.

[musigenesis]

This will be behind my couch and nothing will need to be anchored to it, so it's just to keep the wall paneling in place. Elsewhere, wherever I need to anchor something strongly at the base, I'll use 2X with Teks run into the chair rail, and maybe also some beefier angle braces than these. I bought 10 of these angle braces for my corners, but it turns out each thing I bought was a 4-pack so I get to go crazy with them.



Since my top pieces were so wavy, for this piece under the window I attached the two ends and then spent 17 hours adjusting the height of the middle block (the dark gray thing) so the trim piece was perfectly straight.



A truly sad day. I finally came to the end of my cheap used Craigslist 2" XPS foam board. $75 got me a long way, now I'm paying $30 a sheet.



I'm gluing in strips of leftover 1.5" XPS to provide backing for the 2" XPS which is my actual insulation. I actually spent some time searching online for 1.5" thick styrofoam to use for this, without it ever occurring to me that I would have a bunch of leftover XPS from my ceiling.



This profile lets it fit over the top of the chair rail and also create a notch where I'll put in a strip of XPS to cover the chair rail flange that sticks out. Stopping the piece at that flange will also let me cut all the long pieces for the rest of the walls to be less than 24", so I can get two per sheet.











Look who's back!





Looking at this pic makes me think a 27.5" span between the attachment points for my wall paneling is a bit much. Almost all of my lower walls will be behind stuff so this won't be visible and won't matter. For the one place it will be visible, I'm thinking of drilling 1.25" holes and then cutting dowel pieces that will fit between the outer bus wall and my paneling (3.5" long), then putting some glue on the end and pushing them in.

[musigenesis]

Got tired of my lame door handle; there's enough stiffness to the latch mechanism that it takes some effort to open and close it with this short handle. Just needed to salvage the square bolt part here.



Oak for the handles.



First attempt was to screw this tab down with framing screws.



Split the wood.



Very spongey feel on the door.



Needs bolts instead. Ugly but they work.



Grips pretty well.



Bits of dowel to space out the handles.







Works but there's a lot of slop in the latch mechanism itself that lets these handles flop around more than I like. This pinching-piece way of attaching to the bar isn't going to last very long, either. 'Twill do for now, though. I'll paint the inner one red to match the general theme of panic exits.



I couldn't figure out why my door was getting harder and harder to close over time with the latch coming up not as far as it should when I closed the door. Obvious problem: the hole the bottom bar goes into was filling up with schmoo. I'll have to figure out some way of making this easier to keep clean.

[musigenesis]

[musigenesis]

I just had a thought about how I can install magnets in my walls or ceiling easily and unobtrusively: just press them into the XPS before I attach the paneling over them. I'm going to do this around the perimeters of my exit doors, and then build insulating cushions with fiberglass or rock wool and metal strips embedded in the back that will stick the whole thing to the magnets.

[TruculentTurnip]

Probably a good idea to add a drop of glue either to the side of the magnet you're pushing into the foam or the backside just before putting up the panels. Otherwise the magnets could fall down between the foam and paneling if there's any warping - maybe not an issue if it's in an area with lots of fasteners, but worth mentioning.

[musigenesis]

Originally Posted by TruculentTurnip

Probably a good idea to add a drop of glue either to the side of the magnet you're pushing into the foam or the backside just before putting up the panels. Otherwise the magnets could fall down between the foam and paneling if there's any warping - maybe not an issue if it's in an area with lots of fasteners, but worth mentioning.

That's a good idea and I'll do that.

[joeblack5]

Maybe do an experiment first.. magnetic force reduces very quickly with distance..

[musigenesis]

Originally Posted by joeblack5

Maybe do an experiment first.. magnetic force reduces very quickly with distance..

My paneling is only 5 mm thick, so it will only reduce the pull force to ... about 5% of the original. And magnets are a bit more expensive than I thought. I think I'd have to embed them in the paneling rather than the foam for this to work.

[musigenesis]

I recently decided to have my desk span two rib gaps and be hinged so it will fold down against the wall whenever I drive anywhere. It will be suspended from ceiling hooks - I find myself constantly annoyed by the legs of my desk and would rather have the space underneath completely free of obstruction. This little framing block is so I can mount a latch that will hold the desk against the wall. I really have to plan ahead for things like this, since I won't have an easy way of retrofitting framing for something like this.







More window leak experimentation. Decided to fully seal the gaskets on the windows, which is the only place I still have water coming in.



Thought I would try a new product for this part, since this stuff apparently adheres to glass pretty well. I'm not so sure about it.







Below-window trim complete on passenger side. Since this bus doesn't have passengers any more, maybe I should use "starboard".

[musigenesis]

Decided to escape the family and spare the neighbors the sound of an angle grinder on Thanksgiving, so I took this over to the bus and ground it. It's amazing how much better my fabrications look in pictures than they do in real life.



Osphoed and primed it. Ospho is so much fun to apply over welds since oxidation disappears almost immediately.









I know that the correct thing to do is to apply dynatron-550 to the bare metal and then prime and paint, but I can never bring myself to do it for some reason and always prime first.