Rusty 87 build thread

[EastCoastCB]

This is one of the best, most intensive bus repair/bus builds ever.
Your patience and resolve are impressive, and you stay at it. I wish I had your energy. Keep up the great work man.

[musigenesis]

Originally Posted by EastCoastCB

This is one of the best, most intensive bus repair/bus builds ever.
Your patience and resolve are impressive, and you stay at it. I wish I had your energy. Keep up the great work man.

Thanks very much, I appreciate it.

[musigenesis]

Ha, more plastic-attaching failure. This was gorilla glue construction adhesive, didn't even hold as well as the soldering iron. My last-ditch solution is going to be acrylic adhesive.



More ripping of butcher block in my brother's garage. Maneuvering long, heavy pieces of wood through a table saw jammed in the middle of a garage full of stuff is a dicey experience. I'm going to have to do a lot of piecing to finish off the countertop around the sink and stove, might look kind of questionable up close - it'll match the rest of the bus perfectly.



This will be my hinged table. I am sure hoping I cut it right.

[musigenesis]

This was my original plan for the backsplash on my counter, but my table saw could not make it through this maple.





My pared-down backsplash, enough to stop skittles from rolling off the back, I suppose. At least it won't obscure much of the windows. I will convince myself that I always intended something this small.



The blocks for supporting the back strip of butcher block have a 1/2" dowel that sticks out into a hole in the counter frame.





The purpose of clamping here is so that I can continue the drill bit through to the frame and get exact alignment. This thing still managed to shift over 1/8" on me, but fortunately it's the middle one and won't matter.

[TJones]

The desk looks great. Totally worthy of a bank lobby! I've also never herd of a a bank burger but I do know of a hamburgler. 🍔

Ted

[musigenesis]

Completely lost yesterday to my second dose of the Pfizer vaccine. All I did the whole day was sleep or be miserable whenever I wasn't asleep.



Whoops, I forgot about the overlap with the first hole. Fortunately this will be covered by the backsplash.



Sanded the butcher block that will be my hinged table. The stock wasn't looking so great but it sanded up very nicely. The burn marks from my rips are almost entirely gone.



Is there anything more satisfying than applying the first coat of polyurethane to freshly-sanded hardwood? The way you can almost hear the wood shlurping it up?

[musigenesis]

Rounded the ends for the backsplash material.



Fifth coat of poly on the countertop. I ended up doing six total.



Tried acrylic cement here. Worst bonding yet, came right off after a day. Turning into a dilemma.



Brass vs. maple - who will win?



Back piece screwed down into its posts.



Stops on each end to align it left/right.



It comes out and drops into place easily, although it has an amusing tendency where if you lift a bit on one end, the other end drops back into place and sometimes I end up seesawing it before it comes up.



These little tabs go on the underside and keep the two pieces aligned in the spot where there's no post supporting underneath.



These latches seem a bit poor quality. This one to release it requires leverage from a screwdriver under the red handle. But they draw the back piece in tightly.



The underside tabs. Neither piece can move up or down relative to the other, and they rotate for removal.



Test-fitting the backsplash and the embedded outlet.





More brass failure. Pilot hole even one size too small and bye bye head.



Finally in. Now this bit just needs the six coats of polyurethane.

[Frochevy]

Bus is looking great! It is coming along nicely. I think I have the same latches you do. After I adjusted them half dozen times, they work well. I just also stick a bolt through the lock hole to keep them from popping open. Keep up the good work! I read your posts then get motivated to get back to work on mine!! Lol

[Mountain Gnome]

Originally Posted by musigenesis

Tried acrylic cement here. Worst bonding yet, came right off after a day. Turning into a dilemma.

Attachment 56558


More brass failure. Pilot hole even one size too small and bye bye head.

Attachment 56568

I can't remember, did you try 2-part epoxy cement for plastics? Still may not work long term. Seemed to work great on my engine fan blade, but then 2 years later, the crack is back.


I found 3M Window Weld will actually strongly bond to rubber, plastics, etc., and seems to last a long time. It's just near $40 a tube, but the tube is big (for a caulk gun size). Just find some other stuff you need permanently waterproofed/sealed, and do them all at once. I have a tube, and a need, but am waiting for a reason to use it all.


I hung my CD shelves on the wall with brass screws. I pre-drilled the holes into the wall-stud 2×4s, but they were still too tight to run in by hand. I used an impact screwdriver to get them in. I was wondering if they would hold up... Anyway, I wonder why yours keep breaking, and mine didn't. Maybe the impact helped somehow?


Could you pre-drill holes the size of the shank, then run steel screws in, with matching threads to cut the threads into the wood, then pull out the steel screws, and replace with brass?


Also, my grandpa was a woodworker. He said: NEVER use nails, always screws, and ALWAYS put candle wax on the screw threads before installing them. They go in easier, and then they are protected from rust, and come out easier when you need to fix things. Or so he said. I usually use screws (except I nail-gunned the backyard fence into place) but I never have waxed them
Maybe waxing your brass screws would help also.


Thanks again for sharing!

Aloha!


p.s. it means all those things TOGETHER, not a replacement for any one individually. It is a lifestyle, a way of thinking, of being.
Peace, love, respect, harmony, compassion, empathy, etc...

[musigenesis]

Originally Posted by Mountain Gnome

I can't remember, did you try 2-part epoxy cement for plastics? Still may not work long term. Seemed to work great on my engine fan blade, but then 2 years later, the crack is back.

Yeah, I'm feeling like I shouldn't be relying on glue to make something stuck on my roof watertight forever. I think I need some kind of a flanged rubber cap that I can rivet all around this thing with sealant. I keep thinking of all kinds of horrible jury-rigged ways I could do this.

Originally Posted by Mountain Gnome

Anyway, I wonder why yours keep breaking, and mine didn't.

I have this consistent problem with choosing the right size bit for pilot holes. I always go way too small because it feels like the threads won't bite otherwise. After snapping 5-6 bolt heads off and slowly twisting the screw out with pliers, I finally arrived at the proper bit and all the screws went in.

Originally Posted by Mountain Gnome

Aloha!

p.s. it means all those things TOGETHER, not a replacement for any one individually. It is a lifestyle, a way of thinking, of being.
Peace, love, respect, harmony, compassion, empathy, etc...

Then I am an Alohist. Aloha!

[musigenesis]

Originally Posted by Frochevy

Bus is looking great! It is coming along nicely. I think I have the same latches you do. After I adjusted them half dozen times, they work well. I just also stick a bolt through the lock hole to keep them from popping open. Keep up the good work! I read your posts then get motivated to get back to work on mine!! Lol

These have like a little built-in bolt or lock pin but they don't seem to do that job very well. Happy to help with the motivation!

[kidharris]

Originally Posted by musigenesis

I have this consistent problem with choosing the right size bit for pilot holes. I always go way too small because it feels like the threads won't bite otherwise. After snapping 5-6 bolt heads off and slowly twisting the screw out with pliers, I finally arrived at the proper bit and all the screws went in.

Wood screws don't "cut" (remove material} like machine screws or bolt threads. Instead they use the inclined plane (ramp) of the thread to compress the wood around them to create the threads. The problem is that there is too much wood and if you compress it all, the forces generated will split the wood or break the screw. (hard woods are harder to compress and split easier without a pilot hole, even with nails) Pilot holes remove enough excess wood to solve this problem. Pilot holes also reduce the stresses created in the wood so that the wood does not split later.



If you are screwing 2 pieces together then you have to have 2 different sized pilot holes. The top or first piece needs a larger diameter pilot hole so that the screw is not trying to thread it. Also, if you allow even a tiny gap between the two pieces and thread both pieces at the same time, that gap becomes fixed and can't be closed unless you back off the screw, close the gap, and then re-screw it. If you simply keep trying to screw it closed, the threads in one piece have to strip to allow the gap to close. If it is the bottom piece that strips then you will have to start over with a bigger screw. If the top piece strips, basically cutting a larger pilot hole, then all is well. Brass screws often have a portion of the shank with no threads and this portion should be short enough that it is not being driven into the threaded piece and the pilot hole in the top piece of wood should closely fit this unthreaded part of the screw shank and include a counter sink if the screw has one. Some steel wood screws have an unthreaded portion of the shank that is slightly smaller than the threads to solve this problem and only 1 size pilot is needed if needed at all.



All screws are not created equal and softwoods are easier to deal with than hardwoods. hope this helps.....

[ol trunt]

Dr. Science here. What makes a wood hard or soft?
To classify a wood as hard or soft depends on the seeds that the tree produces. A wood will be classified as a hardwood if the seeds that the tree produces have a coating. These coatings can either take the shape of a fruit or a shell.

A wood will be classified as a softwood if the seeds don’t have any type of coating and are instead dropped to the ground and left to the elements.

Balsa wood is a hardwood. Enquiring minds want to know!

[kidharris]

Originally Posted by ol trunt

Dr. Science here. What makes a wood hard or soft?
To classify a wood as hard or soft depends on the seeds that the tree produces. A wood will be classified as a hardwood if the seeds that the tree produces have a coating. These coatings can either take the shape of a fruit or a shell.

A wood will be classified as a softwood if the seeds don’t have any type of coating and are instead dropped to the ground and left to the elements.

Balsa wood is a hardwood. Enquiring minds want to know!

All of the hard woods that I am familiar with are heavier and more tightly grained and harder to drive a nail in or cut. I don't believe Dr Science was around when people started calling wood hard or soft and carpenters and wood workers did not classify woods by their seeds or by what part of the world the wood was grown in. Botonists started that crap much later by finding similarities between trees that woodworkers were calling hard or soft and that is why balsa wound up being called a hard wood by people who never worked with or used wood to make stuff


I know that the word science has recently been given cult or religious status and that the mere use of the word today means that you are right or know what you are talking about, but I don't believe that either. Science has back tracked and changed so many times it is pityfull and is often so manipulated that peer review is required to even justify it even being released to the public. Is that censorship or just a never ending argument?



I also believe that most people have a pretty good idea of what the word hardwood means in a building/making/furniture context. Must be confusing if you are both a botanist and a woodworker. I wonder what Dr Science has to say when someone makes a statement like hardwoods make better firewood than softwoods or should I say that dicots make better firewood than angiosperms and may require different wood working techniques (thank you Wikipedia)?



Maybe "Enquiring minds" shouid ask a wood worker instead of a botonist? One thing that I am sure of is that this is a screwed up topic and I'm not screwing around when I say that this has nothing to do with screwing techniques.

[musigenesis]

Attached piano hinges for my table/countertop.



Test fitting.





I'm going to eventually add some sort of vents here to keep airflow to the burners unrestricted, if it turns out to be necessary.



Screwed into place and I built a little temporary leg to hold it.



Cover on the opposite side.





Couldn't find a compass so I just measured off significant points with my ruler.





Off to the bandsaw. Fortunately this is the only piece I'll really need to shape like this. Although I'll need to do the back as well, I guess. Less pressure on that side.

[musigenesis]

Fun with the band saw.



Fit not too bad on the first try.



After lots and lots of flap discing. A cool thing is that this sink flares outwards at the base, so these pieces of butcher block are slightly beveled on the inside cut and flush with the sink, and that will hold the it down. I wasn't super worried about this since I've been driving around with it for a while now, but it's extra piece of mind as far as my sink not turning into a missile is concerned.



This is from the square that was removed from the original piece. It looks like they used a rented beaver to cut it.



Extended the front lip around the corner with one extra piece shaped and screwed in from the side.





More random luck - this was the widest possible piece I could generate and it breaks almost perfectly on the 2x4 underneath. It's very strange to me how often things on this bus fit without my having planned for it in any way. Maybe I'm just forgetting how often things don't fit.



Needed a little shaving to fit.





Made this guide for cross-cutting on my table saw, used it once, then spent 20 minutes looking for it before realizing it was still screwed to the underside of the stock piece.



None of this is attached yet. I'm going to fit everything before taking it out for refinishing and polyurethane.



All the butcher block I have left, to fill the back edge of the counter.



And yay! I made my favorite measuring error here, although actually the measurement was spot on, I just laid it out from the wrong side before cutting, which led to this extra 1" gap behind the oven supports. It's not fatal, just annoying and extra work.

[musigenesis]

Can barely see the pencil marks here tracing out the sink 1/4".



Fits pretty nice.



This shows how deeply the sink is embedded in the countertop - about 2.75".



This back strip was too wide to get in and out past the top of the sink, so I cut 1/2" off the back.



Stops to lock the board in place horizontally.



Latch to hold it down.



Tie-down block for the other side.



Middle latch. This is hard to get to and I can hear my back crackling when I try to work it.

[musigenesis]

Third latch for the back piece. This one is great fun to try and undo, since the little push tab is against the wall here. Fortunately this thing won't have to come off very often.



Splinted the two back sections together.



It fits, yay. Sets down into place very solidly and isn't totally impossible to lift up.



Finally found a variable-speed band saw, on OfferUp for $60. Just started checking this site out, seems like OfferUp >> Facebook Marketplace >> Craigslist in terms of amount of stuff for sale.



I got this on the theory that the low speed will let me cut steel, once I get a proper blade for it.



Started on fitting out the rest of the butcher block bits around the sink.

[Frochevy]

Good find on the band saw! I don't see too many deals on offer up around here.. although that's where I bought my milwaukee pex a tool to plumb the bus... I'll be curious to see how it cuts steel! Keep us informed!

[musigenesis]

Thought about doing this part as a bunch of little sideways-running blocks to match the rest of it, but came to my senses. This will really not be very conspicuous behind the sink like this.



Extra little knobby bit to go around the sink corner. Tried screwing it but it wanted to split so this is just a janky glue job.





The complete countertop.



I had just barely enough brass screws to attach this backsplash. If I'd twisted the head off of even just one I'd have been done for, but it all worked.





Cutting the hole for the embedded power strip.







This is so I can slip one of the pieces under the other and anchor it down, since I won't be able to get a screw into one side.





First coat of poly on everything. Hngggggggg ...