Category Archives: Projects

2015/07/28 (T) Mighty Dremel

I got up at 8 AM. I must have been sleeping soundly as I was unaware until then that had already gotten up. She had gone for a walk and left me a note. The high temperature today is forecast to hit 90 degrees F and she wanted to get her walk in early. I fed the cats and checked the mouse trap in the pantry. We caught another one overnight so I carried the trap back to the northeast corner of the yard and released it.

I made our morning coffee and had just settled in to work on my iPad while it brewed when Linda returned from her walk at 8:35 AM. We enjoyed our first cup of coffee and then had breakfast. She made a batch of her fabulous granola yesterday but we have to finish the previous batch first.

Today was the day to get back to work on the bus. First I spray lubed the two overhead garage doors, both rollers and section hinges, and ran them up and down and back up. I needed to open them anyway to get out the ladder and tools and sometimes it’s better to spend an extra minute while you are thinking about something and just take care of it. Besides, I had no way of knowing if I would accomplish anything else today so at least the doors worked more smoothly.

This is where the “stop block” was located. The left screw came out but the right one did not. I had to grind it off.

In a very real sense our entire bus remodeling project hinges on getting the old refrigerator out and the new refrigerator in. The refrigerator swap, in turn, hinges on being able to open the fixed window panel on the passenger side of the bus. That panel is hinged at the top by a pair of rolled channels, one on the top back edge of the window frame and the other on the lower back side of a rail that runs almost the entire length of the bus. Most of the upper body side panels are hung from these rails and secured at the bottom with latches or other fixed hardware.

The window frame in question has two latches that can be released allowing the frame to swing open and provide an emergency exit, except for the two “stop blocks” in the upper outside corners which are attached to the frame (with two screws) just below the rail. As the name suggests, these blocks appear to stop the frame from opening more than about 10 inches. That would make emergency escape difficult but it makes it impossible to remove a refrigerator. We know these frames will open farther as someone posted a photo of an H3 on one of the Prevost bus websites with this same frame open almost 90 degrees (horizontal).

As I have described here before I successfully removed the left block and the left screw from the right block a couple of weeks ago but have been unable to remove the right screw from the right block. Early in my attempt to remove it I stripped the Philips head and things just got worse from there. I borrowed an impact screwdriver from Chuck, which successfully extracted the left screw but the right screw would not budge. I eventually bought and used three different screw extractor sets and broke two drill bits using one of them.

The Dremel with a cutoff wheel installed. The stop block was unusable by the time I got it of.

I borrowed a soldering gun and Dremel Kit from Chuck on Saturday and finally got around to using them today. The idea of the soldering gun was to heat the screw causing it to expand and then contract when it cooled. This will sometimes cause screw threads to separate from tapped holes. In this case the block was already turning relative to the shaft of the screw but the screw was not turning so I hoped the heat might free it from the threaded hole in the frame. To find out, however, I needed to create a slot in the shaft that would accept a flat blade screwdriver, in particular the large bit that is part of Chuck’s impact screwdriver kit. Enter the Dremel.

In order to create a wide enough slot I put two cutoff wheels on the arbor. The block is at the top of the window frame so standing at the highest safe step of our 8-foot step ladder I was at a comfortable height for holding the Dremel vertically and cutting a horizontal slot. The cutoff wheels are about the size of a quarter so the slot extended well beyond the screw head, or what was left of it, into the block. Using the Dremel was a last resort and I knew that once I made that decision the block was going to get destroyed.

The Dremel cutoff wheels cut through the block, which is aluminum, very easily and did not have any trouble with screw or the broken drill bits. The drill bits eventually loosened to where I was able to extract them with pliers. I tried several different screwdrivers in my newly created slot but to no avail. I sprayed WD-40 around the block and screw using paper towels to catch the overspray and clean up any runs. I kept cutting the block until I was able to pry it off of what remained of the screw. With less than a quarter inch of the shaft left I cut a slot in the end and tried to unscrew it but the tangs just broke off. I tried unscrewing it with pliers but it would not budge. The protruding stub would interfere with opening the frame 90 degrees so I used the Dremel with a cutoff wheel to grind the shaft down flush with the frame.

All the "stuff" I used to attack 25 cents worth of aluminum because of corrosion.

Some of the “stuff” I used to attack 25 cents worth of aluminum because of corrosion.

Linda came out to help at this point. I repositioned the ladder and then we unlatched the frame on the inside. Linda pushed it out while I supported it from outside. It opened farther than it had before but we did not try to raise it to a horizontal position. The frame/glass is very heavy and we did not want to risk having it come loose at the hinge. We closed the frame and latched it. I took a few pictures and then put all of the tools away. The weather was very warm and humid and that was enough outside work for today.

We had hummus, pita chips, and black grapes for lunch. After lunch I spent a few minutes in my office checking e-mail and then typed up the minutes from our July SLAARC meeting. I then started working on the design/drawings for the built-in sofa.

I have a very long list of things to do but the furniture design remains a priority as I need to make sure Jarel has all the information he needs to keep moving forward on the custom cabinetry. Although I will be assembling the sofa Jarel will be cutting all of the pieces. I will be using a long rip of a full sheet of plywood and a long piece of 3/4 x 3/4 walnut hardwood as an edge band for the horizontal platform. In order to give Jarel a cut sheet I needed to design the unit. I also needed to design it so I knew it would fit when assembled.

I took an occasional break to chat with friends on the two local ham radio repeaters that we tend to use but otherwise stayed on task until late afternoon. I had pulled a book on cryptology from our personal library and started reading it. I took a nap before dinner and continued reading afterwards. Fascinating stuff, cryptology.

2015/07/24 (F) Open and Shut

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I was up at 7:30 AM and made coffee but I did not see Mara or Linda until after 9 AM. Around 9 AM I heard a knock at the front library doorwalls and heard someone saying “hello?, hello?, David?” I went out the front door and saw the front end of a red Ford Focus parked in front of our bus. I had never met this guy but he was not unexpected and I knew he was looking for David LaVoisne, who lived here with his wife, Maria, until we bought the house from them in February 2013. I knew this guy might stop by as he had once before when we were away and chatted briefly with our lawn care guy, Keith. I also knew that he had worked with David at the Ford Wixom plant before they retired.

We introduced ourselves and had a nice chat. I explained that David and Maria had sold the house and their Airstream motorhome, bought a newer motorhome, and were now full-time RVers. (As I recall they bought a used Foretravel.) Apparently they did not let all of their friends or former colleagues know what they were doing. I also mentioned that they had moved the few possessions they did not get rid of to their son’s house somewhere in the region and that they probably visited there occasionally.

Mara emerged about the time our visitor left. Unfortunately I do not recall his name. We all had breakfast together after which Mara went about her final departure preparations. She gave Linda a small fir tree and two small herbs. Linda transferred the herbs to her herb pots and gave Mara’s small pots back. She needed to top off her fresh water tank so I helped with that. The lock on the water fill door stuck in the open position so Mara got her can of dry lube and I sprayed a little in the lock by holding the protective cover open with the tip of the key. That did the trick, another quick fix to a small but potentially annoying problem.

When her rig was basically ready to go Mara made one last use of the shower, got dressed to travel, unplugged the power cord and stowed it away, and pulled in the slides. After hugs all around she climbed into the pilot’s seat and fired up the engine and Sabra (one of her two cats) climbed up on the dash just in front of the steering wheel. I guided her as she backed out onto our road. She drove down to the court, did a three point turn, and a few minutes later drove past our house in the opposite direction, back on the road again after almost two weeks at our place. It was noon, but she was only going as far as London, Ontario today. Linda got a text message later letting us know that she had arrived at the Moose Lodge and the border crossing on the Blue Water Bridge from Port Huron, Michigan to Sarnia, Ontario had only taken 30 minutes.

After Mara was out of sight I gathered up the laundry, sorted it, and started a load of warm whites. I wrote out a list of parts I needed to finish the garage door opener installation and the monitor mounting system in the ham shack and then drove to Lowe’s in Howell.

I was back home by 1:30 PM and we had hummus and chips along with black grapes for lunch. We started working on the garage door opener installation when my phone signaled that I had a voice message. It turned out that I had one on the house phone too. Both messages were from Jarel. He had a few questions about dimensions on one of desk drawings so I called him back and we sorted that out. He retrieved the half sheet of walnut veneer plywood from Butch last night and bought 16 board feet of walnut.

In spite of the 85 degree temperature and what felt like high humidity, even though it was only 41%, we worked for about three hours and finished installing the opener on the small garage door. It was quite an involved process but it worked when we were done. The new opener has automatic reverse if it encounters an obstruction and an infrared sensor beam about 6″ off the floor.

At 5:30 PM we loaded the old garage door opener into the dump trailer. We then loaded the old OTA TV antenna pieces. Brad is picking up the trailer in the morning so we will not fill it but it we put the junk in it that we needed to get out of the garage and a few other things as well.

We took a break around 6 PM to have some water and get off our feet for a while. At 6:45 PM Linda made salads and cooked up some vegan Italian sausages. After dinner we planned to work for a while in the ham shack on the installation of the wall-mounted track system but we were too tired to start a project that was going to require decisions and careful attention to detail. We sat in the living room instead and used our iPads for the usual things. It was great having Mara here and we look forward to her return someday. But for now she is off on the next leg of her open-ended adventure and we have a lot of work yet to do to get our bus ready for the 2015-16 winter season.

2015/07/22 (W) Chucking Junk

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After our usual breakfast and coffee we sat for a while in the living room. This is part of our morning routine and I often use the time to finish up my blog post from the previous day but the last couple of weeks we have been busy and I have not always had time. We enjoyed the time until about 9 AM and then got serious about loading our “junk” into the Chuck It Junk Removal dump trailer.

Our bus refrigerator with the doors off in preparation for removing it from the coach.

Mara checked with Cummins Bridgeway and they told her to bring her motorhome in at 11 AM so she broke camp at 10 AM and backed out of the driveway at 10:15 AM. Cummins Bridgeway put several technicians and mechanics to work on her rig to re-install the genset, install new shock absorbers, and service the transmission (filter and fluid). She was out in a few hours and stopped at General RV to return the Camco refrigerator vent cover which did not fit her base on the roof.

The Chuck It Junk Removal dumpster trailer with some of our stuff in it.

We took a break from chucking junk and extracted the old refrigerator from its alcove in the bus, which was a 2-person job. I got some scraps of 1/2″ plywood to set in front of the elevated alcove base as I did not want to walk or slide the unit across the bus sub-floor, especially with the residual thinset mortar. First we had to walk it out a few inches which was hard because it only had 3/8″ clearance on each side. Once it was out far enough we were able to open the doors enough to remove all of the shelves and bins, which Linda took into the house and garage. I then disconnected the water and electric that ran up into the left (freezer) door at the bottom hinge corner for the ice/water dispenser and light. With those disconnected and pulled out of the bottom of the case we unscrewed the bottom and top hinges and removed the two doors. Linda collected all of the small loose parts as we went and put them in a plastic container as we knew we would have to reassemble the unit at some point.

The doors had 1/4″ walnut veneer plywood face panels and we wanted to salvage those to use with the new pull-out pantry. Normally you just remove the handle trim from the edge of the door and slide the panel out. The fridge door panel would not budge so we removed the trim from all four edges of the door. The panel had been stuck in place with strips of double-sided tape so we carefully peeled it loose. The freezer door had two smaller panels, above and below the ice/water dispenser, and they slide out easily after removing the handle trim. We carried the doors, trim, and panels to the garage and then walked the case completely out of the alcove.

The shelf I built for one of the storage bays on Mara’s Fleetwood Bounder.

I spent some time pondering what would be required to disassemble the refrigerator enough to get it out through the door of the bus but decided not to do anything until I had talked to Butch. Just before dinner I had a long chat with Chuck about the refrigerator swap and he reminded me that DTE Energy (the electric power utility for this region) will pick up old refrigerators and freezers and pay you $50 for them. Linda checked this out online and learned that they have to be plugged in and operating or they won’t take them, so we have a double incentive for getting it out in one, operating piece.

Our revised plan is still to get the case out in one functioning piece through the side window frame but it won’t be this weekend. The guy with the sunroom business in the building in front of Chuck’s shop is still in the process of moving to his new place and has trucks, cars, people, and junk all over the place making ingress/egress to Chuck’s shop difficult to impossible. The business is supposed to be gone by the end of the month so we will wait another week and plan for Saturday August 1st assuming I can get the window frame open. In the meantime I need to get back to work on the bus floor, so I will have to spend part of next week sanding and start installing the 1/4″ underlayment for the new vinyl tile.

Mara in our home kitchen with her wonderful pizza. This thing was truly good eats.

Mara and Linda made another pizza for dinner and it was every bit as good as the first one. Mara has been a wonderful house guest. We have left the house open to her and she has made herself comfortable in the kitchen and using the hall bathroom and laundry. It helps that Linda is not possessive about the kitchen. Whenever we have visitors who want to help in the kitchen Linda welcomes their participation. It’s been fun for both of them and they have each learned a few knew things and deepened their friendship.

2015/07/20 (M) Chuck It

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Our morning got busy right away. We had breakfast and I made coffee while Linda entertained Madeline. Brad, from Chuck It Junk Removal, dropped off the dumpster trailer at 9 AM. Keith, from Kish Lawn Care, showed up at 9:30 to cut the grass. Linda took Madeline to the Mill Pond to use the playscape and Mara started scrapping old caulk and putty from around the base of her refrigerator roof vent. I tried using another set of tools for removing the stripped screw in the stop block on the bus to no avail. I even managed to break off two drill bits in the hole I was drilling in the screw. The more I work on this the worse it gets.

When Linda and Madeline got back Madeline had lunch and then laid down for her nap. The three adults then had vegan hotdogs for lunch after which I put the finishing touches on my design drawings for the pull-out pantry. Mara and I then went on an errand run.

Our first stop was the FedEx store in Novi where I made copies of all of the drawings for the desk and the pullout pantry. We then stopped at General RV to return the refrigerator vent cover as it did not fit the base section on Mara’s roof. They had a Camco cover that claimed it would work, and looked like it might fit, so she exchanged them and got a small credit. When we got back at 3:15 PM Brendan and Shawna were already there. They got Madeline up at 3:20 PM and stayed until about 4 PM. After they left I got up on Mara’s roof to help with tasks there.

First we checked the refrigerator vent cover. The mounting holes lined up but the flanges (shields) on the long sides were not wide enough to fit outside the base flanges. The proper fit requires the upper flanges to be outside the lower flanges by at least 1/4″ so heat can escape and extend below the lower flanges to keep rain from getting into the refrigerator cavity. I was going to install the 24″ x 24″ piece of thin sheet steel for the magnetic cell phone booster antenna when I discovered that the antenna would stick to the old satellite dish. We experimented some more with the location of the inside antenna but could not improve on yesterday’s placement. The performance was as good as with the metal sheet so I decided not to install the metal sheet. Mara then caulked around the refrigerator vent base and touched up a few other spots around tank vent caps.

Linda grilled a variety of veggies for dinner. I opened a bottle of Pinot Noir wine and we ate outside. It was cloudy and 76 degrees F with light winds; very pleasant and bug free. We had fresh strawberries with the meal and dark chocolate for dessert. We eventually moved inside to chat but did not stay up late as I needed to be up early in the morning and on my way to Indiana.

2015/06/24 (W) Up The Tower

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Today was the day to finally climb the tower to remove an old TV antenna, reposition an amateur radio antenna, and install two new antennas, one for OTA TV and the other for a cellular booster system. But there were other things to do before I was ready to climb.

I was up at 7 AM and on my way to Lowe’s in Howell by 7:20 AM in search of a solution to the problem of how to mount the outdoor cellular booster antenna. I ended up buying two 2-1/2 inch U-bolts. Although the tower legs are 1-5/8″ in diameter the angle bracket attached to the bottom of the antenna is 2-1/4 inches wide. Thus I needed the 2-1/2 inch spacing for the threaded ends of the U-bolt to clear the bracket.

Back at the house Linda was up and had the coffee made. We had a quick breakfast of homemade granola. I removed the tire pressure sensors and GPS from my car and headed to Brighton Honda to drop it off for its 100,000 mile service appointment. Linda arrived at the dealership about 10 minutes later. We then headed to Adams Electronics in Wixom. While Adams Electronics primarily serves the public and business communications markets owner Scott Adams, AC8IL, is a long-time ham and a member of the South Lyon Area Amateur Radio Club and Novi Amateur Radio Club. Well known in the local amateur radio community, Scotty is the local go-to guy for certain kinds of equipment. I ordered two coaxial cables from him the other day and we were here to pick them up.

We left to return home at 10 AM so I called Mike (W8XH) to let him know we were running a little behind. So was he, but thought he could be at our house by 11 AM. That gave me time to drill a hole in each of the two U-bolt retaining plates and cut a short piece of 1″ square aluminum tube to use as a spacer. That was the last fabricating I needed to do and we got busy staging all of the materials we were going to need to get the tower work done efficiently.

Mike (W8XH) setting up the tools and parts outside the “drop zone” of the 40-foot tower on the east end of the house. (Photo by Linda)

Linda set out a sheet near the tower but not in the “drop zone.” We spread out materials and tools on the sheet and used it to make sure we could find things quickly and keep them from getting lost in the grass. I also brought all of my tool boxes to the tower area. With everything assembled it was time to climb. I set up our 7 foot step ladder on the east end of our rear deck to provide access to the roof near the tower. Mike helped me into his climbing harness and got it adjusted. Once on the roof I took the harness off temporarily as my first task was to remove the 2m/70cm base station antenna. After clipping the plastic cable ties I lowered it down to Mike while Linda took photographs. (She helped with many aspects of the work today but was the only photographer.)

Starting up the tower from the roof of the house. (Photo by Linda)

I put the harness back on and Mike tossed me one of the 100 foot ropes which would eventually be used to haul materials and tools up and down the tower. I secured the haul rope to one of the unused seat clip rings and Mike instructed me on how to secure the harness while climbing. I put the waist strap around the tower and clipped it in. I then put one of the two fall cables, attached to the ring at my upper back, around one of the legs above one of the cross bars above my head and clipped it into the ring at my chest. The tower is adjacent to the east end of the house and is attached to it by two pipe assemblies just below the soffit (the house has hip roofs) so it was easy to step onto it. After that things got tougher.

The horizontal trussing on the tower is two feet apart vertically. That spacing was right at the limit of how high I could lift my right foot and required me to pull myself up part way until I could push with my right leg. Once up on the next rung I attached the other fall cable, moved the first one higher, and slide the waist strap up to position myself for the next step. I repeated this pattern with the two fall cables and the waist strap as I worked my way slowly up the tower, clipping old plastic cable (zip) ties as I went. The tower definitely had some give but I was quickly acclimated to the amount of sway and found it to be acceptable so we decided not to guy the tower with the other three ropes, which would have slowed my ascent even more.

When I finally reached the top of the tower I untied the haul rope, looped it over one of the southeast facing horizontal bars and hauled it up allowing the free end to lower down to the ground. Mike then tied the rope to the standoff pulley I had fabricated and hauled it up to me. I already had cable ties, a diagonal cutter, and a pair of slip pliers with me. I set the threaded rod on the northeast and southeast cross bars, inside and against the two legs that were parallel to the side of the house, and secured it with cable ties. This was a three-handed job that I had to do with two hands but I got it done while only dropping one cable tie. With the pulley rod secured I undid the rope and then undid the knot tying the two loose ends together. I fed one end through the pulley and retied it to the other end. We now had a way to haul materials and tools (in a bucket) up to me at any needed height while keeping it 18 inches away from the tower.

Three-quarters of the way up ad working with the haul rope. (Photo by Linda)

The next task at the top of the tower was to remove the old TV antenna, mast, and rotor. When I finally had a close up view of these old components it became apparent that my best course of action was to try and unclamp the base of the mast from the rotator, lift it off of the rotator, and toss it to the ground.

The mast clamp parts were all very rusty so Linda got the WD-40 and Mike sent it up in the bucket. I sprayed the nuts on the mast mounts and also the rotator leg clamps. I tried undoing the mast clamps with a slip pliers but it was no good, so Mike sent up three open/closed end wrenches. One of them was the right size and to my surprise the rusted nuts broke loose and started backing off. One of them did not want to come off but unscrewed the entire bolt instead. Fine. The bolt had a screwdriver slot in the top and was threaded into the rotor housing and I did not care how it came out as long as it did. I got the mast clamps loose enough that I could work the bottom of the mast free from the top of the rotor. There was a lot of rust there too. After clipping some coax cables, rotor control wires, and plastic cable clamps I repositioned myself up one rung on the tower so I could get enough leverage to the lift the mast clear of the rotator collar and control it well enough to make sure the antenna fell to the ENE away from the house and my helpers down below. And that is exactly what happened.

The first antenna to get mounted was the outdoor antenna for the cellular booster system. Mike sent the antenna up in the bucket along with the various pieces I needed to secure it to the short top/center mast support tube so the entire antenna, which is omnidirectional, was above all parts of the tower. What would have been an awkward assembly on the ground took on added difficulty 40 feet in the air but I got it secured with good access to the N-female connector on the bottom.

At the top with the pulley in place and using it to haul up a bucket with tools and parts. Mike is controlling the haul rope on the ground. (Photo by Linda)

We decided to run the coax on the outside of one of the tower legs rather than down the inside of the tower. Mike tied the LMR-400 coax to the rope and hauled it up to me. In addition to the haul rope Mike tied a second control line to the bucket to keep it from swinging all over the place. I connected the coax to the antenna feed point and then wrapped the connection with coax seal tape. I then routed the coax down the east leg of the tower and zip tied it to take the weight off of the antenna connection.

Next up was the 2m/70cm amateur radio base station antenna, often referred to as a 2m/440 dual band antenna. (In this nomenclature the “2m” refers to a range of wavelengths for one of the VHF ham bands and the “440” refers to a range of frequencies for one of the UHF ham radio bands, so it is a mixed units designation.). The antenna is about five feet long with three short counterpoise (ground plane) rods near the base. It had an LMR-400 style cable connected to it but with PL-259 male connectors on each end. The antenna feed point is an N-female connector so I had an adapter installed to make everything compatible. Mike removed the coax and the adapter, zip tied the antenna to the haul cable at three points, put the 10mm wrench in the bucket, and hauled it up to me.

The ham radio antenna was also tricky to get mounted. I installed it at the top of the northwest leg so that most of the antenna was above the tower and two of the three short counterpoise were parallel to the west (N-S) and northeast (NW-SE) crossbars. The antenna by itself is light in weight but it is five feet long and mounts at the bottom nine inches, so most if it was above me with a tendency to wave around in mid-air. With the coax connected, however, it weighed quite a bit more. I temporarily zip tied the coax to take the weight. I then had to hold the antenna with its base against the northwest post at my head level, push a U-bolt through the mounting bracket and past the tower leg, slip the mating clamp over the two ends of the U-bolt, and then get a small lock washer and nut on each threaded bolt end. I then had to repeat this for the second U-bolt. Again, a three-handed job that I had to do with only two hands.

The old OTA TV antenna and mast on the ground. It came down by the gravity method. (Photo by Linda)

The bonus to this work at the top of the tower was a commanding view of the surrounding countryside, which was mostly trees in every direction. I even saw two towers far to the north and was kept company by a soaring vulture just to the NNE. I was also able to determine that the tops of the large white pine trees behind the east end of our house are about 10 feet higher than the top of our tower, putting their overall height at about 55 feet as their bases are lower than the base of the tower. We plan to put the 70 foot tower at a spot that is surrounded by these trees on three sides (W, S, and E) so the top of the tower, and any antennas mounted there, will be well above the tree tops. That is especially important as we plan to eventually put an HF beam antenna up there on a mast attached to a rotator and it will need to be able to rotate freely for 360 degrees.

The final antenna was the hardest. The Antennas Direct DB8e OTA UHF/digital TV antenna was very large and heavy by comparison to the other two. In this case ‘heavy’ meant a few pounds. It is actually two UHF antennas mounted at the end of a dual support arm structure. The support arm mounts to a vertical pole, such as a tower leg, at its midpoint and there is a combiner box located there as part of the mount. A short length of RG-59 (75 ohm) coax connects each antenna to the combiner box and the main coax connects there as well.

How tall the tower appears (and feels) depends on where you are standing. (Photo by Linda)

How tall the tower appears (and feels) depends on where you are standing. Pulley and haul rope in the upper right. Lots of coaxial cables to be dressed (secured) on the way down. (Photo by Linda)

RG-59 is a different kind of coaxial cable from the LMR-400 used for the first two antennas. LMR-400 has a 50 ohm characteristic impedance and is used for receiving and transmitting RF energy with considerable power if needed. RG-59 is much smaller in diameter, more flexible, has a 75 ohm characteristic impedance, and uses F-connectors that are the standard for OTA TV, video, and satellite cables. But I have gotten ahead of myself. I had to come down a few feet on the tower to install the TV antenna but before doing that I had to start securing the transmission lines to the tower legs with cable ties.

Mike rigged up the haul rope in a ‘Y’ to lift the antenna from its center of gravity while actually attaching the rope to its ends. That allowed the haul rope to both support the weight of the antenna and keep it oriented correctly while I positioned and clamped it to the southwest tower leg with the dual support arms pointing in an east-west direction. Because of where I had the pulley mounted, and the length of the ‘Y’ in the support rope, I had to mount the antenna a few feet lower on the tower. Fortunately the slightly lower height was not going to affect its performance.

Like the ham radio antenna, the OTA TV antenna mounted to the tower leg at two points. The upper assembly was a U-bolt with a retaining bracket on the back side. The lower assembly was a pair of straight bolts that went through the combiner box past the tower leg and had a retaining bracket on the back side. The antenna came with wing nuts instead of washers and regular nuts, which helped a little, but I really needed three hands to get the antenna into position and tighten the mounting brackets.

Mike ties off the DB8e OTA TV antenna with an inverted “Y” so it will haul up in the proper orientation. (Photo by Linda)

Once I had the antenna sufficiently attached to the tower I was able to position the support arm close to the southeast facing side of the tower. I then pointed the antenna on the east end of the arm ESE towards the Detroit area TV towers and tightened the two nuts on the mounting studs. (The horizontal dual support arms are about 3 feet long so I was able to reach through the tower to get to the mounting studs and nuts.) I left the antenna on the west end of the support beam loose and turned it out of my way so I could complete other tasks.

Mike attached the end of the main RG-59 coax to the haul rope, put the amplifier and a 2-foot length of RG-59 coax in the bucket along with lots of zip ties, and pulled them up to me. The amplifier is about 3″ wide by 2″ high and 1.5″ thick including the concave plastic backplate. The backplate accepts two zip ties for mounting to a pole. I positioned the amplifier about 8 inches below the antenna combiner box and cinched up the two zip ties. I then connected the short coax to the combiner box output and put the combiner back it its protective, weather-gasketed plastic box. I connected the other end of the short coax to the amplifier input and wrapped the connection with coax seal weatherproofing tape.

Installing the DB8e OTA TV antenna required three hands. Note that I am installing it at the highest point possible when suspended from the pulley with the haul rope in an inverted "Y" attachment. (Photo by Linda)

Installing the DB8e OTA TV antenna required three hands. Note that I am installing it at the highest point possible when it is suspended from the pulley with the haul rope in an inverted “Y” attachment. The yellow waist strap allowed me to lean back and work while the two red security straps would catch me if something broke. (Photo by Linda)

I attached the main RG-59 coax to the output of the amplifier, which is also the DC power input, and wrapped the connection in coax weather seal tape. I then dressed the cable and secured it to the tower leg. I aimed the antenna on the west end of the support arm WNW towards the East Lansing TV towers and tightened the nuts to lock it in position.

At this point I was finally done working on the antennas but had three coaxial transmission line running down the outside of the tower, one by each leg. As I descended the tower, reversing the protocol I used going up, I secured all three cables every few feet. I finally had my feet back on the roof at 2:20 PM, almost exactly 2 hours and 30 minutes from when I started climbing. Projects usually take me twice as long as I think they will but this was about half as long as I thought it would take, so we were all pleased that the work had gone smoothly and relatively quickly. My main objective was to get the old TV antenna down and the three antennas up but my secondary objective was to only climb and descend the tower once. Mission accomplished, at least for now.

By now we were all hungry and thirsty so Linda made chickpea salad sandwiches and set out fresh sweet peppers, sliced apples, baby carrots, and cold water. After a suitable lunch break we returned to the next phase of the work which was routing the coax cables into the cable entry box (CEB) and making the connections.

We started with the RG-59 coax from the OTA TV antenna. I coiled the extra cable and hung it on the tower (with zip ties, of course), routed it into the CEB and connected it to the power inserter / lightning arrestor. We purchased this cable from a Radio Shack store in Florida two winters ago to hook up our bus to the RV resort cable TV system. Besides the coax it had a separate ground wire. The amplifier and the power inserter both had connections for a separate ground wire so I connected it on both ends.

Routing coaxial cable into the cable entry box from the tower and the basement and making the connections. (Photo by Linda)

We had already routed a 75 ohm video cable from our bedroom TV to the sump pump room in the basement. I selected a suitable length of this same type of cable from our existing inventory, connected it to the other side of the power inserter, and routed it through the back of the CEB into the sump pump room where Linda guided it. Conveniently, I had a double-ended F-female barrel connector designed to connect together two cables with F-male connectors. I plugged in the AC power adapter for the power inserter, which was already in the sump pump room, and we went upstairs to see if we were receiving any TV stations.

We set the ‘Source’ on the TV to ‘Antenna’ and did an ‘Auto Scan’ for digital channels only. There are very few analog TV signals still in use and the ones that are reside in the old VHF TV spectrum which our new antenna cannot even receive. The scan found 58 signals, which obviously included the sub-channels. Besides the main Detroit stations and the East Lansing PBS station we got other Lansing area stations and even a station from Flint. The nice thing about digital TV is that if you get a picture at all it is very good.

There is a large TV tower at I-96 and US-127 on the southeast corner of Lansing so we were probably picking it up. There are several TV towers SSW of Lansing about 35 miles that serve Battle Creek and may serve Lansing and Kalamazoo. They are 50+ miles from us and I did not have the west antenna pointed in exactly that direction but it may have been close enough to pick them up. Flint is at least 35 miles away straight north off the sides of both antennas so theoretically we should not have received any stations from that direction. We will have to check the AntennaPoint.com website and confirm by station identifier what stations we are actually receiving.

Feeling good about our success so far we routed the coax for the cellular booster across one of the support arms that brace the tower to the house just under the east soffit. We dropped it down next to the wall and brought it into the bottom of the CEB, replacing the hole plug with a rubber grommet. Routing it this way kept it out of the way of future foot traffic, or lawn and garden work, in the space around/between the tower and the CEB. I connected the cable to the lightning arrestor and coaxed it unto position inside the CEB. LMR-400 is stiff and bending it sharply will damage it.

I connected one end of the 15-foot LMR-400 cable to the other side of the antenna arrestor and routed it into the sump pump room where Linda guided it into position. I secured it to the ceiling, brought it down the opposite wall, put a large 180 degree bend in it, and attached it to the connector on the bottom of the cellular booster. I turned it on and watched the lights blink for a while. All three of us then started checking signal strength throughout both floors of the house. All five of the ‘Alert’ lights went from blinking yellow, which means the unit is adjusting the gain on that band, to solid yellow, which is not described in the manual. Since we had not yet registered the device with Verizon Wireless I turned off the booster.

Back out at the CEB I removed one of the hole plugs directly below the input of the Morgan VHF lightning arrestor. We routed the coax for the 2m/440 ham antenna across the tower brace, down the wall, and around through the bottom of the box where I attached it to the lightning arrestor input. I had an old piece of 50 ohm coax with an N-male connector on one end and a PL-259 (male) connector on the other end. I attached the N-connector to the output of the VHF lightning arrestor and fed the other end through one of the 2″ conduits into the sump pump room where Linda routed it out into the ham shack.

We set our “Go Box” on the desk, plugged the PL-259 into the SO-239 socket on the back of the case, plugged it in to AC power, turned on the power supply, and turned on the radio. The radio, an Icom IC-7000, came up tuned to the South Lyon (K8VJ) repeater. I transmitted and successfully triggered the repeater, which is currently at a secondary site about 20 miles from our tower. Mike went out to his car and used his mobile radio to verify that we could transmit to and receive from the repeater. I had a lot of background static (white noise) so Mike switched modes and transmitted directly to our antenna. The signal was full scale and full quieting. I have a ground lug in the Go Box but did not have it connected. I vaguely recalled that I had to ground the box at the previous house to eliminate a noise issue. (The radio and power supply are grounded to the box.)

I switched the radio to UHF and it was set for the Novi repeater. I listened but did not hear anyone transmitting so I transmitted, giving my call sign and a brief message, and then listened. I did not get a reply even though Mike was also monitoring the Novi repeater so I switched back to the South Lyon repeater. Mike indicated that I had, indeed, triggered the repeater and that a couple of other hams acknowledged hearing me in addition to him. It thus appeared that I did not have something set up correctly on the receive side of the radio for the Novi repeater but the system (radio, cables, arrestor, antenna) was clearly working.

That was enough work for one day so we gathered up all of the tools and unused materials and put them away. We offered to take Mike to dinner as a ‘Thank You’ for his assistance. It was more than helpful to have someone on the ground who was familiar with tower operations. We considered several dining options but opted for Olga’s in Brighton. Linda and I had small salads, sans the Feta cheese, veggie Olga’s that were excellent, and curly fries without Tabasco sauce for the ketchup. Warning: As inconceivable as it may sound, Olga’s does not have any kind of hot sauce in its restaurants. Mike had a dish with chicken in that he said was very good.

Mike headed home from the restaurant as did we. We were tired but very pleased with what we had accomplished in the course of the day. We celebrated our accomplishments by watching several programs on Detroit PBS, something we have not been able to do for more than two years.

2015/06/23 (T) Grounded

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As I wrote in yesterday’s post we did not turn off the lights last night until almost 1 AM because we were keeping a close eye on the weather moving across the lower portion of Michigan’s Lower Peninsula. Although strong to severe storms were still forecast from 1 AM to 5 AM they either did materialize at our exact location or we slept through them. We had the house closed up and the air-conditioning on, so that cut down the sound level of outside noises.

A cold front had pushed through by sun up and we woke to a cool morning with blue skies and noticeably lower humidity. We did not have any trees, or even big limbs, come down and there was no damage to our brand new roof. The forecast yesterday was threatening enough, however, that in the morning we took the potted plants, and as much of our outside lawn furniture as we could find room for, inside including our sun umbrella and trash cans. I planned to be gone most of the day, and Linda was leaving mid-afternoon to go to dinner and a movie with Diane Rauch, so our first chore was to put all the lawn furniture, plants, and other outdoor stuff back outdoors.

This week is mostly being devoted to ham radio with the ARRL Field Day as the crowning event this weekend. My specific focus for most of the week, however, has been the “communications tower” adjacent to the east wall of our house. As described in previous posts we installed a cable entry box (CEB), mounted the cellular booster in the basement, mounted the inside cellular antenna, and ran coax cables. The antennas will (hopefully) be mounted on the existing 40 foot tower tomorrow, cabled into the CEB, and cables run from there to devices inside the house. With any luck by the end of the day tomorrow we will have decent cellular service inside the whole house, the ability to watch OTA TV programs on two different TV sets, and finally be able to connect one of our radios in the ham shack to an antenna. Today, however, was planned to mostly address other things.

I had an appointment with our dentist at 10:20 this morning and left at 9 AM. I planned to stop at Chuck’s bus garage and check that the key he lent me worked, but I needed gas for my car. I did not have time for both and did not really have a choice; I would have to check the key some other time. I ordered two cables yesterday from Scott (AC8IL) at Adams Electronics. Later in the evening I was unsure if I had specified the connectors correctly so I called and left a message. I called again this morning to make sure the message got through. It did, and my original connector specifications were correct.

I arrived at the dentist’s office about 10 minutes before my appointment time. I called Rick Short at Isringhausen USA to make sure he was going to be in before I drove two hours to Galesburg, Michigan after my dentist appointment. I got his voice mail a left a message. “ISRI” makes very high tech air suspension driver’s seats that are used as original equipment in motorcoaches, semi-tractors, heavy equipment, and locomotives. I would really like one for our bus, but it is not proving easy to get.

Dr. Steve and his assistant, Leslie, made molds of my upper and lower teeth and a bite impression. The molds will be used to make a mouth guard that I can wear while I sleep. Dr. Steve has a strong suspicion that I am clenching my teeth and the mouth guard will reduce or eliminate the irritation it causes. I will have to ask if I can wear it during the day too as I am occasionally aware of clenching my teeth while I awake.

I had not heard back from Rick by the end of my appointment so I called the main number at ISRI and talked to the receptionist. It turned out that Rick was not in today and she transferred me to Jeff Woodworth. Jeff was willing to meet with me but thought it would be a better use of my time to wait until Rick was available. My next opportunity to drive to Galesburg will be Thursday and I will likely go as the ISRI seat is holding up our ordering of Flexsteel seats through Coach Supply Direct.

I stopped for coffee and then re-routed for Chuck’s bus garage in Novi. The key to the garage worked perfectly. I called Linda to let her know about the change in plans and headed for home. There is too much to do at the moment to waste much time so I installed the #4 AWG bare copper ground wire I bought yesterday at Lowe’s. I mounted an offset copper wire lug using the center support stud for the copper back plane in the CEB. I replaced one of the plastic hole plugs with a rubber plug with a small hole in the center. The hole I chose in the bottom of the CEB allowed the ground wire to come straight up into the lug.

Another view of the cable entry box on the east end of the house by the 40-foot tower showing the bare copper ground wire that runs to the ground rod and then to one of the tower legs.

Outside the CEB I routed the ground wire around to the existing ground rod and secured it using the new clamp I bought yesterday. There was an old ground wire connected from a clamp on the tower to the ground rod. I removed that wire along with some coax and control wires that I had clipped when we removed the old satellite dish. I then attached the new ground wire to the clamp on the tower. While we were at it Linda trimmed back a small bush that was growing between the tower legs and I pulled leaves, grass and other stuff out from around the Day Lilies that we transplanted last year around the tower base.

With the CEB grounded we looked at how we might get a video cable up to the TV/monitor in our bedroom. The wall where the TV is mounted has a hot water baseboard radiator that comes almost to the trim on the door wall. That end of the radiator has a copper pipe that goes through the floor into the basement and it was easy to locate the pipe in the basement. I determined that there was enough space behind the pipe to safely drill a hole but I had to drill it from the top side at an angle. A 5/8″ wood boring drill bit created a hole just big enough for the molded F-connector on the end of the cable to pass through.

We fed the video coax cable above the suspended ceiling in the ham shack area to the location of the hole. I then fed the cable up from the basement as Linda pulled it up into the bedroom. We adjusted the amount of cable in the bedroom to allow the wall mounted TV set to move through its entire range of motion. The other end of the cable was then routed into the sump pump room.

By the time we finished pulling this cable it was 3:30 PM and time for Linda to leave to pick up Diane. They were headed to Royal Oak for dinner and a movie as the movie they wanted to see was only showing at the Royal Oak Main Theater.

While I was out during the morning Lynch Carpet had called to let us know our Armstrong vinyl tile was available for pickup so after Linda left I closed up the house and went to get it. The 12 boxes of tiles, container of vinyl adhesive, and container of vinyl grout were all neatly arranged on a small pallet and tightly wrapped in shipping plastic. Rather than break this down and load each thing individually they used a fork lift to set the pallet in the back of my Honda Element. The rear suspension settled at least two inches when they transferred the full weight of the pallet to the floor of my car.

When I got back to the house I backed the car up to the garage. I cut the shipping plastic loose and unloaded the tubs and boxes of tiles. I put the pallet on the garage floor and then neatly stacked the boxes of tiles on it to keep them off the floor. Each box contained 14 tiles measuring 16″ by 16″ for a total area of 24.89 square feet. The Armstrong Alterna tiles are a “luxury vinyl” product, and are about 1/8″ thick. Even so, the boxes were heavier than I expected so I decided to weigh one. It tipped the scale at just under 42 pounds. That meant the entire pallet weighed close to 500 pounds, and, ignoring the weight of the cardboard box, that is about 3 pounds per tile.

When I drew out the design I determined that I would need 158 tiles, some of which would be partial. Figuring conservatively at 150 full tiles equivalent, and ignoring the weight of the underlayment, adhesive, and grout, the floor tiles will weigh about 450 pounds. I have no idea what the carpet and ceramic tile that I have removed weighed but the tiles were heavy. I also have no idea what the furniture weighed that we have removed but also have no idea what the new furniture will weigh. The intent was that the new floor and furniture would weigh less than old stuff but we will see.

I traded phone calls with my dad and we finally got to talk for a half hour starting at 4:30 PM. He turned 90 this past Sunday. Mike Fearer from Bid-Rite Concrete called at 6 PM and arrived about 10 minutes later to discuss the foundation for our 70 foot ham radio tower. I had printed off a page from the Universal Tower website showing their tower base. I also downloaded and printed their base and tower installation instructions. I had a set of these to give to Mike so he would have some idea of what the project is about. We looked at the proposed location for the tower and access for his dump cart. We also talked about the base, a rebar cage, a form around the top of the hole to allow the concrete to be slightly above ground, and a jig to make sure the base is level and the tower is plumb.

He said he was interested in the job and would work with me and Phil Jarrell (the excavator) to get it done. Rather than bid the job he would just do it for time and materials. He also said the current price of concrete was about $100 per cubic yard. We will need about six (6) cubic yards to fill the required 5′ x 5′ x 6′ (deep) hole. He thought he might be available the middle of next week but I don’t think I could have everything pulled together that quickly.

After Mike left I went to Lowe’s and picked up five 40 pound bags of topsoil, a 1-in/2-out signal splitter (rated for 5 MHz to 2.4 GHz), and a plastic snap cover channel for hiding the video cable we ran up into the bedroom from the basement for the TV set. I then went to the Meijer’s supermarket just across Grand River Avenue for soy creamer but they did not have what I was looking for. As long as I was there I had a salad for dinner at the in-store Subway.

While I was sitting there I called Mike Sharpe (W8XH) to confirm that he was available tomorrow to help with the antenna installations on our 40 foot tower. I mentioned that the only thing I lacked was a standoff with a pulley at the end of it for hoisting stuff up to me. He suggested that something like that was essential and I agreed, so I headed back to Lowe’s to see what I could figure out. What I ended up with was a three foot long 7/16-14 threaded rod, a pulley that had a closed eyelet on top (and was big enough for the 3/8ths rope I bought), some 7/16ths washers, and some 7/16-14 nuts.

When I got back to the house I unloaded the topsoil near the part of the east yard that needs to be filled in, took the other stuff inside, and then assembled the threaded rod pulley system. I secured the pulley on one end of the rod using two of the nuts, one on either side of the eyelet. I threaded a nut onto the other end, put on two washers, two nuts, two more washers, and another nut. I ran the first two nuts, with two washers between them, part way down the rod. I left the second pair of nuts, with washers between them, near the end of the rod.

I took the assembly out to the tower and adjusted the position and spacing of the two pairs of nuts and washers so they would bracket two of the horizontal tower members. In use I will secure the rod to the tower at each pair of nuts/washers using plastic cable ties. This arrangement will put the pulley at least 18″ from the tower which should be far enough out that we can hoist the DB8e OTA TV antenna to the top of the tower without it banging into the tower or hanging up on something. This antenna is the largest thing we need to hoist up. The old TV antenna is considerably larger and heavier, but it is coming down via gravity.

There was a message on our answering machine from Linda’s sister, Sr. Marilyn, who lives in St. Louis. She was listening to the news earlier today about the storms that went through our part of Michigan and wanted to make sure we were all OK. By the time we finished talking it was dark and I was done working for the day. Linda called shortly thereafter to let me know she was on her way home and I mentioned the call with Marilyn.

I finally opened the box with the vertical omnidirectional outside antenna for the cellular booster system and discovered that I should have opened it sooner. The mounting bracket was designed to be mounted to a vertical surface, such as the side of a house, not a tube, such as a tower leg. I did not want to postpone tomorrow’s tower work so I will have to get up early and figure out a way to adapt the existing bracket so I can mount the antenna to the top of the tower.

My initial thought was that an aluminum U-channel of the correct size might solve the problem very nicely. I could drill two holes in the bottom of the “U” to match the two holes in the bracket. I could then drill three pairs of holes through the sides of the channel. The antenna would be bolted to the bottom of the channel. With the open part of the channel held against a vertical tube I could secure it with three long plastic cable (zip) ties. Conceptually it should work and be easy to fabricate, but will take time which I won’t have a lot of in the morning. We have to get the two coax cables from Scotty (AC8IL), drop off my car at Brighton Honda for its 100,000 mile service, and be back in time to have the mount fabricated and all of the antennas and tools ready to go by 10:30 AM when Mike shows up.

Linda got home at 9:45 PM, earlier than she thought she would when she left. She and Diane ate at Luigi’s and had a very nice meal. They also enjoyed the movie. We had a big day on tap for tomorrow and we asleep by 10:30 PM.

2015/06/19 (F) Roof Box

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The Apex roofers were back again this morning just before 8 AM and we were up and ready for them. I made coffee but we deferred breakfast until after we settled the bill with owner Pat Davidson. By 9 AM he knew what the added costs were over and above the base quote. The major one was the 32 sheets of plywood they used to repair/replace bad areas of the roof deck. He left around 10 AM and took half the crew with him to start another job. The other four guys stayed behind and finished roofing the garage and cleaning up the job site. The job was pretty much wrapped up by noon. Sergio (the foreman) did the final walk-around and cleanup and left around 1 PM. There is very little evidence that they had been here except for an attractive new roof and two skylights in the living room that light up the space in a nice way.

I spent the morning inventorying coaxial cables. We have quite an assortment of 50 and 75 ohm cables in lengths from 1 to 100 feet. I need to have all the necessary cables on hand when I climb the tower next week to remove and install antennas. If we already had appropriate cables I wanted to use those instead of buying new ones.

The custom cable entry box from Chris at KF7P Metalwerks arrived today. I opened it after lunch, which consisted of fresh apples and leftover black beans and rice. We both agreed that the beans and rice dish was even better than when it was fresh. We unpacked all of the parts that were stored inside the cable entry box and checked them off against the spreadsheet I used to order them. Everything was there but I was initially concerned because the box was turned 90 degrees from what I ordered. I specified a 16″ wide by 20″ tall box but got a 20″ wide by 16″ tall instead. I suspect that Chris buys the boxes with the door/hinge already attached but it would have been nice to know that ahead of time.

We took the box outside and held it in place to see if it would be usable. The lower left corner will hang down in front of the basement window in the sump pump room but that will be OK. The horizontal orientation of the box will actually make it easier to get coaxial cables through the access holes in the bottom.

There were two a Morgan Lightning arrestors mounted on the copper back plane for amateur radio use; one for HF and one for VHF/UHF. The UHF arrestor was upside down so I unscrewed it, rotated it 180 degrees, and screwed it back down. The box also had a Morgan M-348 lightning arrestor. I ordered an M-348B, which is the 12-wire version, but the installed arrestor had 12 terminals on top (3 strips of 4 each) plus one on each side. There were no instructions, however, on how to wire it up so I sent Chris an e-mail regarding the anomalies and missing information.

While I was working on that e-mail, and a couple from Josh at Coach Supply Direct, we got a call from Curtis Coleman of RVillage. The development team had launched some new features and he wanted to walk me through them. He had just been to Prevost in Nashville for some repairs on his tag axle brakes and was headed back to Cleveland, Ohio. He thought he might be headed in our general direction after that.

I spent some time thinking about how to mount the cable entry box on the east wall of the house which is sided in a shiplap fashion, i.e., the horizontal siding boards are angled (not plumb) and overlapped. I needed a hole saw and arbor for my 1/2″ drill to drill the holes for the two 2″ conduits that will pass from the box through the bond into the sump pump room in the basement. I probably already have one but I cannot get to most of the stuff in the garage and can’t afford to delay getting this box mounted; there are too many other things that need to get done that require this box to be in place first.

I was suffering from a decided lack of patience which is not the proper frame of mind for working on scale drawings of custom furniture so I went to Lowe’s to get a hole saw. The fitting measured 2-3/4″ OD and I decided to get a 3″ hole saw just to make sure the hole would be big enough. While I was at the store I considered how I might use different materials to mount the box. I ended up buying a 36″ length of 1″ square aluminum tube and some stainless steel lag screws, bolts, washers, and Nylok nuts. My plan was to cut the tube into two 18″ pieces and use them in a vertical orientation between the box and the house. They would span multiple boards, creating a plumb mounting surface, and provide support for the lower left corner which would otherwise be unsupported.

When I got back to the house I took the tube out to see how it would work. The idea was a good one but the 18″ lengths would be too short. I bought the only piece of 1″ tube that Lowe’s had so I knew I would have to find another one somewhere else. Linda suggested that we try the Lowe’s in New Hudson after breakfast tomorrow but I was still feeling impatient about the whole thing.

I had a long chat with Michele Henry from Phoenix Paint. I then relaxed with a small glass of Moscato, a nice pre-meal wine, while Linda prepared a wonderful dish for dinner of roasted red potatoes with onions, garlic, rosemary, and power greens. It was a simple dish but so delicious and hearty.

The meal concluded and the table cleared I went to The Home Depot in Howell where I found a 48″ length of 1″ square aluminum tube. If 24 inches turns out to be long enough to support the box the way I want I will cut the 48″ piece in half and return the 36″ piece to Lowe’s. I called Chuck on the drive home to follow up on a text message I sent him yesterday regarding the delivery of our new refrigerator to his bus garage in Novi.

Feeling like I had finally accomplished something today we relaxed for an hour and then settled in to watch a movie. Linda had borrowed the DVD of Wild, starring Reese Witherspoon, from the Howell Library earlier in the week and we reserved this evening as movie night.

My goal for tomorrow is to get the cable entry box installed. That sets the stage for climbing the tower and installing three antennas once I have the proper coax cables and some rope to temporarily guy the tower. But those details will wait until Monday as family is coming to brunch on Sunday for Father’s Day and a belated birthday celebration for our daughter.

2015/06/18 (R) Chiseled Bikinis

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The light rain that started late yesterday afternoon continued off-and-on through the overnight hours. We awoke to heavily overcast skies but a forecast that called for dry conditions until the early afternoon. We were up at 7:15 AM and had our usual granola breakfast. I took some more Ibuprofen in advance of working in the bus. We were just getting ready to have our morning coffee when I noticed several cars in the driveway. It was 7:45 AM and the roofers were arriving. Pat Davidson was among them so I went outside to chat briefly with him.

We had our morning coffee and then got to work, Linda at her desk and me in the bus. I spent another two hours using the Makita 11 pound power chisel. By 11 AM I had removed as much material from the floor as I felt was worth the effort. Linda brought the camera out and took a few photographs of me at work after which I packed up the equipment, closed up the bus, and went to Home Depot in Howell to return it to their rental department.

I stopped at Lowe’s on the way home and ordered the new Frigidaire refrigerator for the bus, an FFHT1621QB (16.3 cu. ft., top freezer, black, no ice maker or water). I scheduled delivery for Friday July 3rd to Chuck’s shop in Novi. I will arrange with Chuck to take the bus their sometime after that when he is available to operate his fork lift and I can get Brendan or some friends to give us a hand.

Me using the Makita 11 lb power chisel to remove thinset and mastic from the floor of our H3-40. (Photo by Linda)

Work continued on the roof through the morning and then the crew tarped off the roof and left in a few of their vehicles for a long lunch. As forecast it started to sprinkle around 2 PM as they returned from their lunch break. It never rained hard and they kept on working but always with the tarps at the ready in case they were suddenly needed. One of the guys finished installing our two Velux Sun Tunnel skylights which required a tall step ladder in our living room. They looked very nice when he was done.

I had a chat with Jarel Beatty in Logansport, Indiana about the custom desk he is going to build for the bus. I sent him a follow-up e-mail describing the pullout pantry we also need him to build. I then spent an hour working on drawings before I had to quit and change clothes.

Kate had secured tickets through her cousin, Michaela, for this evening’s performance of The Bikinis at the Meadow Brooke Theatre at Oakland University in Rochester Hills. Kate suggested O’Conner’s Public House (Irish Pub) in Rochester for dinner. The roofers had been working in the living room installing the Velux Sun Tunnel skylights but were done by 3:45 PM. That allowed us to get cleaned up, dressed for the theatre, and out the door at 4:30 PM even though the roofers were still working up on the roof.

We got to the pub at 6 PM. Kate got there shortly before us and had ordered a soft pretzel appetizer before the happy hour prices expired at 6 PM. Conveniently there were three large sticks so we each got one. Kate got the cheesy dipping sauce and we split the spicy horseradish mustard, which really had a kick to it. Linda and Kate each had a Smithwicks ale and I had a pineapple ale. To paraphrase “the world’s most interesting man”: I don’t always drink beer, but when I do, I prefer a fruit beer. Not as mysterious as Dos Equis, or as authentic as Guinness, but it’s what I like. Kate had a regular (beef) burger and we both had black bean burgers on soft pretzel buns with fresh hand-cut French fries. The burgers and fries were both really good and the pretzel buns, which had been toasted on a grill, did not get soggy.

The musical was a lot of fun with a wonderful performance by the cast of four women. All four of them were on stage singing and dancing with a lot of energy for most of the performance. Their singing was excellent, each voice having its own unique quality but blending well, and they carried 4-part harmonies in tune with one another and the small 4-pieces band. Two of them, Bambi Jones and Jeanne Tinker, were also in the Meshuggah Nuns musical we saw a month or so ago at the Meadow Brooke Theatre.

The Bikinis is the last production that Kate’s cousin Michaela will work on at the MBT. The production run ends on Sunday and one week later she leaves for a summer stock gig in New England. Meadow Brooke Theatre is a wonderful venue but not convenient to where we live, even less convenient to where Kate works, and very inconvenient to where she lives. All of which is to say, I doubt that the three of us will be going there very often now that Michaela is moving on. That is too bad in a way as we have all enjoyed the shows we have seen. The fact that Michaela, as a cast/crew member, was able to get us tickets did not hurt.

Michaela met us in the lobby where Kate gave her a nice assortment of flowers. She then gave us a behind the scenes tour of the wardrobe area where she has spent the past year working on costuming. We walked out to our cars and by the time we all drove off it was 11 PM. Even with light traffic it took us almost an hour to get home but we arrived while it was still Thursday, albeit just barely.

2015/06/17 (W) Bakery Scraper

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Linda was up at 5:45 AM and out the door by 6:15 AM to beat the morning rush hour traffic headed into the northwest corner of the Detroit metroplex. I got up about an hour later, tended to my morning cat chores, made coffee, had some granola for breakfast, gathered up the trash, and took the big trash can to the street.

The Apex roofing crew started showing up just before 8 AM. After everything was squared away with Apex I went to The Home Depot in Howell to rent the small power floor scraper. The scraper took some of the thinset off but was not as effective as I had hoped it would be. The tool is designed for stripping linoleum floors, so I had no reason to complain that it did not do what I needed it to do. I returned it within four hours and paid the 4-hour rental fee rather than the day (24-hour) fee. The guy in the tool rental department suggested I try a different machine which they had not mentioned to me previously. It was a Makita 11 pound power chisel. I rented it with three chisels.

The roofers were at the point where they needed to install the two Velux Sun Tunnel skylights in the roof of the living room. I showed them where I wanted them installed, if possible, and they tarped off the furniture and floor in the living room. Apex is very good about protecting the yard from damage and capturing the mess that is associated with a roof project. That same care and attention carried over to the inside work, which I appreciated.

Our bus looking forward from the the hallway by the refrigerator and pantry.

After a break for lunch I spent most of the afternoon using the power chisel to strip the area of the floor in the bus where the ceramic tile was installed. I was not able to strip it down to the plywood subfloor, but I was able to knock down most of the ridges of thinset and adhesive that remained after I chiseled out the tiles.

I had a brief chat with Chuck around lunchtime regarding the refrigerator. Butch called mid-afternoon to fill me in on why he was not able to answer the phone last night. Linda called around 2:30 PM to let me know she was leaving the bakery. She pulled in the driveway an hour later and came in the bus to see what I was up to and let me know it was starting to rain. I had made good progress but was not done and decided I would keep the power chisel until tomorrow and pay the 1-day (24-hour) rate.

The roofers were aware of the rain, which was very light though increasing steadily, but were in the middle of replacing plywood and installing the skylights. Some of them finished that up as quickly as they could, cleaned up the roof, and spread out the tarps while the others picked up the debris from the yard and got it in the trash trailer. The trailer was full so they took it with them when the left at 4:40 PM.

We had a snack of pretzels, green grapes and a small glass of Moscato wine. My thumbs were both bothering me (arthritis) so I took some Ibuprofen and then went back to work in the bus. I had to close the roof vents because of the rain so it was warmer inside and a bit stuffy as the humidity had come way up. I worked as long as I could and quit for the day at 6 PM.

For dinner Linda made a simple green salad and then cooked some whole wheat capellini and tossed it with the homemade tomato-based Marinara sauce she made the other day. After dinner I worked in my office for a while. I thought I would upload some blog posts but I had an e-mail from Bus Conversion Magazine with the draft of the May 2015 issue. I proofread part 2 of my 4-part article on the Exterior Makeover of our bus by Phoenix Paint. I found one thing that needed to be corrected and e-mailed it to the editor.

Linda got a DVD of Wild from the Howell Library the other day but we were too tired to watch it and just went to bed. I turned my light out at 9:58 PM, the first time since I can’t remember when that I have done that before 10 o’clock in the evening.

2015/06/16 (T) More Stupid

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Linda was scheduled to go to the bakery this morning but rescheduled to tomorrow due to last night’s weather forecast and the possibility of flooded highways in Detroit. The morning rush hour traffic is bad under the best of conditions and flooded roadways can make it near impossible. She also did not sleep well and woke up tired.

The Apex roofing crew started showing up just before 8 AM and the Wimsatt truck showed up with the shingles a little after 8 AM. They brought a conveyor truck this time and were able to get the shingles off the truck and onto the roof without difficulty. The Apex crew did not waste any time getting to work. It turned out to be a great day for roofing; clear skies, no rain, moderate temperatures, lower humidity, and some breeze. Even so, it is work that is done without the benefit of shade and roofs are hot places to work even on the nicest of days.

Wimsatt unloads shingles onto the garage roof.

Linda continued working on the financials for our amateur radio club while I checked my e-mail. I had a reply from RV Critter Guard telling me what to order and how much it would cost. I placed the order through their website and used PayPal to complete the transaction. I tried calling the concrete contractor that Phil recommended (Bid Rite Concrete LLC in Whitmore Lake) but the phone would disconnect after the first ring and revert to a dial tone. Perhaps the recent storms caused a problem but I e-mailed Phil to see if he had a different number for them. I called the Henry Ford Medical Center in West Bloomfield and made dermatology appointments for myself and Linda.

With all of that taken care of I turned my attention to the bus. The toilet is a Microphor LF-210. It uses pressurized air to operate the waste valve and the water valve and to help push the waste through the drain pipe and into the black tank. To remove the toilet I had to undo three connections—air, water, and waste—and take out the four screws securing it to the floor. If only it was as easy as that makes it sound.

The plumbing at the back of the Microphor toilet in our bus.

Undoing the air line was easy and undoing the water connection only a little less so. The waste connection was another matter. The 1.5″ black plastic drain pipe was routed from the water bay through the floor and into the HVAC chase that runs along the driver’s side of the coach. The converter, Royale Coach, brought it out through a hole in the wood that covers the chase, making it impossible to take the wood cover off. The pipe then made two right angle bends, the first one towards the floor and the second one towards the back of the toilet. The waste pipe was connected to the toilet discharge pipe with a length of rubber hose and a compression sleeve.

The toilet has a large hole in the back for all of these lines to pass through to the inside where they get hooked up. It should have been a simple matter to slide the toilet away from the wall/chase but the last bend in the drain line was below the top edge of the bottom of the hole, preventing it from coming out. After wiggling the toilet enough to get the rubber hose loose from the drain pipe I was able to lift the drain pipe just enough to slide the toilet out. I took pictures for a possible BCM article on our interior remodeling project and then Linda helped me move the toilet out of the bathroom to the front of the coach.

The more I disassemble this coach the more stupid I think the design and construction of its systems are. I don’t know that coaches from Marathon, Liberty, Vantare, Featherlight, Parliament, Millennium, Custom Coach, or any of a dozen other companies that have come and gone, is any better as I have never tried to disassemble one of them. These are one-of-kind vehicles that are custom built specifically for the original purchaser and the over-riding factor in every case is the interior design. Stuff, like toilets, go where the customer wants it, and systems, which are generally buried and hidden from view, get built wherever and however they can be made to fit. The converter does not expect to have to repair or replace anything during the very short 12 month, 12,000 miles, warranty period and if stuff breaks after that, or someone wants to do a remodel or upgrade sometime later, it will all be time and material. How difficult it is to do, and how many hours it takes, is someone else’s problem at that point.

The Apex crew hard at work on the back side of the main roof.

We had a call from Butch updating us on a possible property purchase. They are waiting for a clear title search before making an offer. The property includes a house and a sizable barn. The barn needs a new roof and the house will have to be gutted and the inside rebuilt, but for the right price it will still be a good deal. They already have a good estimate to replace the barn roof and since they are now retired they have more time to work on the house than they would have a year ago. They also have family and friends who can help. Besides, they still have their home/business building in Twelve Mile, Indiana and their bus, which they lived in all this past winter, so they will not be under any pressure to get the inside rebuilt quickly.

Linda started downloading updates from Adobe Creative Cloud, which take a very long time, and then left at 3:30 PM for Ann Arbor. She agreed to take care of grand-daughter Madeline while Brendan and Shawna attended a reception at the University of Michigan – Ann Arbor for newly tenured and promoted faculty. I was on my own for dinner and Linda bought an Amy’s pizza so I would have something easy to prepare.

The roofers finished up for the day around 5 PM. By the time they left most of the trash was in their dumpster trailer and the roof was tarped as a precaution against rain even though the forecast for tonight and tomorrow is for dry weather. Rain returns to the forecast tomorrow night into Thursday but turns dry again on Friday, so we are optimistic that they will get the job finished this week. It’s a big job but Apex has a big crew working on it and they got a lot of work done today. We are very pleased with the look of the Certainteed Landmark Pro Max Def Resawn Shake shingle that we chose. I took pictures of the work throughout the day as I always try to do with major projects.

After the roofers left I worked for a while in the bus. I took the mattress into the house along with the electric heating pad controls. I disconnected the two gas struts that support the plywood bed platform so I could open it far enough to reinstall one of the drawers. I left them disconnected as I plan to remove the platform to provide better access to the sides of the box and floor. I also plan to reposition them when I reinstall the platform to provide better access to the storage area underneath. I then took measurements and made a sketch of the file drawer box for the desk.

Installing soffit baffles and replacing roof decking on the front of the main roof.

I cooked the Amy’s Roasted Vegetable Pizza on the outdoor gas grill, both to avoid heating up the house and to see how it responded to that cooking method. I used the grilling mat and the result was quite acceptable. A glass of Franzia Moscato was a nice accompaniment.

After dinner I worked at the drafting board in my office turning my sketch and measurements into a scale drawing. The two boxes for the desk will be trickier than a standard desk box because of the HVAC chase and because I have to put an Aqua-Hot heat exchanger in the bottom of each one. I worked until about 9 PM and then came back upstairs.

The air-conditioner worked fine yesterday but was once again unable to bring the temperature in the house below 74 degrees F even though the outside air temperature never rose above 80. There is clearly something wrong and I am wondering if one of the cold air ducts is open into the attic and/or one of the return air ducts us drawing hot air from the attic. Either of these conditions would reduce the air flow to the house and overtax the evaporator in the air handling unit. The more likely cause, however, is lack of refrigerant. Whatever the case I shut the system off and opened up the house.

I was relaxing in the living room when Linda called at 9:30 PM to let me know she had left her babysitting gig and was stopping at the Whole Foods Market before heading home. The reception started at 5 PM and lasted until 9 PM. She was home by 10:15 PM and straight away to bed as she has to go into the bakery tomorrow and wants to leave early enough to be ahead of the morning rush hour traffic.

2015/06/15 (M) Cover Up

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Linda was originally scheduled to go into the bakery today but it got rescheduled to tomorrow so we did not have to be up by any certain time other than to be ready for the delivery of our new roof shingles. Apex Roofing is scheduled to put a new roof on our house this week, weather permitting, and assuming they can finish up jobs they had scheduled for last week when it rained so much.

The truck from Wimsatt Materials in Waterford showed up at 8 AM with our shingles but they were unable to deliver them. They brought them on a boom truck that was too tall to fit under the phone lines across our driveway and there was nowhere else they could position the truck that would allow them to operate the boon. They were on the phone with their dispatcher and I called Pat Davidson at Apex roofing to let him know what was going on. The decision was that they would be back this afternoon with a conveyor truck which would fit under the wires and be able to get the bundles up to the roof. Pat called back to let me know they would be starting in the morning around 7:30 AM.

Later in the day someone showed up in an Apex van with a large enclosed trailer. We moved our cars and he backed it up in front of our single garage door. Wimsatt did not return with shingles so they will presumably deliver them first thing tomorrow morning. They will need to back into the driveway and position the truck in front of our double garage door but that is also where Apex plans to put their debris trailer. The guy in the van also made it sound like there would be at least six cars/trucks here needing someplace to park. It should be an interesting morning, especially given the overnight weather forecast which includes drenching rains and possible severe weather and flooding. The forecast for the daylight hours, however, looks OK.

After the Wimsatt truck left we finished the last batch of granola for breakfast and then got busy with our chores and projects. Linda spent part of the day at her desk working on the financials for our local ham radio club (SLAARC). She also tried to contact PayPal to opt out of their upcoming RoboCall campaign but was not able to get through to a real person.

I settled into my office for the morning, dealing with e-mail but focusing on editing blog posts for the last seven days. Kate got in touch with me to see if we wanted to see The Bikinis musical production at the Meadow Brooke Theatre this week. Wednesday through Sunday is the final run. She also forwarded an invitation to a former colleague’s retirement gathering in a couple of weeks.

We have an RV Critter Guard that seals around our 50 A electrical cord and water hose to keep “critters” from entering the coach via that access hole. We lost our original foam insert when I forgot to remove it from the cable entrance hole in the floor of the bus utility bay and it fell (blew) out while we were driving. I checked the RV Critter Guard website and my exact products were not listed. I measured our existing tongue and groove plate and then contacted the company via their contact form and explained what I needed. I got an e-mail back indicating that my product was custom made and asking me for one additional dimension from the plastic plate. I got that measurement and e-mailed it to them and indicated that I wanted another plastic plate and two spilt foam inserts. I expect to receive an e-mail tomorrow with the price. Once I have that I will call them to place the order.

I have tried several times in the last two years to order products from EZ Connector but they have always had another question for me that required me to go check something and I have never managed to close the loop with them. I’ve been on a roll the last couple of weeks and decided that today was the day to get this done. The company is in California, so I called them during the afternoon (my time). The woman I spoke to on the phone gave me some good information but suggested I e-mail Joe with my requirements. Joe e-mailed me back and answered several questions but had another one for me. I responded to that question and went on to something else while I await the prices. Once I have the pricing I will have to call them and finalize the order.

I exchanged e-mails with Josh from Coach Supply Direct and got a series of revised quotes from him for our new RV furniture and window shades. What I really need are the drawings that show the exact dimensions of each piece including the size of the base and the location of the pivot (swivel) point. Apparently he is having difficulty getting these from Flexsteel. I would also like to have these for the Lambright Comfort Chairs but we took our own measurements at Bradd and Hall. The whole process of getting furniture is getting very frustrating. I need to contact Mike at Suburban Seating regarding the ISRI 6860 and pick a day to drive to ISRI USA in Galesburg to look at fabrics. While I am at it I should probably get a price from Prevost.

I finally got back to work in the bus this afternoon. I shut off the auxiliary air compressor, closed the valve on the air manifold that supplies air to the toilet and other house accessories, and drained the water separator. I then investigated what will be required to remove the toilet.

There is a shut off valve on the water line behind the toilet so I closed that. The water line is attached to the toilet mechanism with a plastic connector with two wings and looked like I could undo it by hand. The air line looked equally easy to disconnect but the drain looked a bit trickier. It goes out the back of the toilet rather than through the floor. There is a metal sleeve with band clamps at each end that connects the discharge pipe to the drain line. Fortunately the band clamp screws are accessible.

The toilet is screwed to the floor with four Philips head screws. The centers of the screw heads are threaded and there are plastic caps with posts that screw down into the mounting screws to conceal them. With the water, air, and waste lines disconnected once I unscrew the base the toilet should slide forward and then we may have to lift it to get clear of the water line. The trick to getting it back in will be to get the four mounting screws back in the exact same holes.

The humidity outside was near 100% and I did not feel like running the bus air conditioners so I did not remove the toilet today. I need to get it out, however, to remove the last few pieces of ceramic tile from the bathroom floor. Once it is out it will have to stay out until the new floor is installed.

I tried pulling on one of the window latch knobs on the fixed window across from the kitchen counter and was surprised by easily it moved the latch. I did not pull it far enough to unlatch it but it appears that getting the window unlatched will be relatively easy. Getting the frame open without damaging the frame seal, and getting it closed again so it is weather tight, may be slightly more challenging.

I used a chisel to try removing the thinset and mastic that was adhered to the plywood subfloor. It came off better than I thought it would but it was a slow process. In addition to being humid in the coach it was very warm as I have had to leave the roof vents closed with the fans off due to the rainy weather. I removed enough thinset, however, to convince me that it is worth renting the power floor scraper from the Home Depot in Howell for a day and see how it works.

Late afternoon Linda worked in the kitchen making another batch of her fabulous granola and a black beans and rice dish for dinner. She soaked two Hatch chilies, two Ancho chilies, and four Pequin chilies and used them in the bean dish. I had a call from Pat Lintner before dinner to let me know that they took their Prevost to McMillers in Nappanee and were very pleased with work and the price.

I thought about driving to the Lowe’s in Howell after dinner to order the new Frigidaire refrigerator for the bus but it got too late to go. We have decided to have it delivered to Chuck Spera’s shop in Novi. We can pull it inside and he has a forklift, so hopefully that works out OK.

We were both tired and headed off to bed at 10 PM. The weather radar showed a band of more intense rain setting up to our southwest and taking aim at us. Linda fell asleep quickly but I was still up writing when the rains started around 11:15 PM. We had the house closed up with the air conditioner running and a small fan for air movement so the sounds of the weather are not as noticeable as when we have the windows and doorwalls open. I checked the radar again on Wundermap and it looked like we might be in for a long stretch of persistent rain unless the line drifted south just enough to miss us. The strongest weather in the region stretched from Ft. Wayne, Indiana WSW to just south of Logansport, Indiana but there were lots of pockets of yellow with some orange on the screen over all of the southern half of Michigan’s lower peninsula and the northern half of Indiana. It looked like it might be another restless night.

2015/06/13 (S) On to Illinois

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It has turned out to be a wet June so far and we had more heavy rain last night. In spite of waking up during the night I was up at 7:30 AM and made coffee. Everyone else got up as suited their level of rest and we sat around chatting for a while. Ron put a load of laundry in the washing machine and then we sat down to a light breakfast.

Ron and Mary spent most of the rest of the morning repacking all of their stuff for the drive to northwest Illinois and their week-long bicycle ride. FedEx Home Delivery delivered the Cyclo 5-Pro Mark II Dual Head Orbital Polisher I ordered along with all of the foam pads and detailing chemicals.

Ron retrieved their laundry from the dryer and after they finished packing we had a light lunch. By 1 PM they were ready to load up the car so we helped get their bags out. After a brief “farewell and safe travels” they were on their way. They had a five hour drive but would gain an hour as they entered the Central Time Zone so they would be at their motel by 5 PM local time with plenty of daylight and time to eat dinner.

Linda took a short nap and then went for a walk. I read through the manual for our SureCall Fusion5s cell phone booster and was part way through the manual for the Cyclo 5 when I decided to take a nap. Linda returned from her walk and a little while later a USPS mail carrier delivered the OTA TV antenna I ordered from Antennas Direct. All I am waiting for now is the cable entrance box I ordered from KF7P Metalwerks.

Once the cable entrance box arrives I will have a bit of a project. First I will need to drill two 2″ holes through the east wall of the house and into the sump pump closet in the northeast corner of the basement, mount the box to the wall, and ground it to the outside ground rod by the tower. I may also need to install additional ground rods. I will then need to climb the tower by the house and do the following:

take down the old OTA TV antenna and rotator;
mount the new OTA TV antenna and aim it;
mount the amplifier for the OTA TV antenna;
attach a short piece of 75 Ohm co-ax from the antenna output to the amplifier input and weatherproof the connections;
attach a longer piece of 75 Ohm co-ax to the output of the amplifier and weatherproof the connection;
mount the outside antenna for the cell phone booster system;
attach one end of a 50′ piece of LMR-400 or RG-213 co-ax to the cell phone antenna and weatherproof it;
unmount our Diamond SG7900 2m/70cm ham radio base station antenna and remount it at the top of the tower;
attach a 50-to-60 foot length of LMR-400 or RG-213 co-ax to the ham radio antenna;
dress and secure all of the coaxial cables with plastic cable ties (zip ties).

Once I am done with tower work I will need to do the following to complete the installation:

install the lightning arrestors in the cable entrance box for the cell phone booster and OTA TV (?) co-ax cables;
route each of the co-ax cables into the bottom of the cable entrance box and attach them to appropriate lighting arrestors;
attach additional co-ax cables to the lightning arrestors and feed them through the 2″ holes into the basement;
mount the Surecall Fusion5s in the sump pump room and connect the co-ax for the outside antenna and the power supply;
run a 50′ length of LMR-400 from the sump pump room across the basement ceiling and up through an old vertical furnace exhaust chase to the attic;
drill a hole in the ceiling of the main floor hallway near the chase;
mount the inside done antenna for the cell phone booster system to the ceiling with the co-ax dongle in the attic;
connect the antenna dongle to the co-ax coming up from the basement;
run additional co-ax from the sump pump room to the ham shack;
run additional co-ax from the sump pump room to the video distribution point in the laundry room (or directly to the locations of the two TV sets);
turn on the Fusion5s booster (transceiver), adjust the gain (if needed) and test it with our phones and Mi-Fi;
test the TV sets (and hopefully not have to go back up the tower to reposition the antenna);
connect our Icom IC-7000 amateur radio and test the antenna connection.

As I wrote out this list it occurred to me that I need to make a list of all of the co-ax types/lengths/connectors I need and that, at a minimum, I probably need to order a length of LMR-400 orRG-213 co-ax cable and the proper N-connectors to complete the ham radio antenna connections. It also occurred to me that I might be able to do some of the inside wiring while I am waiting for the cable entrance box to arrive. Also, once the TVs are connected Linda can scan for channels and communicate with me with our HT ham radios if I need to change the aim of the antennas on the tower.

All of this reminded me that I need to follow-up with a Bratcher Electric on running a new 100 Amp main feed from the transfer switch to the panel in the furnace room in the garage. I also need to order some new split foam fillers from Critter-Guard and new electrical hardware for connecting the bus to the toad from EZ-Connector in California.

I must have been sleeping lightly and dreamed all of these details because I got up from my nap around 5:30 PM, finished reading the manual for the Cyclo 5, and then took a shower and got dressed for dinner. Barb Spera had called Linda yesterday to see if we were available for dinner this evening. They had really enjoyed our meal at La Marsa in Brighton a couple of weeks ago and wanted to go again so we agreed to meet them there at 7 PM. We did not have to wait for a table and our waiter, Najheem (Naa-gheem), was delightful. Barbara had the Koshary again, and Chuck had the Chicken Shwarma with tabbouleh salad, while we split an order of spicy vegetarian ghallabah with rice and a salad. I had a mango smoothie and we all enjoyed the swarm pocket bread and garlic spread.

It was after 9 PM when we got home and we headed off to bed at 10. We knew Ron and Mary had arrived at their destination because Ron played a Scrabble word. Linda had also checked that our daughter and son-in-law were on their way back from Las Vegas.

2015/06/10 (W) Ron and Mary

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Same routine as yesterday; up at 7 AM, open up the house, feed the cats, clean the litter tray, start a load of laundry, make the coffee, and drink the coffee while using our iPads.

Our daughter’s 34th birthday is tomorrow but she is flying to Las Vegas today to meet up with her husband who is there on a company outing. We will celebrate her birthday when they get back, perhaps in conjunction with Father’s Day and Linda’s birthday, which is at the end of the month.

Linda left at 9 AM for Brighton Honda to have the 12 V battery in her car checked. The battery light came on the other day so we thought it might need to be replaced. Around 9:20 AM I heard thunder and a short time later we had a brief, heavy downpour. Linda called at the same time and said the battery tested OK. The problem could be the alternator, of course, but presumably the dealer service people know that and checked for that. If not, we will likely be back there sooner rather than later.

Linda headed on to Meijer’s to do the grocery shopping. Today was trash pickup day so I took the trash can to the street. After meeting with Brad from Chuck It Junk Removal the other day we decided we would rent their trailer for 5 days. For the same price as having them physically handle 1/3 of a truck of junk (5 cu. yd.) we can get rid of a full truck of junk (15 cu. yd.) by loading it ourselves. Deal.

I got a call from Phil Jarrell regarding my request for pricing to dig a foundation hole for a ham radio tower foundation. It was a useful conversation in that I had not previously realized that I will need a concrete contractor in addition to the concrete supplier. The only thing the concrete supplier will do is show up with a cement mixer truck and dump the concrete where they are instructed to. The concrete contractor will actually place rebar, build forms, provide carts or a pumper, and get the concrete from the truck to the hole. Phil recommended Mike Fearer of Bid-Rite Concrete as a good guy who would work with me to get this done.

I talked with Chuck about getting a key to his shop so we could have the new refrigerator delivered there and have the old one picked up without having to trouble him to be there. He agreed and suggested that we contact the guy down the street about removing the old windshield and installing the new one as part of the refrigerator swap.

Rather than dig into our bus interior remodeling project I have used the last couple of days to finalize decisions about various products and order them. One of the things I have wanted/needed for a while is a cable entrance box that will allow me to route transmission lines and control cables into the basement from outside. I talked to Chris Perri, KF7P, at the Dayton Hamvention last month and decided that I liked his custom fabricated cable entry boxes. I got his business card at the Hamvention and exchanged a couple of e-mails with him this week. I decided this morning how I want the box initially configured and e-mailed my specs to Chris. I would like to run the cabling for the cell phone booster through this box so I needed to get it on order. Speaking of which, the cell phone booster system arrived today via UPS so I am feeling more comfortable that all of the stuff I am ordering will actually get delivered to our house.

Wednesday’s and Fridays are when Recycle Livingston is open and the Wednesday hours are 11 AM to 5:30 PM. We had my car loaded up with recyclables and Linda drove over after lunch to drop them off. When she got back she made a batch of her yummy granola and I got a couple more loads of laundry done while continuing to work at my computer.

After doing my alternate tile layout for the bus floor yesterday I decided that I liked the way it looked better than the original ad that it would not involve any more cutting than the row/column layout. I also felt confident that I had an accurate enough tile count to go ahead and order the tiles. I drove to the Shell station to fill my tank and then drove to Lynch Carpet in Howell. I ordered 12 boxes of the 16″ x 16″ Armstrong Alterna Luxury Vinyl Tile in the La Plata Creme Fresh pattern, and a gallon each of the vinyl adhesive and Glacier vinyl grout. There are 14 tiles per box (24.89 sq. ft.) for a total of 168 tiles (just under 300 sq. ft.). The inside floor area of the bus is around 300 sq. ft. before subtracting out walls and cabinets but we will be using some of the tiles on vertical surfaces in the entry stairwell and cockpit and around the box that supports the bed platform. My estimate is that I will have 10 extra tiles. The guy at Lynch Carpet suggested that I use a scrap piece of tile as a spacer when installing the tiles but I may use the little plastic “X” pieces designed for this purpose.

From Lynch Carpet I drove to Lowe’s in Howell to see if they had a different portable air compressor that might be more appropriate than the 6 gallon Porter Cable we just bought. The Porter-Cable air compressor has a maximum regulated pressure of 150 PSI but that is also the maximum tank pressure. I will have to test it on one of the front bus tires to determine if it will get the job done and if not I will return it.

The guy at Lynch Carpet also suggested that I rent a handheld grinder from Abe’s or A-1 Rental, both in Howell. Abe’s did not have any grinders of any kind and A-1 was closed on Wednesdays. The gal at Abe’s suggested the tool rental service at the Howell Home Depot, so I stopped there. They also did not have a handheld grinder but they did have a floor model concrete grinder. It was so heavy that I doubt if we could have gotten it into the bus and it was too big to maneuver in the tight spaces where I need to work. They did have a lighter/smaller floor stripper and I may give that a try before I resort to grinding off the thinset with an angle grinder and diamond impregnated wheel and/or a belt sander with a very aggressive belt.

Pat Davidson called from Apex Roofing while I was out so I called him back. They will be able to start on our roof next week Monday or Tuesday and will deliver the shingles on Friday this week. I confirmed that we wanted two of the 14″ light tunnels for the living room. I also indicated that I had scrapped the idea of building a dormer or installing a roof hatch as I simply did not get this taken care of in time.

Linda had closed up the house and turned on the air-conditioning while I was out. It was pulling moisture out of the air but would not bring the air temperature lower than 78 degrees. Not good. This will be our third summer in this house and we have not used the air-conditioning very much. The first summer we were gone for most of June, all of July, and a few days in August. We had the unit serviced last year and thought it was working OK but perhaps did not really use it after that. We did install filters in the return air grills so perhaps they are restricting the airflow too much. It is also possible that it needs refrigerant. I will have to check our records from last year and then call TOMTEK to arrange to have it serviced again.

Linda’s brother, Ron, and his wife, Mary, arrived early this evening. They are on their way to northwest Illinois for a week-long organized bicycle ride. They have to be there on Saturday and will be spending the next three nights at our house. Visits from them are usually not more than once a year but we really enjoy their company when they are here.

For dinner Linda made a nice green salad and then made whole wheat angel hair pasta with onions, garlic, and mushrooms lightly sautéed in olive oil. Ron does not imbibe but Linda, Mary, and I had a glass (or two) of Moscato. We moved to the deck after dinner and had fresh strawberries for dessert. It cooled off as darkness set in and we eventually moved back inside. The other three were in the kitchen and I was sitting on the sofa when Juniper suddenly caught a mouse in the middle of the living room, or at least that is where I noticed that she had it. She took it downstairs and I got her to drop it in the bathroom sink but I was unable to get it into a container to take it outside and it escaped into my office. I closed the doors but I have no doubt it can go wherever it wants in the house from there. When I returned upstairs we chatted until 11 PM and then all turned in for the evening.

2015/06/09 (T) Cyclo 5

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I was up at 7 AM, fed the cats, and made coffee, which has become Linda’s wake up alarm. Phil Jarrell showed up at 8 AM. He set up his laser level and checked elevations for a gravel driveway that would connect our concrete driveway around to our third culvert. Some of this driveway may eventually provide access to a barn, but it will also provide a second pad that is level and big enough to support a 45 foot bus conversion.

Phil moved the laser level to a different spot and checked the elevations of various points at the west end of the property relative to the culvert that runs under the road to the little triangle of our yard in the southwest corner. Although it did not appear so to me, all of the property to the west and north is higher than the bottom of the culvert. That means Phil should be able to construct a French drain that will help dry this area out and hopefully save the trees that are there. He will also use the top soil he pulls out of the driveway to fill in the various low spots.

Phil was done and on his way by 9:30 AM. I forgot to mention the hole for the ham radio tower base so I e-mailed him about that additional work. While it will almost certainly be less expensive to have him dig the hole while he is already here working on other things it is a project that requires my involvement, parts that I do not yet have, and coordination with a concrete company who can pump or cart the concrete from the truck to the hole.

The old driver’s chair in our bus is a Villa captain’s chair.

We had breakfast after which I sorted the laundry. The warm white load was small so I stripped the bed in the bus and added those sheets to the load. We cleaned off the twin mattress in the small bedroom with most of the stuff going down to my office. The stuff on the double bed in the middle bedroom then went to the small bedroom, allowing us to strip the double bed so I could launder the sheets and pillow cases.

Based on the e-mail I got yesterday from Cory at Rupes/Cyclo I figured out that I wanted the Cyclo 5-Pro Mark II Dual Head Orbital Polisher with the ProGuard backing plates. I also determined which foam pads and chemicals I wanted and placed the order directly with Rupes/Cyclo online. I also updated our PayPal account and used it for this transaction.

I went to my office and spent several hours doing a second floor plan drawing for the bus, this one showing the tiles installed as diamonds rather than squares. Over the course of the afternoon Linda heated up some Amy’s chili for lunch and I got two more loads of laundry done.

Late afternoon brought a call on our landline that turned out to be a recorded message claiming to be from the IRS and stating that this was their final attempt to reach us before filing a lawsuit. Yeah, right. The IRS does not make such calls, of course, nor do they send such e-mails. They like paper trails and contact people by registered mail or show up unannounced at the door. And they don’t sue people, they just seize assets. A Google search quickly revealed that this was an IRS Impersonation Scam that has been around for a while but gets resurrected from time to time.

The swivel/slide 6-way power base under the driver’s chair in our bus. We will reuse this if we get a Flexsteel replacement chair but not if we get an ISRI.

We were annoyed enough by this particular scam that I filed a complaint with the U. S. Treasury Department and the Federal Trade Commission. While I was on the FTC website I opted us out of receiving “Firm Offers” for insurance and pre-approved credit cards. I also verified that our landline and cell phones (2) are on the Federal Do Not Call list, although it has not eliminated telemarketing calls. The fact that we are on the DNC list, however, allows us to file complaints with the FTC when we get such calls.

For dinner Linda made a nice salad with poppy seed dressing and heated up a couple of teriyaki noodle bowls. It was yummy and a small glass of Moscato was very agreeable as well. After dinner I was revisiting the EZ Connector website when a TXT message came through with a picture of his Chuck’s new VDO 0–15 PSI turbo boost gauge. I was thinking about calling Chuck anyway so I rang him up and we had a long chat.

2015/06/08 (M) Home for a While

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It rained until well after midnight last night. The rain was not steady but more in the form of heavy downpours associated with thunderstorms. The gutter along the rear of our house was not able to handle the volume of water and it was spilling over onto our deck making a sound that we are not used to. I noted that I should check the gutters for clogs at the downspouts today. My phone chirped, which meant I had an e-mail, and I presumed it was from our whole house generator. When I got up this morning the clocks on the microwave and range were flashing “2:06”, so my first thought was that we must have taken a power hit then, but the messages on my phone indicated that utility power had been lost and restored around 3:45 AM; at least that was the date/time stamp on the e-mails. I got up just before 6 AM and finally figured out that the clocks probably reset to 00:00 when the power blipped (3:45 AM + 2:06 elapsed time = 5:51 AM).

I sat in the living room writing with my iPad and playing games until a little after 7 AM and then made coffee, which got Linda out of bed. We had planned to empty out more of the bus today but the weather was gloomy and we were tired from the rally so we had a long, leisurely morning before busying ourselves with inside chores. Linda worked at her desk and I wasn’t in the humor to work downstairs in my office so I set my computer up on the dining room table. Other than an occasional trip to the bus or the garage I mostly sat in front of my computer and talked on the phone all day.

Linda called Alchin’s, our regular trash collection company, to see if they would pick up the old RV furniture. They do not have a special truck they can send and could not take the steel furniture even if they could get it into their garbage truck. Linda suggested we find a company like “Got Junk” and searched online for one in the area. We decided to call “Chuck It Junk Removal” as they are located relatively close to our house. Keith, from Kish Lawn Care, showed up around 11 AM to cut the grass and Brad, from Chuck It Junk Removal, showed up around 12:45 PM to look at the furniture and flooring we pulled out of the bus and give us a quote on the cost to haul it away. As Keith was finishing mowing the grass dark clouds were rolling in from the west and not long after he left we had more rain, although nothing like last night.

My dentist thinks my current intermittent teeth issues are the result of clenching my teeth at night so I made an appointment to get fitted for a mouth guard to wear while sleeping. I also got hold of Phil Jarrell and he decided that tomorrow morning at 8 AM would be a good time for him to stop by and take some elevation readings for the driveway extension and a French drain for the far west end of the property. Besides the obvious economy of having him do both jobs while he is on site, we need a place to put the topsoil he will dig out for the driveway and we need topsoil to fill in low spots on the west end of the yard.

I managed to finally get some orders placed today. The big one was for a SureCall Fusion5s multi-band cell phone booster (transceiver) system from Cellular Solutions in Mt. Pleasant, Michigan. The other was for a window seal from Prevost. This is not the seal that holds the glass in the frame but rather a large rubber part that seals the space between the window frame and the structure of the coach. We may need to unlatch the large fixed window on the passenger side and use it to get the old refrigerator out and the new one in. This window frame has not been opened since we bought the bus and may not have been opened for many years before that, possibly not ever since the bus was built. I want the new seal on hand in case the current one gets damaged trying to open the window frame.

Besides these two purchases I talked to someone at A-1 Upholstery and described our home made sofa plans. She suggested that we would need ~9 yards of 54″ wide material for the sofa seats and back cushions. I sent an e-mail to Josh at Coach Supply Direct reminding him of some things we had discussed at the rally last week and Rick Short at Isringhausen with questions about their 6800 series bus driver seats. I also finally got to talk to Mike at Suburban Seating in New Jersey. As I suspected we cannot buy the seat directly from ISRI, but I may be able to order it through Suburban Seating and pick it up from ISRI USA in Galesburg, Michigan. That would be much nicer than having it shipped to our house on a truck from New Jersey.

I called Rupes/Cyclo to try to get answers to a few questions about the Cyclo 5-Pro Mark II Dual Head Orbital Polisher and its various pads but could not figure out how to talk to a real person. I submitted the online Contact Form with my questions and got a speedy reply from Cory as a result of which I now know what to order. All I have to do is figure out how many of each thing I need. The Cyclo 5 is available on Amazon Prime, by itself, but it did not appear to be the Mark II model. Some of the major distributors claim to give you a set of “free” ProGuard Orbital Backing Plates, but the Rupes/Cyclo website clearly states that the polisher is not sold without one of the three head options. I prefer not to patronize businesses that misrepresent their offerings and will probably order the polisher, pads, and chemicals directly from Cyclo even if I am paying MSRP.

I got a call from Gary Hatt at Bus Conversion Magazine. I had not looked at or replied to e-mails in over a week and he wanted to make sure everything was OK. While we were talking we got a call from Curtis Coleman of RVillage so Linda took that initially until my other call was concluded. I had e-mailed Curtis earlier in the day and he was responding to that communique.

Somewhere in the middle of all that we had chickpea salad on a bed of greens for lunch. Linda then went for a walk, met Chris (K8VJ) at Lowe’s to pick up some SLAARC mail, and roasted vegetables for our dinner when she got home. I sent Chuck Spera a short e-mail inquiring about how to open the latches on our emergency escape window and then called it a night.

2015/05/26 (T) Reflections

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I decided to put off doing the laundry until later in the week. Linda made a grocery shopping list while we had our morning coffee. I called Pat Davidson at Apex Roofing to discuss the installation of a roof access hatch. We did some online research for pest control companies in the Brighton-Hartland-Howell area and decided to call Best Pest Control LLC. I talked to the owner, Ryan, about his perimeter defense package, and decided to give his company a try. They will spray outside the house for ants, spiders, hornets, wasps, and yellow jackets. I called Phil Jarrell from Precision Grading and left him a voice message regarding some additional driveway work, a French drain for the west end if the property, and a hole for a ham radio tower foundation.

I showed Linda the pullout pantry slide hardware I found last night on the Rockler website, a German made top-bottom pair specifically designed for this application and able to support up to 450 pounds. It’s pricey, but it looks like the right stuff for the job. We also found some assembled pullout pantries online, including some that were 5″ wide, but they were not deep enough and getting just the right height looked tricky. We really want to maximize the use of our available cubic inches.

Keith showed up around 10 AM with his new Scag riding lawn mower. He is still going to have the Hustler repaired as a backup, but the Scag is a nicer/better machine. It is fuel injected, which should be more reliable, and it is faster, which makes more efficient use of Keith’s time. It also has a seat that can be adjusted from soft to firm, making for a more comfortable operator experience over the course of a long day.

As much as I need to work at my computer and drafting table I need to work even more in the bus right now. I started by reassembling the inside of the cabinet above the refrigerator, except for the liner carpet, and reinstalled the fluorescent light fixture on the ceiling. I am keeping the carpet pieces for now, but mostly to use as templates for new material. I would have preferred white Formica interior surfaces, as they are brighter and easier to keep clean, but the bus has a lot of curves and carpet is a very conformable and forgiving material.

The interior of the bus deconstructed in preparation for a new floor, seating, and custom desk.

My next task was cleaning out and securing the area under the bed platform. I removed the half box covers, the flexible ducts, and the floor-mounted cleats. I threw the ducts away and stored the other pieces in the garage. I then reattached the strip light on the top edge of the forward side of the base, reinstalled the two circular HVAC registers (so the cats could not try to get under the bed through the holes), put the cover plates back on the two duplex AC outlets and reinstalled the outlet expanders which also have dual USB charging ports. I need to put some sort of temporary netting over the port holes in the section of the HVAC chase under the bed, but I need to find a suitable material for that. The long term plan is to seal those holes and install registers in the sections of chase outside the bed base. I thought about disconnecting the lift struts for the bed platform so I could raise it higher and reinstall a drawer onto its glides, but decided to leave that for another day.

While I was working in the bus Ryan from Best Pest Control called me back and said he had a crew that could fit us in within the hour so I said “sure.” I closed up the house as they would be spraying around all of the windows, doors, and doorwalls. Two guys showed up a little while later and I walked them through the job, wrote a check, signed the work order, and they got busy. They found two hornet nests by the east end of our deck and destroyed them. I hate to kill even a hornet but they have been buzzing around our windows and doors, poking at voids in the mortar on the face brick, and occasionally getting into the house and we need to put a stop to their use of our residence as a place to build their homes.

The pest control guys were already gone and Keith was driving away as Linda returned from the supermarket. I helped get the groceries into the kitchen. After they were put away we had a light lunch around 1 PM of fresh baby carrots, mini bell peppers, sourdough pretzel nibblers, hummus, and red grapes.

The dinette seat used to fit in this corner The strip mirrors have been removed from the outside wall next to the window.

I have been taking a lot of short breaks while working on the bus. It was warm and humid again today and warmer still in the coach even with windows open and the roof vent fans exhausting air. But the breaks are not just to rest, they are also to ponder the details of how the interior will get rebuilt and what additional deconstruction still needs to take place.

In the front of the coach there was a 120 VAC electrical cable coming out of an access hole in the passenger side HVAC chase, passing through a 4″ flexible duct adapter, and disappearing through a hole in the floor. I originally thought the cable came from the duplex outlet on the wall just above the access hole but I discovered that it did not. It was routed through the chase from somewhere farther back in the bus. I determined that that the hole in the floor appeared to go into the OTR HVAC bay and sure enough, when I opened the bay there was the cable coming through the ceiling. It turned towards the center of the bus and then went through the wall into the bay to the front. It was then easy to determine that it was the power feed for the electric heater mounted on the rear wall of the front bay.

The storage area under the end platform with the 4″ flexible ducts and cover boxes removed.

At that point I knew which circuit breaker to turn off and was able to cut the cable in the living room without risking an electrical shock. I slipped the 4″ duct adapter off and set it aside. We don’t generally use the electric heater in the front bay, and certainly do not need it this time of year, so I wire-nutted the ends of the hot and neutral wires, coiled them up, and stowed them in the HVAC chase for the time being. I coiled the end of the wire coming out of the floor around one of the Aqua-Hot coolant hoses so it would not drop into the bay below.

The area of the bus that was the outside rear corner of the dinette kept drawing my attention. That corner was decorated with vertical strip mirrors with beveled edges. There are also strip mirrors used as wainscoting on the lower portion of the outside wall of the hallway and at the end of the hallway opposite the bathroom door. The strip mirrors are the one thing in this bus we have never liked but they did not bother us enough to not buy the coach. Now that we are involved in a major interior remodeling, however, we are looking for ways to remove them or cover them up. We really do not like them.

In the case of the former dinette mirrors, I had previously determined that the ones against the wall of the coach were mounted (glued) onto a sheet of plywood that appeared to be mounted to a pair of cleats along the two vertical edges. I tried prying under the bottom of the first strip but it cracked and chipped. It quickly became apparent that removing these strip mirrors from whatever they are glued to was probably not a viable option.

The beveled strip mirrors in the hallway of our bus. We really do not like these things.

[p4 R] After removing a 1-1/4″ wide piece of thin trim wood I was able to loosen the left (forward) edge at the bottom. The walnut trim around the fixed window just forward of the mirrors, however, prevented me from pulling it out any farther. I had a reasonably good idea how the window trim was attached but first I had to remove another piece of 1-1/4″ thin trim that covered the gap between the window trim I needed to remove and the trim for the next window forward. With Linda’s help I removed eight screws and the 3-sided window trim came right off. We set it carefully aside and returned to the mirrors.

With the window trim removed we were able to pull the left (forward) edge of the plywood mirror backing out enough to see behind it. Our lucky “break” (no pun intended but, whoops, there it is) was that the screws holding the plywood to the left cleat pulled out of the cleat. I say lucky because the screw heads were under the glass mirror strips and none of the mirror strips broke. We kept working it out until the upper edge bumped into the return air grill trim on the underside of the upper cabinet. We removed the grill and set it aside. We were then finally able to pull the left edge out far enough that I could remove a couple of screws that were holding the right cleat to the panel that forms one of the back walks of the pantry. Something was still holding it and when I changed position I saw that there was another screw near the top. I removed that screw and the whole panel came out with the right cleat still attached. Three more screws and the left cleat was also out. We reattached the return air grill to the underside of the upper cabinet and then reattached the window trim.

The wallpaper behind this panel was in very good shape except for the screw holes where the cleats were attached. We plan to put shelves in this corner to utilize the space and they may get used for some ham radio equipment. Regardless of what ends up there having the mirrors out gives us more room for the shelves and will just plain look better.

A view from the kitchen of the dinette corner and hallway. A custom desk will go where the dinette seating used to be and double as work surface for the kitchen.

The mirrors on the other wall of this corner are glued directly to the walnut panel that forms one of the backs of the pantry. I tried loosening the bottom edge of the one in the corner and it cracked. That area will be concealed by the desk, but we will cover all of the mirror strips with some sort of thin panel. We have the same problem with the mirror strips across from the bathroom door and may just have to live with those as I have not come up with an attractive way to cover them. I need to investigate the strip mirrors in the hallway. There is a good chance that they are glued to plywood panels that are screwed to the wall at locations covered buy wood trim. If we are lucky removing the trim will allow us to unscrew and remove the mirror panels. If not, we will just put the trim back on.

I have had the idea for a while that we could make another low pantry or shallow storage area along the hallway wall above the HVAC chase where the strip mirrors are currently located. Linda does not like the idea as she is concerned it will make the hallway to narrow. The storage would not be any deeper than the HVAC chase is now, and would not be any higher than the wood trim along the top of the strip mirrors, which serve as a kind of wainscoting.

By this point it was 5:30 PM. Linda headed inside to fix dinner while I got trash and materials out of the coach and carried them to the garage. Linda let me know that a severe thunderstorm watch had been issued effective until 10 PM. It rained lightly off and on until we sat down to eat and then the downpour came but we did not have anything severe, just heavy rain for a while. She made a dish using garbanzo beans, garlic, kale, salt, pepper, and fresh lemon juice. It was delicious and the fresh lemon juice really made it sparkle. She also served the last of the risotto she made for dinner when Steve and Karen were here on Saturday. We had strawberries with Lotus brand Biscoff cookies for dessert. I worked on this post on my iPad, took a shower, and went to bed. I never did make it to my office today.

2015/05/23 (S) Radio Cabinet Company

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Today was “V. E.” testing day (volunteer examiner) so a half-dozen members of our amateur radio club were at breakfast even earlier than usual. (Our club does not test volunteer examiners, we have members who volunteer to give amateur radio licensing exams to people who want to get or upgrade an amateur radio license.) We were later than usual and ended up at the far end of a very long table arrangement, as there was a large turnout, but that gave us a chance to chat with a different group of people.

Mike Sharpe (W8XH) had a flyer he printed on his mother’s car, a 2005 Ford Taurus in excellent condition with only 21,000 miles. He was asking $5,800 which is slightly below the suggested Blue Book value. I texted our son to see if they might be interested in the car. Linda and I both had Ford Taurus cars starting in 2000. I had a beige station wagon with a beige interior and Linda had a red sedan with a gray interior. Our children eventually ended up with these vehicles, Brendan with my car and Meghan with Linda’s.

Back at the house Linda made a shopping list and headed to the grocery store while I changed into my work clothes and got to work in the bus. My focus today was deconstructing the cabinet above the refrigerator. I could tell from the dimensions that it was probably a box-within-a-box, but did not know how it was built. I removed all of the carpeting from the inside surfaces, labeling the back of each piece in case I decided to reinstall them. With the carpet out it became obvious that the floor, sidewalls, and back of the cabinet could be removed as I could see the screws and angle brackets that held them in place.

The cabinet above the refrigerator in our bus with the inside panels removed revealing lots of wiring.

The floor was in two side-to-side pieces which were narrow, each sidewall was a single piece, and the back was in two pieces. All of the pieces were sized to fit through the front openings in the face frame, a very clever design. There were cleats supporting the floor and spacing the back and side walls out from the larger permanent structure of the refrigerator alcove. The panels I removed served the dual purpose of getting the bottom and sides to line up with door openings and providing space to run wires while concealing them. Things got trickier after that.

The walnut face frame was assembled with glue and pocket screws. It had cleats along both rails and the two end stiles, all of which appeared to be glued and screwed to the face frame. In addition, the piece of walnut veneered plywood that separated the refrigerator space from the cabinet above was glued and screwed to the underside of the lower rail cleat. In other words, it was a solid and very professionally assembled cabinet. The bottom board was attached to the two sides with angle brackets and it appeared that I might be able to remove the face frame and bottom board once the side and top cleats and brackets were unscrewed. The top rail of the face frame, however, was tucked up behind some ceiling trim, preventing me from pulling the whole assembly straight out. I loosened the trim and found that pulling it straight out was probably not my best option. To get it out I would have to drop it straight down which will require the refrigerator to be out of the alcove.

The Aqua-Hot has been on with the thermostats set to 55 degrees F in case it got too cold. It was cool today so I turned the engine preheat pump on to warm up the main engine. When it was time for lunch I started the main engine and let it high idle while we ate. After we were done with lunch I moved the coach backwards (to release the brakes if they were bound up) and then forward enough to put the tires at a different spot. I set our electronic level on the centerline of the floor and then lowered the front and passenger side rear to level the coach. When I walked around it actually felt level, which it rarely did when trying to level off of one of the floor tiles or the kitchen counter.

I quit working around 2:30 PM as Linda was getting ready to prep ingredients for the risotto she planned to make for dinner and got cleaned up. I used to cook a lot but since we switched to a vegan diet Linda has done almost all of our cooking and, except for making coffee, tea, and popcorn, the kitchen has been her exclusive domain since she retired and we moved to the new house. But I offered to help and she agreed to let me so I diced an onion and five cloves of garlic while she sliced mushrooms and other things. By the time I was done I had about 40 minutes before Steve and Karen were due to arrive, so I updated my medical history for Root Canal Specialty Associates. I have a follow up visit with them in Wednesday.

Steve and Karen arrived at 4 PM and we settled in to conversation and munchies (they brought a mixed fruit salad, pistachios, and mixed nuts). We finished up the open bottle of Malvasia Bianca from Heart of the Desert Winery (Eagle Ranch) in Alamogordo, New Mexico. After chatting for a while about our respective winters—ours in the Southwest and theirs near Venice, Florida—we gave them a quick tour of the inside of the bus. It looks quite a bit different now compared to January 2014 when they spent a couple of nights in it at Williston Crossings RV Resort enroute to Venice, Florida. It will look even more different (hopefully) once we are done with the remodeling.

Linda eventually had to attend to the final preparations for dinner. Karen helped by stirring the mushroom risotto while Steve and I stayed out of their way chatting in the living room. Linda roasted refresh asparagus and sliced a baguette to go with the risotto. I opened a bottle of the 2013 Egri Merlot to go with dinner. Steve does not drink alcoholic beverages or coffee and Karen prefers drier red wines, but she seemed to enjoy the Merlot all the same.

The weather had been beautiful all day and we sat on the rear deck after dinner enjoying our last sips of wine. Once the sun dropped behind the trees it cooled off to the point where it was uncomfortable and we went back inside. I turned on the natural gas fireplace logs but left a window open which seemed to strike the right balance of temperature and mood. By 10:30 PM we had caught up on travels, families, and hobby interests. They had a 45 minute drive to get home and usually leave around that time. We had a long but very satisfying day and were quickly to bed once they were safely on their way home.

2015/05/22 (F) Stuck Nut

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Our day started, as it usually does, with coffee and breakfast. When we finally got to work on our tasks for the day we started by putting various things in the house back where they belonged, many of them having been piled on beds or put in uncarpeted areas while Jack cleaned the carpets on Wednesday. Linda settled in at her desk to deal with paperwork while I got out our Honda self-propelled lawn mower and finished cutting the grass around the house. She then turned her attention to straightening up the house and cleaning the kitchen in anticipation of tomorrow’s dinner guests.

I puttered in the bus for a bit trying to figure out how the cabinet above the refrigerator was constructed and might, therefore, be deconstructed but did not solve that puzzle and turned my attention to our Cub Cadet 1000 Series (LT1040) lawn tractor. The mower deck is badly out of adjustment, sitting very low on the right side even with the height adjustment lever in the highest position. I wanted to remove it rather than try to adjust it so I could use the tractor to more easily tow the new utility cart around the yard.

I already had the PDF version of the manual on my iPad and studied the directions for removing the mower deck. It appeared to be an easy procedure that could be done by one person but I had Linda help me. Once it was out from under the tractor we cleaned it off as best we could. It had what looked like many years of grass clippings packed into every nook and cranny. One of the idler pulleys was broken, a wheel was loose and its bracket slightly bent, and the drive belt was in very bad shape. If we ever want to use it again those things will have to be replaced and repaired. The suspension mechanism on the tractor will also have to be adjusted.

The tractor is leaking something, either oil or hydraulic fluid, so now that the mower deck is out of the way I will try to identify the location of the leak. The tractor came with the house when we bought it so it was “free” (in a sense). It was not in the best of shape, so there is a limit to how much time, effort, and money we will put in to fixing it. Besides, for now Keith mows the grass and we have the self-propelled Honda walk-behind mower for trimming up the yard, if needed, between major cuttings.

My next task was to get the trailer ball off of the back of the lawn tractor. The ball had a 2-1/8″ hex base flange and the nut was 1-1/8″. I did not have a 1-1/8″ socket or a 2-1/8″ open end wrench, so I went to Lowe’s in search of said items. I found a deep 1-1/8″ impact socket with a 1/2″ drive but they did not have open end wrenches the size I needed so I bought a very large slip wrench.

The nut was initially coming off easily but then bound up. Even with Linda’s help we could not turn it. We own a torque wrench that is over 3′ long and will work up to ~800 lb-ft of torque, but it has a 3/4″ drive. So we went back to Lowe’s to get a 1-1/8″, 3/4″ drive socket. Fortunately they had one. While we were there we also bought a 6 gallon pancake style Porter Cable air compressor and a new American Standard toilet seat for the upstairs hall bathroom. The air compressor is smaller than the 15 gal Dewalt and may fit in the passenger side engine bay. It has regulated output pressure to 150 PSI so it should be sufficient for inflating the front bus tires. The toilet seat was the right shape but the wrong color, so it will get returned.

The torque wrench gave us enough leverage to move the nut a bit more but then it bound up again. I suspect the threads are mangled. We sprayed some WD-40 on it but it did not help. I called Butch to see what suggestions he might have. Heating it might help but I do not have anything that would get it hot enough fast enough. Plus, the ball/nut are just below and behind the plastic gas tank; not a good place for intense heat. Butch has an induction heater that would be ideal for this situation, but it is five hours away in north central Indiana. I asked about a nut splitter but Butch said he has not had much luck with those. He suggested a large pipe wrench. They are self-tightening (when used correctly) and could grip the ball directly if needed. I do not plan to reuse the ball so I do not care if it gets mangled, I just want it off the tractor. If all else fails Butch said I can cut off the bolt with my Sawzall reciprocating saw.

I had planned to work on computer-based tasks today but was not in the humor by the time I was done working on physical tasks. Linda made fajitas with sautéed onions and bell peppers, vegan gyro “meat”, and vegan sour cream. Yum; that’s a keeper.

2015/05/20 (W) Duraclean

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Today was carpet cleaning day. Linda had been picking up the house for the last week getting ready but we still had a lot of last minute stuff to move, including the cats. We put them in the library along with their food, water, and litter tray. We also moved their cat “tree” out there. They were confused and unhappy about the arrangement but we figured it would be less stressful for them than constantly trying to find new places to hide as Jack moved about the house with his big, noisy carpet cleaning machine.

Jack Hoskins runs a one-man carpet and upholstery cleaning business named Duraclean. Located in Farmington Hills near our previous house, Jack took care of our cleaning needs for the last years we were there. When we bought the house in Oceola Township we had him clean all of carpets after the painters were done but before we moved anything into the house. We did not have him clean the carpets in 2014 but had him out today to do all of them, including my office / ham shack, which was under construction when he was here in 2013. Jack arrived right on time at 8:30 AM, walked through the job with both of us, and then spent most of the rest of the day cleaning. Jack works hard and always does a nice job.

Once Jack was squared away we bagged up the pieces of carpet and pad from the bus that would not fit in the trash container and took the container and the bags to the curb.” (We live on a dirt road and don’t really have curbs, but it doesn’t sound right to say we took the trash to the edge of the street.) We then unloaded the box from my car with the garden trailer I bought at Lowe’s yesterday, opened it, removed all of the parts, and assembled it. Linda broke down the cardboard packaging, gathered up some other cardboard and our usual recyclables, and we loaded them into my car to take to Recycle Livingston later.

Keith Kish (Kish Lawn Care) showed up mid-morning to finish cutting our grass. His Hustler zero-turn riding mower was not repaired yet but he borrowed an articulated stand-behind mower from his son. Something failed in the hydraulic pump on his Hustler and blew a 1 inch hole in it. The cost to replace the pump and put the mower back in service will be significant but his business is primarily based on that machine.

I mostly puttered in the bus while Jack worked in the house and Keith worked in the yard. Linda eventually went to the recycling center and then stopped at Lowe’s to buy some plants, pots, and potting soil. She is going to try growing some tomatoes, which are one of her favorite summer things, and some herbs. She moved the hummingbird feeder away from our deck and hung it on a stand in the shade of a tree we can see from our outdoor table.

I boxed up the ceramic tile pieces that were still spread out on the floor of the bus and moved the box to the garage. That stuff is heavy! I turned on the chassis batteries so I could move the driver’s seat forward to get access to the seatbelt attachment bolts. I unbolted the two seatbelt straps and removed them so I could remove the last pieces of the old white carpet from behind and next to the seat. I then reattached the seatbelts, moved the driver’s chair back, and turned off the chassis batteries. Refinishing the area around the driver’s seat will be its own special challenge and may not get done with tile as I may need something more flexible. It will not, however, be heavy carpet intended for use on floors.

My next task was to remove the flexible duct adapters from the HVAC chases. One of them has an AC electrical cable passing through it, so I will have to undo the cable from a nearby outlet box to get the adapter free. While I was working on these relatively minor tasks I was also thinking about furniture options. It finally dawned on me that we did not have buy an expensive custom made sofa-bed or use chairs instead and try to figure out how to finish that area. I could build a simple but very effective sofa out of wood and have a bottom and back cushion made to the exact dimensions we need using a fabric of our choice. That opened up the possibility of the fabric matching whatever we get on the chairs. The seat cushion could double as a bed for one person, with the back cushion removed, and the seat could hinge up to reveal a large storage area rather than dealing with the complexity of a drawer on suspension glides. The HVAC supply and return could also be easily be accommodated and I would not have to figure out how to finish the chase or conceal all of the wires that run along the floor in front of the chase. I discussed the idea with Linda and she liked it.

I moved the dinette table up front and we considered its size and placement relative to the seating we would like to use on the passenger side of the coach across from the sofa. We agreed that one of the things we would do while we are at the GLAMARAMA rally is visit Lambright Furniture in Shipshewana and Bradd & Hall in Elkhart. We also discussed buying a carpet remnant and trimming it to fit in the front part of the bus while we attend the GLAMARAMA rally.

I called Butch to see how his cataract surgery went on Monday. Apparently it went well, at least his world is suddenly brighter and more colorful. We talked through various bus projects, including approaches I might take to get a flat, level underlayment for the floor tile.

Keith wrapped up his work, collected his payment, and moved on to Sean’s yard just north of ours. I suggested that he come every week instead of every other week as long as the grass is growing as quickly as it has the last two weeks and he agreed. Keith normally does a nice job with our lawn but was now a couple of days behind schedule and trying to catch up using equipment that was not his. He did not want to drive the stand-behind mower over or near gravel, so some areas along the pull-through driveway did not get cut. He was also not able to work around obstructions as tightly as he can with his zero-turn mower, and appeared to not overlap some rows.

Jack wrapped up his work not long after Keith and took off for another short job before calling it a day. I let the cats back into the house and then decided to get out our self-propelled Honda walk-behind mower and trim up the yard in front of the house and some of the areas Keith had missed. It took a while to get the mower started but I eventually did.

Linda made a nice salad and baked an Amy’s pizza for dinner. It was 6:30 PM by the time we finished eating. Linda gathered up the plastic wine glasses and toilet paper holders she bought yesterday at IKEA and we drove to the store in Canton to return them. The glasses were too tall to fit in our wine glass display case in the bus and the toilet paper holders did not fit in the places we needed them to go in the house. While we were at the store we looked at their selection of refrigerators, none of which will fit through the entrance door on the bus, and just wandered through looking for ideas. We were not up that long after we got home, it having been a long but productive day.

2015/05/19 (T) More Ceramic Tile

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We were up by 7:30 AM. A cold front moved through here last night with gusty winds and much cooler temperatures. The overnight low was 49 degrees F so I closed up the house and made coffee while Linda got ready for her girl’s day out with our daughter, Meghan. We had toast for breakfast and enjoyed our coffee in the living room to the warmth and glow of the gas fireplace logs. We both agree that this was a good purchase.

Linda left round 9 AM. I put a load of towels in the washing machine and then called Kate at work. I left a message asking her if she would check with Brian about an X-Plan PIN. I then returned a phone call from Kelly at Brighton Ford and had a nice chat about the F-150. She worked hard to provide me with additional pricing information as a follow-up to our meeting with Frank on Saturday. She was able to get the price on an in-stock $46,000 F-150 XLT 4×4 off-road down to $40,000 (with X-Plan but before tax, title, and destination charges). Six grand is a significant difference, and the F-150 is a nice truck, but forty grand is way more than we were thinking about spending on a vehicle.

Kate called me back while I was on the phone and I returned the call as soon as I finished talking to Kelly. Kate had already checked with Brian and he was willing to get us a PIN. One of the odd things about shopping for vehicles in Michigan, especially the Detroit area, is that Ford, GM, and Chrysler all have several “plans” that provide non-negotiable pricing for employees, vendors, and family/friends. These plans are so widely available that dealers practically assume that you have access to one of them. I think Ford is making good vehicles and the availability of X-Plan pricing certainly makes them that much more attractive. Unfortunately they are not selling the mid-sized Ranger in North America, just Europe and Australia. Mid-size trucks are more our size.

View of kitchen floor looking toward rear from living room. Black Ceramic tile has been removed to just past the refrigerator.

I moved the towels to the dryer and then got to work in the bus. The high temperature today was forecast to be 57 degrees F so I figured it would be a bit more comfortable working on the ceramic tile removal. I opened all three roof vents and set the front and middle fans on exhaust. With the front door open there was plenty of airflow. I put on my Tyvek jumpsuit and gloves and carried the unbroken tiles I got out the last couple of days to the garage for safe keeping. I then put the pieces of the ones I broke in a laundry basket to get them off the floor. They will eventually go in small boxes for disposal.

With all of that material out of the way I vacuumed up the small pieces and tiny shards as best I could along with carpet pad staples and tiny pieces of carpet, pad, and wood. I then removed the small base molding from the hallway which turned out to be more difficult than I expected. I put on my safety glasses and face shield, grabbed my floor chisel and 3-pound sledge hammer, and continued removing tiles from the floor.

Getting the tiles out of the hallway was more difficult than the kitchen/dining area. The narrow hallway limited the directions from which I could position and strike the floor chisel and the result was a much higher percentage of broken tiles. I did a little better as I moved into the area in front of the bathroom and bedroom doors and then into the bathroom. I stopped when I got to the tiles under the toilet. I will have to remove the toilet to get those tiles out and that is not going to happen until after the GLAMARAMA rally. I do not to remove and reinstall the toilet more than once so it will not get reinstalled until after the new floor is in place.

It was 1:30 PM when I quit chiseling for the day and I left the cleanup for next time. I got cleaned up and went out to take care of errands. I picked up our freshly roasted coffee beans from Teeko’s, had French fries at McDonald’s for lunch, and then went to Lowe’s. I was looking for some sort of grinder to grind down the thinset mortar that is adhered to the plywood subfloor but did not buy one. I bought a wheeled cart to pull behind our lawn tractor instead.

By the time I got home Linda had returned from her girl’s day out. She showed me all of the things she bought at Ikea, including four long-stem plastic wine glasses. We took them out to the bus but they would not fit in our wine glass holder. She also saw an 18 cubic foot refrigerator (Frostig) that might fit in our fridge alcove.

I turned on the gas fireplace logs, made some tea, and put a second load of towels in the washer. We sat in the living room researching the IKEA refrigerators on our iPads to the warmth of the fireplace. I had searched for roof access hatches this morning and found several places that sell them online so I showed that to Linda. I need to call Pat at Apex Roofing and discuss thus approach.

For dinner Linda made very nice salads with raspberries and walnuts. She then heated up the leftover risotto and lightly sautéed baby carrots as a side dish. We sat in the living room after dinner for a while and then watched the 1st and 2nd episodes of season 1 of A Touch of Frost. Although not a BBC production, it was very engaging.

2015/05/17 (N) A Tale of Two Sittings.

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Our day had two parts. Part 1 was at home and Part 2 was in Ann Arbor. The first part started with our normal morning routine: coffee, breakfast, and iPads. I put a load of laundry in the washing machine and then checked/replied to e-mails, which I had not done for a couple of days. We then got busy on tasks and chores.

Linda’s focus for the first part of the day was cleaning and straightening up the house in advance of Jack coming on Wednesday to clean all of the carpets. Jack Hoskins runs Duraclean as a one-man business and has done our carpets and upholstery for a while. My focus was the bus and my first task was to carry all of the “stuff” that came out from under the bed into the house. All of that stuff then went various places downstairs, but not on the carpets. By the time we finished the morning chores it was almost 1 PM so we had a few pretzels with hummus for lunch.

I only worked in the bus for a few of hours but I got some things done. First I broke all of the carpet tack strips into pieces small enough to fit in a trash can. Linda then helped me get the Shop-Vac into the bus and I vacuumed up most of the loose debris. I had not yet removed the carpet from the right wall of the entry stairs so I did that next. To remove it I had to take a light fixture loose and remove a piece of upholstered trim from around the bottom door hinge. The two door hinges have thick rubber covers and after I removed the carpet I pulled back the rubber cover of the lower hinge and measured the width of the opening from the left edge of the door frame to the hinge. It looks like we have 27″ to work with if needed. I put the trim back on and re-installed the light fixture. I then spent the rest of my time pulling carpet pad staples and carpet strip nails out of the plywood subfloor. Removing the staples was tedious but it was part of what had to be done.

I quit working around 3:30 PM and took a shower and then relaxed for a bit while Linda was busy in the kitchen making a mushroom and power greens risotto. She often uses barley in her risottos but this time she used Arborio rice which is the type normally used to make risotto. I really like her barley risotto, but the rice version was outstanding. After our early dinner I set an alarm on my iPad and we both took short naps. We up at 5:30 PM and I gathered up my laptop computer, digital camera, and iPad while Linda closed up the house and got her iPad. At 5:45 PM we were off to Ann Arbor to entertain (and supervise) grand-daughter Madeline while her parents went to a friend’s house for dinner. We stopped at Whole Foods for some Almond Dream non-dairy ice cream.

Madeline was very excited to see us and showed us her house and back yard. We went for a short stroll with her in her tricycle and then again in her car. She had a Little Tykes kitchen playset on the back porch, just outside the real house kitchen, and she made “coffee and tea” for us to enjoy on the veranda. Brendan has been working on the back yard and slowly but surely getting it into shape. Yards are a lot of work.

Madeline was a little teary when Brendan and Shawna left but she settled down quickly as Linda got her engaged with some of her puzzles. I sat on the floor with her and helped build the giant animal puzzles. (The puzzles are large and have large pieces, they are not puzzles of giant animals, although giraffes are rather large.) We learned that lions are nice but we do not pet “dinos” (alligators).

Linda prepared a bedtime snack for Madeline of grapes, strawberries, pineapple, and crackers and we had a few grapes too. By 8 PM Madeline was tired and Linda got her ready for bed, which is a whole routine unto itself. While they did that I got out my computer and set it up. I checked my e-mail and then copied the photos I had taken since May 1st from my camera to my laptop. I had photos of the work on the bus from four separate days so I selected a few photos from each day and post-processed them. I then copied my draft blog posts for May 10 through 17 from my e-mail to separate Word documents and edited all of them.

I was spell checking my blog post drafts when Brendan and Shawna got home around 10:20 PM. I shut down my computer and we visited while I packed up. By 10:45 PM we were ready to be on our way. We drove down in Linda’s car so she drove us home. It rained several times between 8:30 and 10 PM but riding home we had clear skies in some directions (we could see stars) and lightning in other directions. The roads were mostly wet and we drove in and out of a few showers. We were hoping the rain would hold off as we have had a wet week and Keith is supposed to cut our grass tomorrow.

2015/05/14 (R) Deconstructing the Bus

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The entry stairwell and passenger seat area of our H3-40. Note the two mounting channels for the passenger seat

I spent most of the day continuing to disassemble the inside front half of our motorcoach while Linda split her time between working in the yard and helping me. But before we got started on that work I made a follow-up appointment with the endodontist who did my root canal last fall. I also indicated that I had been having some issues with my teeth in that area and they scheduled me for an evaluation as well. I got my weekly follow up call from Diane at SteelMaster. She was not very happy when I told her I wanted to consider an arched metal roof for a pole barn type structure and started to argue with me about foundations and poles.

Driver side sleeper sofa unscrewed from the floor and laying on its back. Both end panels are off and the drawer and slides have been removed.

Wrong move. If you are not going to give me the information I need to make a decision then you are not going to sell me any of your products. She did admit, however, that I could purchase the stamped engineered design drawings without putting a deposit on a materials order. The drawings would cost about $500 which I think is still unreasonable. If the County denies my building permit SteelMaster will not take the drawings back and give me a refund. It makes me wonder how they have ever sell a single building. It’s not like I can take their drawings to another company and have them fabricate the materials at lower cost. I can understand charging something, perhaps $200, just to keep people who are not serious from wasting their time, but $500 seems excessive to me.

Driver side sleeper-sofa with everything removed so I can disassemble it to get it out of the bus.

Diane passed me off to Greg who handles the arched steel roof systems. He has not dealt with me before so he was not frustrated with me. For a 25′ wide x 50′ long building with a 25″ snow load he figured the roof system would be $10k to $13k. The roof profile would be similar to their “Q” style building, which is shaped more like a Quonset hut, and attached to the top of the wall with plates that are similar to the base plates they use for their metal buildings. The stamped drawings only would be $575, so if we decide to pursue this we will just have to spend that money to get these and hope the County Building Department approves the plans. Of course, Diane was willing to sell Chuck and me two complete S Model buildings 32’ x 56’ without end walls for $20,400 total, so $10K – $13K for a roof seems expensive by comparison.

Passenger side of the bus looking towards the rear from the cockpit. All of the furniture is out.

We needed the space in garage where the lawn tractor is parked to store the furniture from the bus until we can dispose of it. The tractor hasn’t been started since last fall (or summer?) so I hooked up the battery charger and let it charge while we worked.

This motor (center) was used to drive two geared pullies via flexible drive shafts (green) to open/close the drawer under the sleeper-sofa. (One of the pullies is visible upper left.)

By the time we quit working around 6 PM we had disassembled the sleeper-sofa and unbolted the passenger chair. We got the chair, both parts of the sleeper sofa, and both parts of the J-lounge out of the bus and into the driveway. I started the lawn tractor and moved it out of the garage and parked it outside behind a thick grove of large trees and dense undergrowth so it was mostly hidden from view. Once we got everything into the garage I removed the flexible HVAC ducts and threw them away. I then started pulling up the old carpet and padding from the living room floor and steps, and removing the carpet from the walls in the entry stairwell and cockpit areas.

The base of the passenger side J-lounge. This was a complicated piece of custom furniture.

[p6 R] I got all of the old material out and into the trash or garage and then removed one of the two filler panels from passenger side front floor and took that to the garage. I could not remove the other filler panel because it had a hole drilled in it with an electrical wire running through it. I will have to cut a slot to get it out and eventually shut off the power to that circuit and reroute the wire as it also passes through one of the HVAC 4” flexible duct adapters and into the HVAC chase. A never cease to be amazed by the things that bus converters do in places they think you will never look.

The upper portion of the passenger side J-lounge sitting in the driveway waiting go in the garage.

We spent some time in the bus considering our remodeling plans. With all of the furniture out we were finally able to see what we had to work with and some new possibilities emerged. The wall paper is badly stained behind the sleeper-sofa area and the wall behind the J-lounge/dinette is unfinished as it was never visible or intended to be. A lot of the woodwork needs to be cleaned and reconditioned. We will do that with the Touch of Oranges Wood Cleaner and steel wool, after which we will apply a nice coat of Touch of Beeswax.

Passenger chair and drawers waiting to go into the garage.

We have assumed from the beginning that we would replace the sleeper sofa with a new one custom designed and built to fit the available space, including a notch for the HVAC chase that would allow it to go all the way to the wall and fit under the window trim. The only way we would be likely to get such a sofa is from Villa and their furniture is very expensive and takes an unreasonably long time to get. Most of the furniture we removed from the bus was Villa, but it was all worn out. We are now considering putting two barrel chairs where the sleeper-sofa was located, perhaps with a small cabinet between them. We need to cut cardboard or heavy paper to match the footprint of possible chairs, cabinets, and the custom desk and set them in the bus to see how they will fit.

The “living room” of the bus looking forward from the kitchen. All of the seating has been removed. Note the black ceramic tile at te bottom of the frame.

Sooner rather than later we will have to make some final decisions so I can draw up final plans for the desk and floor cabinets and get them to Jaral Beaty in Logansport, Indiana to build. We are also going to have to settle on chairs and fabrics and get them on order. Besides the floor we are going to replace the driver and passenger seats, and the refrigerator, so this is a major remodeling project. I also have to rebuild the water bay, but that’s a different project for a different day and blog post.

Driver side alcove where the sleeper-sofa was installed. Note the HVAC chase and flexible ducts used to get air out through the front of the sofa.

It was a very physical day with a few bumps and scrapes but no serious damage to us or the bus. I went to the gas station to top up my fuel tank while Linda fixed dinner. She had some left over white rice and ended up adding it to barley, lentils, split peas, carrots, mushrooms, red onions, garlic, greens, soy sauce, salt and pepper. Everything except the greens was sautéed. The greens were cooked separately and added at the end. It was a delicious and complex combination of flavored and textures. We watched Season 3 Episode 1 of Sherlock and turned in early as we needed to be up very early tomorrow and on the road to the Dayton Hamvention in Dayton, Ohio.

Passenger side HVAC chase with AC cable passing through 4″ flexible duct adapter and then through the floor. Really? Really.

2015/05/12 (T) Dealing with the County

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I finally paid a visit this morning to the Oceola Township offices and talked to the assessor and zoning administrator. I had a satellite image of our property on which I had drawn the proposed barn and driveway. All they need in order to issue a land use permit is for me to show the size of the building and the setbacks on the image. I also visited the Livingston County Building Department. I talked to one of the counter clerks who had me talk to Rick, who is one of the inspectors. He had just built a large pole barn and used 6×6 posts set in 26″ diameter holes back filled with concrete. The bottom of the posts need to be at least 48″ below grade to get below the frost line so I will figure on posts four feet longer than my exterior wall height.

Based on my preliminary online research and visits the land use, building and electrical permits are the only other ones I will need in order to put up a bus barn. The clerk gave me a check sheet of the documentation I will need to provide. I would have to file some additional paperwork with the County Health Department, but would not need permits from them or from the Drain or Road Commissions.

I drove to the Township offices on Latson Road by way of Hacker and M-59. Hacker was so bad the last few days due, in part, to heavy rains that it was more pothole than road and many of them were larger and deeper than normal. The road grader was repairing the road and it was digging deep. The grader was still working when I returned home but the road was already much better. The road needs to be rebuilt with a substantial amount of road gravel and with proper drainage ditches along both sides. Or paved. Paved would be good. Linda read something last fall that indicated Oceola and Hartland Townships had agreed to pave Hacker Road from M-59 south to Golf Club. We checked when we got home this spring but could not find any reference to such a project.

Back at the house I settled in to create a scale drawing of the floor plan of our bus and then draw in the 16″x16″ floor tiles. I added up the various areas yesterday and added 25% for waste, but that turned out to be a low estimate. By drawing the tiles I was able to count how many I would actually need. I called Lynch Carpet in Howell and talked to Clint to get a rough price estimate for the materials. The 16×16 Armstrong Alterna Luxury Vinyl Tiles are packed 14 to a box and can only be ordered by the box. We need 190 tiles for the project so we will have to buy 14 boxes (196 tiles). That turned out to be 50 square feet more than my original estimate, but would leave us with only six full tiles as spares, assuming I do not ruin any during the installation. Fortunately, the vinyl adhesive and vinyl grout were less expensive than I expected, so even with a freight charge the bottom line was similar to my first estimate. Using these tiles it will be approximately a $2,000 project.

My layout has the tiles in a standard pattern with the grout lines lined up in two directions, one running parallel to the long axis of the bus and the other perpendicular to that. I presumed that this would take less tile and require less cutting but after seeing the layout I am not so sure. I will probably make a second drawing with the tiles turned 45 degrees and see if it makes more efficient use of the tiles. We plan to use a grout that is very similar in color to the base color of the tiles so the grout lines will tend to blend in rather than standout as a design feature, and perhaps make the orientation of the tiles less important visually.

Later in the afternoon I called Pat at Apex Roofing to let him know our shingle selection. I left the information in a voice message and Pat called back later to confirm. We are going to use the Certainteed Max Def Resawn Shake shingle. We are still thinking about the skylight tubes. We talked about putting one or two in the living room and possibly one between the kitchen/dining rooms and one in the hallway. I realized that the air-conditioner would probably be in the way of the one for the kitchen/dining area, so we will not do that one.

Linda made granola today and made baked/stuffed acorn squash for dinner along with an asparagus, carrot, green bean sauté and fresh sweet Bing cherries. I took care of some e-mail and then we had slices of the Mother’s Day vegan cake. I called my sister to check on how our grand-niece was doing. She called me back later and we had a long chat. Linda and I then watched season 2, Episode 2 of Sherlock.

After Linda fell asleep I was still up (writing) when a noise started and did not stop. I suspected it was the water sanitizer recharging, as the water softener had recently recharged, but I got up to make sure that’s what it was and not something else like a sump pump that was stuck in the on position. It was the sanitizer, so I closed the laundry room door to reduce the noise and went back to bed. I really need to soundproof the laundry room and reprogram the softener and sanitizer to come on at better times.

2015/05/11 (M) Bus Barns Reconsidered

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I took a nap late yesterday afternoon, a rare but sometimes necessary thing. I went to bed later as a result but still did not sleep well. We have too many things going on simultaneously with significant dollars attached to them and that has a tendency to disturb our sleep. I also planned to visit three County agencies today and the anticipation of that no doubt contributed to a less restful night.

I was up at 5 AM and awoke to heavy fog; literally, the air temperature had dropped and it was very foggy outside. I decided to concentrate on uploading my blog posts for the first 10 days of May but ended up also working on the materials estimate for the new bus floor, checking and responding to e-mails, and making adjustments to the SLAARC website and e-mail forwarding addresses. Once Linda got up and we had some coffee she spent the first part of the day working on the banking and roster for SLAARC, so it turned out to be a somewhat “slaarcy” day for us. The fog changed over to rain as the day progressed and intermittent heavy rains moved through the area after lunch accompanied by a tornado watch that continued until dinnertime. I did, however, get the blog entries for May 1 through 9 edited, tagged, and posted. I really need to get back to posting each day as it occurs.

Our male cat, Jasper, was having tummy troubles today. He tends to follow me around the house anyway, but today he stayed very close most of the day. He climbed up in my lap while I was working at my desk no less than six times and went to sleep for as long as an hour at a stretch. If not there he was curled up on my desk, on the carpet near my chair, on my lap or next to me on the couch, or alongside me in bed. He has a loud, resonant purr and I heard (and felt) it a lot today. It is one of my favorite things.

Linda finally persuaded me over the weekend that, as much as I was trying to contain the cost, the current approach to the bus barn project was just going to be too expensive. I have not given up on the idea of building a bus barn but I am now rethinking my approach yet again. Ironically, I am back to the idea of a true pole barn, which eliminates the concrete foundation. Instead of wood trusses, however, I am looking at an arched steel roof. That would eliminate the bottom chords of a wood truss which determine the ceiling height. Downsizing the building would further reduce the cost and not pouring a concrete pad, or perhaps only a partial one, would reduce the cost even more. A 24′ x 48′ building with a 16′ center ceiling may only require 12′ side walls, which would keep the posts and other lumber costs reasonable. The site prep and finish grading cost is there no matter what we do. The main things we give up with this approach are the 19′ ceiling in the center, which would have allowed me to walk on the roof and work standing up, and an overhead door which would be expensive anyway. Working on the roof would require moving it outside and the door would have to be a two-piece exterior slider or “barn style” pull open.

Chuck and I have been talking seriously the last couple weeks about trying to agree on a metal arch building design so we can order two buildings and get a quantity and shipping discount. I called Chuck before dinner to let him know what we had decided we were not going to do that, at least not this year, and explain the reasoning behind the decision. He is faced with the exact same issues and we had a long bus barn chat, to be continued in the days ahead.

While I was on the phone with Chuck my sister called my cell phone so Linda took the call. My grand-niece, Lilly, had experienced several more seizures since she returned home from the hospital on Wednesday. She was at a different hospital where they were going to hook her up to an EEG for 24 hours as none of the one-time EEGs have shown anything abnormal. Lilly is only 27 months old and this has to be a bit scary for her; it certainly is for the adults around her.

Linda prepared a simple meal of fresh asparagus, white rice with soy sauce, and mock chicken with orange sauce. We had another piece of the vegan cake for dessert later. We have also decided that now is the time to replace the refrigerator in the bus so we spent time after dinner continuing to look at units online.

The current fridge, which is a side-by-side Jenn-Air, is a 22.6 cubic foot model. Newer refrigerators with similar case dimensions tend to be smaller in usable volume but even 17 cubic foot models do not appear to fit in our refrigerator cubby. The newer ones tend to be more energy efficient, so they may have thicker insulation thus reducing the interior volume. The problem is that they also tend to be taller as a way to maintain the width and depth dimensions. The unit that has our attention at the moment is a Fisher & Paykel 13.5 cubic foot model. That is a lot less refrigerator storage than we have now, and would have to adjust how we shop, but we would be able to take it in and out through the main entrance door of the bus and recover about 11 inches of width for a pantry that would be 67″ tall and 29″ deep. That is a lot of storage and may be a good trade-off.

We finished the evening watching Season 2, Episode 1 of Sherlock. I do not generally enjoy watching TV programs a second time, but the BBC Sherlock series holds up very well on repeated viewing.

2015/05/09 (S) ICAAN, Can You?

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Today started with our usual SLAARC breakfast. Linda has been cleaning up the financial records for our ham radio club and discovered in the process that the status of our EIN application was murky. She has spent some time this past week trying to track down just what happened so she can figure out what to do to fix it. She finally determined yesterday that the EIN that was issued by the IRS was indeed valid and approved but it does not appear that the 501(C.)(3.) non-profit status was ever established correctly.

When we got home we loaded the disassembled plastic foundation from our old Select Comfort mattress into the back of my car along with our usual tubs and bags of recyclables and drove to Recycle Livingston. We had no other errands to run and returned home directly.

Scotty (AC8IL) reminded me at breakfast that Universal Tower in Mt. Clemens, MI (Clinton Township) sells free-standing aluminum towers that are compatible with the used Heights tower we bought last year. I may be able to get a tower section to replace the iron clamshell and also a base to set in the concrete. I made a quick check of their website but some of the pages did not load correctly on my iPad.

I checked the ICANN domain name registry for “SLAARC.com” and all of the owner/contact information still referenced Gary, who set it up originally in 2009. I dealt with a change in ownership for “dactm.org” years ago and it was not a simple, easy process. Add in the GoDaddy factor, and moving the domain name registration and web-hosting from GoDaddy to QTH.com is something I am not looking forward to. I sent an e-mail to Mike and Larry seeking their input and assistance. I checked and replied to a few other e-mails and then went upstairs. Our USPS carrier, Michelle, came to the door with a small package that would not fit in our mailbox. It was my prescription medications that we thought would be delivered on Monday next week.

Linda headed to the grocery store while I changed into my work clothes and started working on getting the dinette in the bus disassembled and removed. I figured out that the dinette was, indeed, built in two pieces. The base was screwed to the floor and had a u-channel around the top that was sized to receive a similar upside down u-channel on the bottom of the upper part. The two channels were locked together by screws inserted horizontally from the inside. The upper part was the seating and seat backs, most of it with built-in cushioning. All of the leather furniture in the bus is in less than ideal condition and the foam cushioning is shot. The furniture was designed so that the only way to replace it would be to remove it, disassemble it, rebuild it, and reinstall it. We do not like it enough to do that and after owning the bus for over five years we now know how we want to change the furniture and re-purpose the space.

Needless to say, but said anyway, coach converters only care about making the original buyer happy and count on them getting rid of the coach long before any of these design decisions become an expensive maintenance and repair issue. And that is a shame, really, because luxury motorcoach conversions are elaborate, expensive custom projects and the buses being used for these projects are capable of being driven for 50 years and 2,000,000 miles given the required routine maintenance. Over that kind of time and miles the house/systems are also going to need maintenance but they do not seem to be designed/built with that in mind.

When Linda returned from her shopping she helped me get the two pieces of the dinette out of the coach and into the garage. She then got back to work at her desk finishing up the accounting for our ham radio club. I continued working in the coach figuring out how to disassemble the J-lounge sofa that occupies the rest of the passenger side of the living room and mated to the dinette. Like the dinette it was a custom designed piece of furniture built specifically for this coach and constructed in the same way. The differences were its size (longer), and three powered accessories. From front to rear the accessories were a footrest, center table, and drawer.

The footrest is self-explanatory. The center table rises up/out of the base in the center of the couch (after removing the loose seat cushion that covers it) and goes back down/in if you need that spot for sitting. We set it at a comfortable height, level with the tops of the seat cushions, without it intruding into the limited isle space and pretty much left it there. The drawer would have been just a drawer if not for the large rubber tube used to open and close it at the touch of a button.

The tube, about 1/4″ in diameter, is arranged like a long, skinny race track above the drawer and under the seat. At the back end, deep in the bowels of the couch, is a motor with a vertical shaft connected to a horizontal drive pulley. The tube is looped around this drive pulley and the other end is looped around a second horizontal pulley at the front edge of the drawer opening. That pulley is free to turn. If that’s all there was to it turning on the motor would cause the tube to just go round and round in one direction or the other. The top back of the drawer, however, has a little finger sticking up that was clamped to the tube so when the tube moved it pulled the drawer with it. At least it did before the tube broke. The big drawer under the sleeper sofa is also powered by a similar mechanism, or was until the tube broke. Neither of these drawers has worked as a powered drawer in the 5+ years we have owned the coach. The motors work, but they do not cause the drawers to open or close.

All of these mechanisms are very clever but ultimately completely unnecessary. Footrests can be actuated manually, drawers can opened and closed by hand, and a table can be built in where it needs to be. These mechanisms also add weight, require power, wiring and control switches, represent potentially difficult (expensive) maintenance and repair items, and take up space that could be better used to store things. To paraphrase a popular song of my youth “the things that pass for luxury I can’t understand.”

Because of all of these mechanisms the J-lounge was considerably more work to disassemble as they made it more difficult to access the screws that held the top piece to the base and the base to the floor. In order to get to everything I had to remove the footrest, the table, the drawer box, and two decorative panels. The drawer was attached to a pair of substantial double suspension glides by four bolts with Nylok nuts inside the drawer. The suspension glides did not have release mechanisms so I had to remove the drawer box. The two rear bolt heads were virtually inaccessible but I eventually figured out where to position the slides so I could push the bolts out from the inside.

Somewhere in the middle of this work Linda came out to bus. It was good timing on her part as I was at a point where I had to assume awkward positions to reach things and having her hand me tools was very helpful. The top back edge was wedged under the window trim so once everything was unscrewed we moved the couch out from the wall enough to lift the top off, verifying that it was unscrewed from the floor and the top was completely disconnected from the base. We did not carry the pieces out of the coach, however, as we need to remove the front passenger seat first and create space in the garage for the pieces. The couch and dinette are about 16 feet long when installed.

Disassembling the couch was not a problem as we are not going to reuse this furniture nor are we going to try to sell it or even give it away. The most we might do is see if the metal has any value as scrap. If not, Linda will call our garbage service to see if they will pick it up on our regular trash day. I plan, however, to remove and keep the motors, pulleys, and acme screw linear actuators; you never know when you might need something like that. 🙂

I asked Linda if she wanted to go out for a pre Mother’s Day dinner and she said yes. We went to La Marsa in Brighton and got there before 6 PM which allowed us to find a parking spot and not have to wait for a table. I had their fresh lemonade, made with juice from fresh squeezed lemons and oranges blended together with ice. I suspect it also had honey as it was sweet. It was delicious. The pita bread and garlic spread were good as usual. We split the salad, which was god, and an order of zesty almond garlic Ghallaba (vegan). This is the second time we have had this dish here and it has been a real disappointment both times. We have come to the unhappy conclusion that the food at this La Marsa is simply not as good as the food at the Farmington Hills location. Sadly, it is one of the few places in Brighton or Howell where we can get something vegan besides a salad or a no-cheese pizza.

When we got home I made some decaf coffee and we settled in to read, write, and play games on our iPads. We looked at the website for Polar Power Inc. They are a competitor to SunFrost and make similar kinds of refrigerators but with some important differences. They sell to the marine market and have super-insulated units with remote compressors that run directly on 12VDC or 24 VDC. Unfortunately the only unit they make that will fit in our enclosure is 9.6 cubic feet, and some of that is the freezer compartment. It would allow us to build a generous vertical slide out pantry, but it is just not enough refrigerator volume. Replacing the refrigerator is going to be a difficult project but it will be nice when we are done, especially if we can gain a tall, narrow, deep pantry in the bargain. I plan to call SunFrost and Polar Power to see if they will make a custom sized unit and if so, what the added charge would be, but I expect the answer to be “no.”

I am once again behind on posting blog entries and need to upload all of the posts so far for May. I did not take any photos in that time so they will be a bit less work. I did take photos today, however, so now that we are back in project mode I really need to get back in the habit of off-loading images daily, selecting a few for the blog, posting it, and filing all of them for use in future magazine articles.

2015/05/08 (F) Bus Barn Trojans

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Today was a hodgepodge of activity.

Chuck called mid-morning and we had a long chat about bus barns. I think our needs would be met nicely by a SteelMaster S-model steel arch building 32 feet wide by 56 feet long with a 19 foot inside center height. We have been quoted a price of $20,400 for two of these ($10,200 each) delivered to two separate but nearby addresses. The price does not include end walls, roof vent adapters, or skylight panels. The site prep is going to be about $10,000. A 16 ft. wide by 14 ft. high overhead door will be $5,000. If I can get the concrete work for $10,000 and frame in the end walls, pull the permits, and run the electrical service for another $5,000 we can get this building erected for $40,000 and not spend all summer building it. That’s a lot of ifs and it’s a lot of money, but we have looked at this a lot of different ways and that appears to be the bottom end in terms of cost.

Chuck likes the idea of 40 ft. wide by 60 ft. long building with that same 19 ft. interior ceiling height. His logic is that he could put two buses in there, or a bus and a really big trailer, and still have room for workbenches, cabinets, and tools along the outside walls. True enough, but we do not plan to own two buses simultaneously nor do we plan to rent space in our barn. Chuck and are also not discussing going in together on a building as we both want to store our buses at our homes where they are convenient to load, unload, and work on. Besides, I have been quoted $25,000 for that size building. Although I think it included steel end walls with framed openings for an overhead door and an entrance door on one end, this project is never going to happen at that price unless we win a lottery, and that is unlikely as we rarely buy tickets.

After lunch I finally emptied out the back of my car and re-installed one of the back seats that was out all winter. I was going to vacuum the interior but my Shop-Vac had very little suction. An inspection of the filter revealed that it was completely clogged with drywall dust. I closed up the car and put the Shop-Vac back in the garage where Linda wrote down the model number.

I got out the 8 foot stepladder and carried the three roofing samples up onto the roof. I laid them out side-by-side so we could compare them in the same light. Linda also viewed them from the west end of the house and from the rear of the house. We agreed that the Certainteed Landmark Pro Max Def ReSawn Shake was the one we liked. Linda made note of that in the quote packet while I loaded the sample boards into my car.

I drove to ABC Supply Co. in New Hudson and returned the roofing samples. I stopped at the nearby Lowe’s to buy a replacement filter for the Shop-Vac. I think the sales associate who helped had somewhere else to be and something else to do as it did not seem really interested in helping me find the right filter. I usually shop at the Lowe’s in Howell and the service there is generally very friendly. The model number of our Shop-Vac did not come up in either the Lowe’s system or the Shop-Vac website even though we bought it a Lowe’s just two years ago. Apparently it is no longer made or sold. After looking at the current Shop-Vacs and the replacement filters I selected an LG wet/dry filter as my best bet.

I-96 west bound was fine until Kensington Road at which point it was stop and go, but mostly stop , so I excited at there and headed north, eventually heading west on Hyne, across Old US-23 and over to Hacker Road. I don’t know if it was faster, but at least I was moving most of the time at a good speed. I really dislike sitting in traffic.

Mike Sharpe was scheduled to come over after breakfast tomorrow to see if we could identify the source/cause of the Trojan notifications I have been getting for a while now from my es|et Smart Security 8 program. It appears that the notifications are being triggered by the copying of a .tmp file associated with the automatic backup of files from one or more of the four WordPress websites I run. I was doing online research on the infection and was looking for information on the es|et website when I noticed that they had a live chat technical support feature. I decide to see if they could help me and ended up spending an hour with Eric. With his helped I think we found and eliminated the at least one instance of the offending file.

Linda made a nice salad for dinner. Having had something to eat I pursued the Trojan problem back to the next level; the website from which the infected file was being backed up. The Small Business WordPress theme (in the “smallbiz” folder) was the source of the problem. I did not recall installing this theme, however, so I am not sure how it got installed into the website. I checked the other three websites and discovered that this theme was also installed on our personal website/blog. That probably explains why I was getting two notifications for what appeared to be the same thing. It took me a while to find an explanation on WordPress.org of how to delete themes. It was very easy once I saw it, but like many others I could not find the button on my own. I eliminated the theme from both websites along with others from all four websites that I did not plan to use. Only time will tell if that has eliminated the problem.

I then dealt with e-mails that I had neglected for the last several days and took another look at the SLAARC GoDaddy account. It was almost midnight by the time I got to bed.

2015/05/06 (W) Old and New

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The morning was devoted to Miss Madeline. She helped Grandma Linda put the toys away before lunch. Brendan arrived around noon and began packing up her stuff. They left at 12:30 PM to get her home in time for her nap.

We unwrapped the box spring mattress foundation and discovered several defects. We bought this at the Sears Outlet Center in Novi and it wasn’t very expensive. Most of the appliances at the outlet center were visibly dinged, dented, and scratched so perhaps some defects should have been expected. The plastic bag, however, was intact. The defects appeared to be the result of improper handling, but that is not to say that XPO was responsible. The bottom dust cover fabric, which is very thin and flimsy, was torn but Linda was able to stitch it back together, at least enough to dissuade the cats from climbing in. There was also a small puncture, about the size of my finger, in the top surface, which again was a very thin material. Since it will have a mattress on it we did bother fixing it. There were also smudge marks on two corners. Again, they will not be visible with the mattress and linens in place so we did not worry about them.

We had e-mails from Kate inquiring about our availability to attend the Thursday evening performance of “Meshuggah Nuns” at the Meadow Brook Theatre. That worked for us so she suggested we meet at the Rochester Mills Beer Company for dinner first. Linda checked the menu online and it looked like it would work for us, so we agreed to the plan.

We spent much of the evening doing online research for a new refrigerator for the bus. The old one is still running and maintaining the temperature fairly well, but it is rather old, not particularly energy efficient, and very loud when running. It has also been repaired twice by our friend Butch and is very difficult to service because of how/where it is installed. As often seems to happen, there were almost no new units available with the same dimensions as our current unit. One of the things we are considering is getting a smaller, 24″ wide, model and building a tall, narrow, 29″ deep slide-out pantry in the unused space.

The smaller fridge would still be a compressor based residential unit, just smaller than the current one. Linda will have to decide if that is a fair trade-off although if I stop drinking Ice brand water it would reduce the need for storage volume. Our current Jenn-Air is a side-by-side and we mostly keep milk jugs full of frozen water in there for thermal mass to help with temperature stability. With a better fridge we would not need nearly that much freezer space as our frozen foods on the bus are usually one or two pizzas, a couple of Amy’s frozen entrees (for when Linda really does not feel like cooking or going out), and perhaps a container of non-dairy “ice cream.”

2015/05/04 (M) Moving Things Along

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I had a list of things I wanted to accomplish today but did not get most of them completed. I am trying to make purchasing decisions and get products and materials ordered so I can get some projects done and checked off my list. It wasn’t a wasted day, as I gathered additional information, but it was frustrating to not get orders placed for things that I thought we settled items.

Based on a recommendation from bus buddy Butch I had decided to order a Cyclo 5 dual head orbital polisher. I had looked at them before on Amazon but on closer inspection discovered that there is a Cyclo 5-Pro and now a Cyclo 5 Mark II and Cyclo 5-Pro Mark II. The Mark II models are the current ones but much of what is for sale on Amazon are the previous generation. Not only that, any one of them comes in three different configurations, two of which appear to duplicate one another. I finally figured out that the Pro version has a variable speed motor. The configurations have to do with the style of buffing pads and how they attach to the tool. It turns out that whatever I get I can order the other parts if needed, so which one to order comes down to which pad attachment method I think best suits my needs. That means more research before I place an order somewhere.

I have also decided to finally install a cellular booster system at the house and identified the TopSignal 5-band system as the one I probably wanted. I have always been partial to Wilson Electronics, but the company has changed ownership in the last year and rebranded everything for the consumer market as WeBoost. The redesigned “consumer” website is less informative than the old one and the company has been slower than other companies to bring products to market. The model I would want is listed as “available soon.”

I called Cellular Solutions and talked to Paul. They sell the WeBoost and TopSignal products but he steered me towards the SureCall Fusion5s, which is similarly priced to the TopSignal and more expensive than the WeBoost. It is also a 5-band/multi-mode (3G/4G/LTE, etc.) transceiver so it will cover almost all cellular carriers including Verizon, without locking us into any specific carrier. I was also going to call PowerfulSignal, who sells most of the same products, but there was no price difference based on the information I had and Cellular Solutions is a Michigan-based company.

We also need an Over-The-Air TV antenna so I started revisiting the website for AntennasDirect.com. I spent some time looking at their website while we were in Quartzsite, Arizona but never ordered one. One of the links on their website is to AntennaPoint.com. This website shows the direction and distance to OTA TV towers based on your ZIP code. It turns out that we have broadcast antennas in all directions but most of them are at ~104 degrees (Detroit) and ~270 degrees, plus or minus (East Lansing, Kalamazoo, and Battle Creek). The ground rises to the west from our house so the Detroit metro stations will still be our primary ones. Even so, the closest tower in any direction is 27 miles away and the farthest is 58, so we will need a serious antenna to pull these in. (Antenna point.com only display towers up to 60 miles away but that covers everything we would care about.)

I have been trying to catch up and dispatch these kinds of lingering projects so I can work on plans for the bus barn and get started on our bus projects. At this point I am no longer confident, however, that we will ever build a barn. No matter what approach we take it is just going to cost more than we want to spend and it looks like dealing with the permitting process may be a hassle. Added into this mix are several major projects on the bus, the need for a new roof on the house, and the need (desire) for a new car. Ugh.

One of the bus projects is the remodeling of the seating in the front half of the coach. As part of that project we want to remove the old carpet from the front and the bedroom and the black ceramic tile from the kitchen and hall, and probably the bathroom. We did some online research and liked the look and quality of Armstrong Alterna Luxury Vinyl Tiles. These tiles come in a 16″x16″ and a 12″x12″ size and a few of them come in 8″x8″. From the website I determined there was a dealer, Lynch Carpet, close to us with an excellent selection of Alterna samples.

We made an errand run, stopping at the Howell Library to return a DVD, do some car research in Consumer Reports, and check out a few children’s books for Madeline’s visit tomorrow. We stopped at the Howell branch of First Merit Bank to make a SLAARC deposit, and then drove to Lynch Carpet. Clint worked with us and we took four samples to look at in the bus. Once we saw them with our cabinetry the one we liked best was the La Plata Crème Fresh. It has a faux stone, low luster, textured surface that is mostly off-white but has distinct milk chocolate brown veining. I was thinking we would install the tile diagonally (as diamonds instead of squares) but that would probably result in more cutting of tiles, so more work, more time, more waste, and more cost. The more I thought about that the more I liked the idea of a simpler layout, but that decision is far from made.

The rest of the day was filled with the usual things; a load of laundry, working at our desks, fixing/eating dinner, reading, games, and online research, the last three typically done on our iPads while curled up on the living room couches.

2015/05/03 (N) Markets and Meetings

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We cleaned up the dishes from last night, started the dishwasher, and then had coffee on the deck but did not have breakfast. At 10 AM we drove down to the Howell Farmers Market for the opening day of the outdoor season. We walked the market and then bought a bar of soap from Marjorie and a loaf of bread from Great Harvest. Marjorie is our favorite vendor at the Howell Farmers Market. She has liberal bumper stickers all over her van, grows her own herbs, raises honey bees, and makes her own soaps and other wonderful products. She went missing from the Farmers Market last season and as soon as we saw her this year we knew why; she was wearing a “cancer cap.” She is now cancer free and back at the Market, and it was really good to see her there.

On the way home we stopped at Home Depot to look at vinyl floor tile. Their selection was different that Lowe’s but no better. We spent most of our time looking at various wood flooring products and brought home four samples plus a small vinyl tile sample. When we got home we had toast for lunch using the bread we had just bought. I started a load of laundry and then settled in to review my Exterior Makeover article. I made final corrections, uploaded it to the READY folder in my Dropbox, and e-mailed the editor and publisher of Bus Conversion Magazine to let them know it was ready.

We both took breaks from what we were doing to look at the floor samples in the bus. We did not like any of the woods. The vinyl tile sample was OK, but not quite right. At the store most of the lighter shades of faux stone style vinyl tiles had a lot of grey in them. I did not think grey would look good in our bus but it turns out that the Corian surfaces have grey flecks, the wallpaper has a lot of grey, and the leather furniture may have more grey in it than I realized. And yet when I visualize the interior of the coach what I “see” is walnut and brass. We need to look somewhere other than the big box stores for vinyl tiles.

The DVD of Sherlock, season 1, episode 2, would not play correctly on the DVD player in our bedroom last night so I put it in the DVD player in the basement to see if it would play correctly. Linda did not stay awake to try and watch it last night, which was just as well, so I suggested that she watch it and see if it played OK. It took a long time for the player to decide to play the disc but once it did it played all the way through. That told me that there is a problem with the old Sony VHS/DVD player in the bedroom.

While Linda was watching Sherlock I moved the laundry to the dryer and then started compiling my posts for April 26 through 30, 2015 into a single post. I got that done, uploaded it to our blog, created the tags, and published it. I made it back upstairs just as Linda was putting dinner on the table. Much of life is timing, good or bad. We had leftovers from last night, including salad, veggie-fruit kabobs, and potatoes.

We left a little after 6 PM for the May meeting of the South Lyon Area Amateur Radio Club. We normally meet on the second Sunday of the month but always move that up to the first Sunday in May to avoid Mother’s Day. We arrived right at 6:30 PM and there was already a good crowd there but the club president was not among them. At 6:40 PM I was getting ready to convene the meeting when someone pointed out that the start time had been changed to 7 PM two meetings ago. I guess we should read the minutes, especially of meetings that we miss (like December through April). Our business meetings are usually short followed by a program. Tonight, however, we had a presentation from our field day committee followed by a discussion and a motion to approve a budget for the activity which was unanimously approved.

After we got home I brought the DVD player up from the basement and we watched episode 3 of season 1 of Sherlock. The disc and player worked fine, so I will be looking for a replacement for the old Sony player sometime soon.

2015/04/02 (S) SLAARC and Company

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We arrived at the Senate Coney Island before 8 AM for the weekly SLAARC breakfast. Paul (N8BHT) was already there and we were followed in closely by Steve (N8AR), Mike (W8XH), and Jim (N8HAM, the best call sign ever). Bruce (W8RA) and Linda (NF8C) came in next followed by Harvey (AC8NO) and Diane, and then Gary (WA8TJA). Others continued to come in but I lost track after that. We sit at a long, two-sided table arrangement, so you can only talk easily to the person on either side of you and the three or four people across from you. Bruce and Linda sat across from us. The two Lindas like to talk so we try to arrange the seating to make that possible when we can.

Bruce and Linda just closed on a 25 acre property in Florida that includes a very nice house with a ham radio shack and five (5) towers with antennas so that was the main topic of conversation. Bruce is also thinking about putting up a “barn” with a pad next to it for an RV so we talked about the requirements for the pad and the type/placement of the hookups. We both had coffee and Linda had her usual dry rye toast. I decided to change things up and had a dry, toasted bagel instead of my usual dry, toasted English muffin. Sometimes you just have to live on the edge.

After breakfast we went to First Merit Bank along with Harvey and Diane. Harvey is the SLAARC President, I am the VP, and Linda is the Treasurer and we are the folks currently on the account. There was an issue with the bank’s paperwork and they needed to photocopy our driver’s licenses and get our SSNs. It turned out that they also did not have the club’s EIN even though Linda and Paul, the outgoing treasurer, took care of some of this in late February. Nancy helped us and was very nice, explaining that the bank had changed its policies and procedures recently and now required more documentation than in the past. No problem, the bank is open on Saturday mornings and we are almost always in town for breakfast.

With our banking business concluded we headed towards home via Grand River Avenue. We knew from yesterday that traffic was moving through the I-96/US-23 construction zone just fine, as long as there wasn’t an accident, but we wanted to stop at Brighton Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram which is on GRA just west of US-23. We walked around the lot looking at the Jeep Wranglers, especially the Unlimiteds, and after a suitable amount of time David Wade came out and introduced himself. He showed us around, answered our questions, and gave us a nice brochure (book) and features/options guide. We liked his attitude and demeanor and left feeling comfortable with him and the dealership.

We focused in fairly quickly on the Willy’s Unlimited model as the one that we thought would best fit our needs and budget. It is similar to the Sport, which is the base trim level for the Jeep, but is available with the hardtop and, most importantly, the Rubicon heavy-duty suspension and off-road (knobby) tires. The Rubicon is the top of the line Wrangler Unlimited (4-door) but it is not just fancier in terms of electronic gizmos; it has an entirely different suspension, transfer case, and other “features” that make it the most off-road capable as delivered by the factory. We liked the copper/bronze color, as it would go nicely with the paint scheme on our bus, but I am also partial to the canary yellow as it would be the most visible if we were broken down in some remote place.

A new Jeep Wrangler Unlimited would be a big purchase for us but no more expensive than buying a used one as they appear to hold their value better than most vehicles. With a new one we can order it just the way we want it, leaving off all of the expensive upgrades we do not want/need (in-dash GPS, entertainment system, etc.) and adding only those that we do want/need (hardtop and suspension upgrade). New also means a 6-year, 100,000 mile powertrain warranty and a 3-year, 36,000 mile bumper-to-bumper warranty. David also told us that we can purchase a lifetime bumper-to-bumper warranty for about $3,000. We will obviously have to do some research on that.

We finally got home around 10:30 AM Home. Linda added a few more items to her grocery list and went to the supermarket. I started a load of laundry and then moved a lot of my “stuff” from the dining room to my office. After rearranging old stuff to make room for the new stuff I settled in at my desk to work on computer/web-based tasks.

Gary was the SLAARC webmaster before me and indicated at breakfast that he was still getting e-mails from the SLAARC reflector and asked that I remove him from the e-mail forwarding on our GoDaddy account. My focus for the last two years has been getting the WordPress website built and launched so I had never looked at this aspect of our web-hosting account. I had some familiarity with the concept, however, from the e-mail accounts that are part of our personal domain and sub-domain. It was fairly easy to figure out how to edit the existing account and add new ones. Once I was done I e-mailed all of the club members who were affected by the changes and asked them to review them. I will check for replies tomorrow and then send test messages.

I got an e-mail from Linda at BCM with the SD version of the March 2015 digital issue attached. I logged in to the website and downloaded the HD version. This issue is two months late, the latest it has been since Gary took over the magazine in October 2012, due in part to yet another change in editors that did not go smoothly. The magazine has been at least a month late for a year now and is slipping farther out rather than closing the gap. The sad reality is that the magazine does not have enough subscriber base or enough advertisers to be sustainable and Gary is not able to pay enough to get an editor who can/will put out a quality magazine once a month. But he has not shut it down yet so I will continue to work on articles. I don’t get paid for my writing and photography. It’s a hobby and I like it that way as I am not obligated to do anything and I can make my own ground rules.

John and Diane Rauch arrived at 5 PM to visit and have dinner. They are our longest/best Michigan friends and we always enjoy visiting with them. They also have two children who went to school with our kids and now have children of their own. Diane is an educator and is retiring at the end of the school year after a long career as a high school English teacher. Naturally, our conversation had to do with retirement, travels, and family.

Linda used our outdoor grill to roast marinated potatoes and cook veggie-fruit kabobs. John and Diane brought a nice Riesling from Woodcreek that we enjoyed before dinner. We opened a bottle of our 2009 Egri Merlot to serve with the meal and had Biscotti cookies and vegan chocolate “ice cream” later for dessert. Linda and Diane got a new online game configured on Linda’s iPad and got several things straightened out on Diane’s iPad. They headed for home around 10:30 PM as it’s a half hour to get back to their house which is only a few minutes from our previous home.

We stacked the dishes in the sink and left any further cleanup for tomorrow. We tried to watch the 2nd episode of the 1st season of Sherlock (PBS) but either the DVD was damaged or there is something wrong with our player. The disc was obviously scratched so that may have been the cause, but I want to rule out a defective player. We have another one in the basement that I will use to test the disc. If the player needs to be replaced new ones are relatively cheap and I will get one that can also play Blu-Ray discs.

2015/05/01 (F) May Day

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Wow, another month gone.

We got up after 8 AM this morning, were having coffee, and had not yet had breakfast when I got a call from Diane at SteelMaster Building Systems. They are certainly prompt in their follow up as I just submitted an RFQ last night via their website. I had a very informative conversation with her that left me favorably impressed with the company and inclined towards their products should we decide to build our barn this way. By the time I finished with her and we spent time studying SteelMaster’s website we sat down to have breakfast at 9:45 AM.

I started a load of laundry and puttered at my desk until Linda had chores for me to do. She vacuumed the main floor and tidied up the kitchen in advance of tomorrow’s dinner visit with John and Diane and wanted to take the storm door insert out of the front entrance frame and put in the screen. We like fresh air and have an abundance of it out here in the country.

We drove to the Sears Outlet at Fountain Walk in Novi to buy a box spring mattress foundation. They were already discounted and also on sale. The shipping was 50% of the sale price but we could not get it home in our car so that was our only choice. It was still a bargain and we will have it next Tuesday. We have been using the heavy, elaborate foundation that came with our Sleep Comfort mattress years ago, but it is broken and needed to be replaced.

We stopped at Lowe’s on the drive back to look at vinyl floor tiles and bought some Oxygenics shower spray heads and soap. We took a drive up Latson to see if we could find a metal arch garage that Phil Jarrell had recently spotted. We think we caught a glimpse of it on the west side of the road as we headed north towards M-59. Heading east on M-59 we took a detour up Argentine Road to see if we could find Phil’s place but never saw anything we felt confident was his. We headed east on Clyde Road and took Old US-23 back to M-59 where we stopped at Kroger for a few things before returning home. To Linda’s surprise and delight, the Kroger has some of the mock dairy vegan products, like Daiya cheeses, that she occasionally uses and cannot get at Meijer’s.

Linda had an agenda for today and next up was putting the umbrella in the outdoor table. Once that was taken care of we sat outside enjoying blue skies, bright sunshine, an air temperature of 71 degrees, and a slight breeze, none of which required the umbrella, but the point was to get it off the floor in the library where it was stored all winter. Next we moved the natural gas grill from the garage to the lower rear deck, reassembled it, and connected it to the gas supply (it has a quick connect and shutoff valve). I then busied myself removing the three shower heads and replacing them with the removable spray heads we bought at Lowe’s. If I did not do that right away they would still be sitting around in their boxes months from now.

Linda used the grill to make dinner. She grilled seasoned Brussels sprouts, tofu hot dogs, and bananas sliced in half the long way. This will be the first summer in a long time that we have had a grill. Linda is excited to have it as it expands her cooking options and provides a way to not heat up the kitchen in the warmest weather. I am looking forward new dimensions in our meals.

I had planned on reviewing an article for BCM but ended up involved in two phone calls after dinner. One was with Pat Lintner from GLAMA and our GLCC chapter and the other was with Lou Petkus from the SKP Photographers BOF. That left just enough time to watch Season 1, Episode 1 of Sherlock on DVD before turning in for the night.

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Category Archives: Projects

2015/07/28 (T) Mighty Dremel

2015/07/24 (F) Open and Shut

2015/07/22 (W) Chucking Junk

2015/07/20 (M) Chuck It

2015/06/24 (W) Up The Tower

2015/06/23 (T) Grounded

2015/06/19 (F) Roof Box

2015/06/18 (R) Chiseled Bikinis

2015/06/17 (W) Bakery Scraper

2015/06/16 (T) More Stupid

2015/06/15 (M) Cover Up

2015/06/13 (S) On to Illinois

2015/06/10 (W) Ron and Mary

2015/06/09 (T) Cyclo 5

2015/06/08 (M) Home for a While

2015/05/26 (T) Reflections

2015/05/23 (S) Radio Cabinet Company

2015/05/22 (F) Stuck Nut

2015/05/20 (W) Duraclean

2015/05/19 (T) More Ceramic Tile

2015/05/17 (N) A Tale of Two Sittings.

2015/05/14 (R) Deconstructing the Bus

2015/05/12 (T) Dealing with the County

2015/05/11 (M) Bus Barns Reconsidered

2015/05/09 (S) ICAAN, Can You?

2015/05/08 (F) Bus Barn Trojans

2015/05/06 (W) Old and New

2015/05/04 (M) Moving Things Along

2015/05/03 (N) Markets and Meetings

2015/04/02 (S) SLAARC and Company

2015/05/01 (F) May Day