Ancient albums still available?

[bbkid]

Hello,

I've been trying to find several old pictures that I know were posted to albums back when I originally joined the forum. All of them were either of my dad's bus or friends of ours from back in those "heady" days on the road back in the 90's. (Think: original "rolling homes" or street-legal art-installation level "builds" because I was one of the kids running around "bus-villiage" back in those days, completely geeking-out on everything cool or unique)

Anyways, does somebody know why I can't go back farther than 2014 (36 pages in my browser) in the albums? Been trying to search for threads where they were originally posted and trying to find the albums of the original posters, but digging through 15 years of activity on a forum is downright tedious... are these albums and pictures lost to the sands of digital time??

Thanks in advance!

[Janet H]

The Albums we have were set in place in 2014 so I think you've found the oldest images that are stored in albums.

I did a search for images you might have loaded in posts and am also coming up empty. Any chance you had another account back then or the pics were posted by someone else??

[bbkid]

Originally Posted by Janet H

The Albums we have were set in place in 2014 so I think you've found the oldest images that are stored in albums.

I did a search for images you might have loaded in posts and am also coming up empty. Any chance you had another account back then or the pics were posted by someone else??

My old account was just merged with this one earlier today. It was: 'skooliechild' and these pictures were posted originally by other users. My intro thread from back in 2008 had some of them insterted originally.

I swear they were pulled from some sort of gallery on here though. I know they weren't externally hosted, as back then it would have been photobucket and we all know what those failed links look like.

Admittedly i haven't gone back and tried to edit any of those posts to see if i have a some long-dead link to another page. Going to try that and ill post back if i have any luck.

[bbkid]

Still haven't had any luck. Honestly wish i could simply remember the users that originally uploaded them. Not sure how many of those folks are still around, but if they are I'm sure they still have those old "bus villiage" pics and others.

Also curious about how you say that the galleries started in 2014. There were definitely galleries when i originally joined the site. Did they get lost at some point prior to 2014 or something?

[DeMac]

Maybe these help....

Two older albums:

www.skoolie.net/albums

www.skoolie.net/steve



Old videos here:
https://archive.org/bus_village

https://archive.org/rainbow_gathering

Do your queries include Rainbow Family Gathering, Rainbow Gathering & Bus Village?

[bbkid]

My searches included all of those terms, but i wasn't coming up with any pertinent results.

Those specific albums help a lot, actually. Just in case anyone's curious, this is what I lived in for a couple good chunks of my childhood, and the sort of thing i have to live up to if i ever have a good chance to do my own "skoolie build." Wish there were interior pics of it around still. I wouldn't need to ask around here, but my mom kept most of the photo albums in their divorce and not much survived a house fire where she lived many years later. She even had the few pictures of it while under construction, unfortunately.

[bbkid]

Helps when you actually attach the pic... shamelessly stolen from steve's gallery, but I'm sure nobody minds since these are the last 2 known pictures of my dad's bus. If, by chance, anyone has seen in in the last 24 years or so, drop me a line (no, i wouldn't want it back, just curious if it even still exists after 27 years in the PNW).

[indigo_k]

Originally Posted by bbkid

Helps when you actually attach the pic... shamelessly stolen from steve's gallery, but I'm sure nobody minds since these are the last 2 known pictures of my dad's bus. If, by chance, anyone has seen in in the last 24 years or so, drop me a line (no, i wouldn't want it back, just curious if it even still exists after 27 years in the PNW).

OH DANG This is exactly the style of housebus I'm working on right now - with the Waldmire-inspired 'attic expansion' and the cantilevered front loft and everything! If you find any interior pics please let us know!

The best archive I remember finding of pics from old housebuses/housetrucks was Mr Sharkey's blog. It's gone through a few incarnations since I last looked at it, but is currently living at http://www.housetrucks.org/busbarn/busbarn.htm. You can pick through his old pictures using the menu at the top-left.

[bbkid]

Last i heard it was up in WA, and i don't believe it was that far north from PDX.

That was a long time ago though.

You building new or renovating? Not many busses were built quite like that, and the closest one in style to his i knew of belonged to my godfather. That one was wrecked a long time ago though and was a complete loss, sadly.

[bbkid]

Honestly, if the stories are to be believed about how my godfather's bus came apart in his wreck, we might count ourselves thankful you didn't see many like them on the road. That's a big part of why i wouldn't want my dad's back, even if it was still around. If it is still near your area I'd have to haul it over 2500mi to get to it's final resting place (though that would be pretty freaking epic for a host of reasons...) on a hilltop in Appalachia.


(Sorry. Just trying to be halfway responsible when posting pictures of beautiful, handcrafted deathtraps, bound to inspire someone who doesn't realize that these buses were the entire reason you now fight to get insurance...)

[indigo_k]

I'm building new. I understand the bus will lose a lot of it's structural rigidity if I completely cut off the old roof, ribs-and-all. I'm planning to retain a number of the ribs in strategic(?) areas, and install some trusses as well where they won't impact interior traffic too much.

[bbkid]

Originally Posted by indigo_k

I'm building new. I understand the bus will lose a lot of it's structural rigidity if I completely cut off the old roof, ribs-and-all. I'm planning to retain a number of the ribs in strategic(?) areas, and install some trusses as well where they won't impact interior traffic too much.

It will probably lose nearly all integrity when you do that. The sides of my dad's had to be literally clamped together with giant clamps because they splayed outward when he removed the roof entirely. I really wish we still had the pics, but he borrowed some 10'+ long clamps from my uncle to hold it in place while building the new roof structure. This was all done in a warehouse that my uncle had a lease on back when he was a custom cabinet maker, thus the crazy specialy tools, like monster clamps... lol

I'll say this... there was a 2nd "roof-raise" done by my dad in the late 90's for a couple from Colorado. He did not use the same methods at all. He basically did the same as most do these days, and extended the existing structure.

[indigo_k]

I'm doing the Waldmire method of building the roof extension while the bus roof is still intact, bolting the beams to the outside and framing the walls up from there. Not cutting away any of the metal roof until the box is totally framed and skinned in place. Fingers crossed! Sorry to hear your dad's bus had so many problems, but I appreciate the chance to learn from his experiences!

[bbkid]

Never heard of "Waldmire," so excuse my ignorance. I get what you're meaning based on your description though. My point was with final structural rigidity though, too.

My dad's bus had no real problems at all, the body sagging was just one hurdle in the process of building it. It stayed together fine and never had any signs of stress or flex, even after an event or 2 that probably should have flopped it on its side (my dad's theory was to build it as light as possible as to avoid it going over rather than to expect it to hold together, this gamble worked for him, but was a massive gamble) and thousands of road miles. My godfathers bus looked much like ours but was built much heavier. He used to balk that if it ever went over he'd just flip it back up on its wheels and fix the siding. That's not how things happened when it did... I almost wish there were pictures of it scattered across the interchange where it met its demise, just to serve as a cautionary tale.

Make no mistake, i consider most class a and c rv's to be deathtraps too. The entire allure of a schoolbus to me, however, is the open platform with better inherent structural strength in the event something terrible happens. While im not against modifying the structure that gives them the strength they have, i wouldn't load my family's entire lives into one built with wood framing to travel the country like my dad did.

Now... something permanently parked up on a prominent spot on one of our ridgetops... that's another story. If nothing else, house-buses are indeed art pieces.

You do you, no offense meant, and I'm not meaning to discourage you. Just stating my opinion on techniques and uses, and giving an idea of why i think that way. I'll definitely try to keep an eye on your build because it does sound interesting and has the potential to be really nice. Not many people take that route these days (arguably for good reason in most cases), and other than those books i really don't know many people with experience living and traveling in that particular level of beast... (and they are, in more ways than a normal conversion)

[bbkid]

Well I did some digging elsewhere and finally found a couple more of the exact pictures I was referring to. First off, here are 2 more shots of my dad's bus that were taken after we sold it. Other than possibly a couple physical photographs that might exist out there (or anything more recent I'm not aware of) I don't know of any other interior pics, unfortunately.