Marble in-Marble out

Every action has an equal and opposite reaction, What goes up, must come down., what goes in must come out. There are several ways to explain our daily lives, and we have to plan for the full contingent. I've been working on the water inlet, making sure we can fill the water tanks (or just simply hook up to a pressurized water supply)

After wrestling with the inlet water line and the air outlet line...

The plan came together as I had hoped.

But with the focus on the water coming in.....I must make sure I'm set for the water going out! Thus I get to play with Grey water tank dump valves. Thankfully they are all clean, so Michelle still lets me bring them into the house!

But like everything on Fillmore, being able to use stock pieces didn't quite do what I needed it to do. So I had to modify and create what I needed

basically I needed a 3 3/8" inch extention

Which then the flanged valve could bolt onto with the 90 degree swivel out let on the other side. Next step will be running the cable with the dump handle control on it to it's final desired location...aka I haven't figured out where that will be yet.

Meanwhile some scotch,a can of beans and some aluminum angle iron was on my hit list

First we got the water in, then got the water out
Now we are putting the walls up and hopefully preventing them from coming down.

While Anna worked away at sanding and priming the walls, I was working on decorative but functional wall anchors.


In an effort to suck up and use as much internal real estate as possible. I opted NOT to go with a conventional stud supported wall for the bathroom.  If I did, then a typical stud 3 1/2 inches, then 5/8" plywood wall (to marry with rounded corners) and a 3/8" wall board on the other side.....that makes 4.5" think wall....times that by two and I loose 9" of floor space!. Even if I move to a 1.5"  small stud I loose a total of  5" of floor space. So I am treating the walls like they are cabinet walls and the bus floor and ceiling will become part of the cabinet frame......and that will be achieved with custom cut  aluminum circles with a 90 degree bend!

H2O-2

Have you ever put together a piece of furniture from Ikea? So many pieces... it can be daunting at first look. I have found however that if you lay everything out and group things together...essentially make sense of the chaos in front of you, then the task becomes easier.
So that is exactly what I did. I assembled my different parts, and then planned things through.

I previously explained that I wanted a retractable braided SS fill hose, but I also need an air vent. The fresh water holding tanks are part of a closed system, thus when we fill...water goes in...and air must come out. I could have easily simply had an air vent on top of the water tanks but it would have to be open...which means dust, dirt and critters big and small could get into the tanks. Not on my list of OK.
I have seen air vents off the side near the top with a hose to minimize exposure to the elements....but I know that the hose can move and then act as a siphon. Again, not OK. So I ran air lines from both tanks that join together in 1/4" hose and travel up to the fill portal. This way it is only open to the elements during the fill time, otherwise it is sealed closed. It will also act as an indicator of tank fill. When the tanks have expressed all the air.....water will come out. At the fill portal you will know when you get a little spigot of water shooting at you.

OK nothing that ornate but it would be funny...






















So I drilled two holes, both 1/2" one for the hose and one for a bulkhead fixture. I created a removable key so the hose and slide in, but with the key replaced the FPT end prevents the hose from dropping back into the bus. One the backside of the bulkhead fixture I have a quick release compression fitting to the air hose.

Now it's just a matter of plug and play, for the umpteenth time I reassembled the parts.

It was a plan in my head for a looooooong time, but I am happy with the outcome!

Water

Overkill?....perhaps.....unique?....yes.....practical?....absolutely!
For years, yes I can actually say that because it has been years, I have been thinking about where my water inlet is going to be.Aaaannd....what is it going to look like?













There are numerous stock water ports, some bad....some better than others.

But I liked the look of this. This is actually a fuel door for race cars, and has nothing to do with water.......so it should be perfect!

My thought was, its going to be visible no matter how I do this, so why not make it a feature rather than a distraction.

The flanged door comes in to pieces, a threaded inner collar and the cap for the exterior. A simple task of drilling the appropriate sized hole in the body and we should be good.And yes I had to buy a new hole saw bit for a 3 7/8" hole.
My design challenge however is inside the door. I couldn't just have a huge hole into the bus where you simply reach in and grab the fill hose. No I wanted a backing on the inner collar to seal the outside from the inside, but also to allow for a retractable 1/2" SS hose to come out to aid in the attachment of the water supply hose. I thought about welding an aluminium disk to the back of the threaded flange, but then an idea struck me.....cutting board! I had pirated a cutting board from Michelle a few years back when I was creating the drive train shifter......it would be perfect!





















Once I had the disk cut out I could simply attach it to the back.
So a simple task of drill and tap the flange...........

Ehhhh CRAPOLA!

I broke the cardinal rule, lubrication. I thought....ehhh...its not that thick and its aluminium....how hard could it be?
Apparently hard enough, especially when you put a torquing pressure on the tap by mistake.

Try as I might I was unable to back the broken tap out. So as much as it bothered me to do I had to leave the shrapnel in place. I cut it off and smoothed it down. Then drilled and tapped a new hole immediately adjacent (the one with the bolt in place

The end product was just how I had envisioned it. But now I wanted to run the hose through the plate. The FPT end of the hose is 3/4" but the hose is only 1/2" diameter. I have to figure out a cleaver way of handling this one.

While I ponder that problem, it was time to bite the bullet and drill another damn hole in the side of a perfectly good body panel!













In for a penny....in for a pound

Air

I sometimes think that reality TV shows about DIY home reno disasters are a direct and deliberate product of the professional reno shows. I know it sounds like a conspiracy theory but give it some thought.Home renovation stores in the states like ACE hardware generated revenue of 144 BILLION dollars in a fiscal year. That says that there are many, many people out there doing DIY home repairs. Shows on TV showing home renos by the pros are all over the place, and the way they edit the program it makes it look quick, easy, clean and concise. So it would make sense that people who are watching these shows become inspired and put their skills to a test. Thus big business creates the demand for there product in the retail stores. However, watching a carefully edited and staged episode of Property Brothers is a very different animal to replacing a sink in a 50 year old house. Things don't always go quite so smoothly in reality of reality TV.

I kind of felt like this when it was time to build the bathroom walls. First I cut the walls, placed them where I wanted them to go...now I have to make all the loose ends involved somehow braid into a pretty and functional rope.

As seen before the furnace requires the water lines to run within the cold air return line to the furnace. Its position from the necessary sub floor route brought the line up right beside....no, right in the bathroom wall. So I had to be a little creative with my "emergence profile" (a little dental humor there sorry!)

Looks great, allows the bathroom wall to remain whole and  be right where I wanted. Next...I want a 90 degree at the top of the pipe, so that "stuff" doesn't fall in!

That had to get creative as well....




















I was quite happy with how this all worked out!.....Now on to the next problem!

Water.....

Powder Room

I love it when a plan comes together. On the weekend Michelle and I went to a friends house for a back to school house party. The kids may be sad but many parents are glad, frankly I like having them around so I'm kinda sad too. But hey! it was a good reason for an adult get together. While there I ran into Dave, whom I haven't seen in a year....sine the last back to school party now that I think of it. Dave and I share a passion for building things, woodworking specifically but generally being handy enough to fix/repair/build things that the household needs. As we were discussing his bathroom reno project, I realised we were birds of a feather when he said "sometimes I spend half the time just standing there running through the options, the order of business, what needs to happen and when!" It's been said I spend many an hour out at the bus....most the time working, but often it can be laying underneath looking at what needs to get done. There have been numerous early mornings when I feel I can't make too much noise with power tools, when I just sit in the bus and plan the  "the options, the order of business, what needs to happen and when". Most of the time it just remains in my head...some times I sketch it out on paper, or in this case a piece of scrap plywood.

The piece got shoved under the bench and was lost, until I was removing cabinets to run the furnace ducting.

 It's nice to see that the physical product resembles that of the concept drawing!

Next on the agenda is the bathroom, the back wall I actually cut some time ago, but now I want to include the rounded corners...

Of course, I'm a visual guy. I can draw it on paper and measure it out, but I need to see what it looks like and then do trial fit on test pieces. For example. After I did this little mock up, it was glaringly apparent that I needed to extend the corner to the floor.

This of course looks like I know what I am doing with the cut on the final piece. What I didn't show you was the two trial pieces that had a less than desirable final look to it.

So far so good. the walls are a little off set from each other so that you will see the bathroom door from the front, It adds and subtracts. What I mean is that it looks more interesting, but I give up a tiny bit of bathroom square footage. But come on, this isn't the Ritz Carlton en-suite bathroom....its Fillmore's reading room.

Jeff has been told time and again in his competitive sports to visualise your actions on the court, Although I applaud his thinking outside the box and applying skills learned in one arena to another......I'm not sure I needed to see this....

Cart before the horse

I will admit, I can be excitable. Hard to believe, yes, but it's true. Sometimes I can knowingly create more work for myself because I am so excited to see results. Take the cabinetry for example. I know that I have to pull it all out. I know that I have to tweak door swing and edging, I know that there is tons of work that needs to get done. So why would you ask would I not only drill all the holes for running the furnace ducts, but then install the ducting as well? I mean it's kind of like putting the cart before the horse! Yes, it really is just a big a jigsaw puzzle.  I designed it all to be  retrievable, but it's not an easy task.
But like I have said to Michelle many times over the years as she watches her little boy do death defying acts on his bike and or trampoline.....do not ask why my dear....but...."Why not?"

And so I did. Thinking that the inverter was going to share the space in the above photo, I even went as far as to run aerogel insulation and a second reflective coating over that to insulate the inverter. Upon reflection though I think the inverter will go elsewhere. None the less it's in there, installed to the ying yang, only to be taken out soon.

Speaking of inverter, it was time to bite the bullet and drill more holes. Nervous? why would you think I would be nervous to drill a hole in the body of a 65+  year old bus after I spent hours and hours trying to preserve every square inch of metal on it's bones?.

OK, perhaps I will settle for saying I was apprehensive. The best defence is a good offence, so I assembled my strike force for the operation at hand

As William Shakespeare penned , it was "All ado about nothing" Depending on your perspective it was kid of pretty really.

Keeping with the theme of completing jobs that will only have to be reversed.....cabinet hardware installed!