Put her to bed.

So today is my last day of work on the bus for a while. I'm off to meet the family in Manitoba. Unfortunately it will be a short visit, but life throws us curve balls sometimes and you just have to roll with it.

Randy came over today and once again helped me out. I decided that in the summer the tarp cover was more than adequate. However we are not in Kansas...come winter time we get snow, and sometimes it is we and heavy. So I decided to place OSB sheeting on the roof. So Randy pulled off the tarp and we set to work.

Although we didn't finish entirely it is a great start, I need to finish to the front and then extend to the first joint as well.


This should hold until I get back.

Covered...kinda.

Yesterday was a great day.I was wacked by the end of it. I started the morning, like any rational man on his own would, by going into town and having a big breakfast at West22. A little restaurant in Bragg. It used be called Dave's...and frankly it wasn't that good. New owners and new menu, it's a nice place to go in the morning! Anyway, breaky, and then come home and take the dogs for a hike. I figured that after the run they had yesterday I would go easy on them....or that was the plan. 2 hours of bushwhacking later we arrived home.

Poor little Nacho was done, running through the woods at double time must have been too much for him. I figured he must be beat if he was using a 2"x4" for a pillow!

Yesterday Randy and I made great progress on the shelter, and as he left he said he's be back Tuesday so don't try to get the roof up by yourself......."ya sure!"(insert Norwegian accent) I said.
My plan for the day didn't originally include putting up the roof trusses, because you needed more than one person.Never to be deterred by a challenge, I had a thought! To put up a truss, you need one guy to lift the truss into place and stabilize it with a brace on top while the other guy holds the bottom steady. Once the top is stabilized then the bottom can be screw nailed down. Or.....you can have tack down jigs to hold the lower portion while the single guy lifts and stabilizes then comes down and screw nails the bottom into place. Worked like a damn really! (told you I was a firm believer in jigs)...who needs a stair master when your up and down a ladder all day!! You may or may not notice that the wall heights are all 18" shorter too!

Now....I like to read, most often I believe in what I read. Unless it is from a tabloid, which I read in the supermarket only to pass the time. So you can forgive me if when I read on the web site and then on the package that the tarp is 20'x40'....I specifically remember
20'x40'...not 20'x37'5 1/2". Perhaps I should have measured the tarp to verify the length of it before designing the building plans...but there are allot of things in life you would do differently if you had a second chance. Like the time I accidentally ran over Michelle with the snow machine....the day after I asked her to marry me.
So after a few colorful words, which I am thankful that the dogs are unable to repeat, another after the fact fix. If you scroll up one photo you'll see that the picture was taken after this mishap was discovered. You now notice the distance between the front two trusses(and vertical posts) is smaller than the rest. I felt like a plastic surgeon, a little nip here a little tuck there!

The day was nearing the end and I was getting tired, but I did take a moment to enjoy the sunset

With rain forecasted for Monday I really wanted to get the tarp on...and I did. There is still more work to do but at least she is covered

I am bushed......

This is just a quick teaser, I am so spent that I don't think I'm going to wait for all the pics to download, I'm going to bed. This is as far as Randy and I made it yesterday before the heat of the day got the best of us and we called her quits. We did get a great start, the picture angle makes it difficult to see but, if you click on the photo and look at the enlargement, you can see we got the rear 2 or three roof trusses up.

But after Randy left....I started mulling things around. I didn't like how high the shelter was. Lets face it, as a no foundation building this thing could act like a kite in the wind so the lower profile the better. I climbed on the roof and took some measurements. I figure I can cut the walls down by 18" and still have lots of clearance. Some of the roof trusses were already installed but a little thinking outside the box took care of that!
Stay tuned!

It's a hot one.

I have no idea how hot it actually got yesterday but she was a hot one. Randy was here today and the plan of attack was the bus shelter.

I had done allot of pre-cutting of the pieces so it helped to speed things along.

The last thing I had to do was cut 54 joint supports from 1/2" plywood.......I am a firm believer in jigs!

Randy with his little Latin American buddy put the roof trusses together

I assembled the walls(although they are changing as we speak....but that's another blog post in the making)

Now the easy part was done.....Randy's body language says it all.."how the hell..??"

Undercover

OK not really but I want to get this old girl under some cover. I am far from lacking things to do inside the bus...but time is ticking away, less than a week before I leave to join the fam in Manitoba. I want to get the bus parked in it's spot and under some cover. I'm sure Michelle doesn't want to come back home to find the bus exactly where it was when she left.

Anyway, being a sucker for theme or continuity of design,(I like things to match). I would like to have a shelter with the same 'flavour', if you will, as the storage shed. Barn-like!
Randy and I discussed the concept over steak and beers the other night when he was here. His suggestion was to use graph paper, draw it out and get everything finalized before putting blade to wood. So I did.....however......I am a planner, but, also a hands on kinda guy. I need to see to believe.
Forest Gump's Momma said life was like a box a' chocolates... and in that same vein a bus is like 4 boxes of crackers.

Yesterday at work John came with a big delivery. By the way, if you find yourself on a first name basis with your local UPS delivery guy and your everyday work requires virtually no shipping...you must be restoring a vintage vehicle ! Yet I digress. John (my UPS guy) came with a shipment 2 boxes, each about 5 feet tall and 70 lbs each. There was no way I could fit those in my Jetta, but Rob had his truck at work so we swapped vehicles. On my way home I realized this was my chance to get 'stuff home' so I loaded up with lumber for the parking shelter.

Oh ya....it's raining...AGAIN!!!

Make a few cutting jigs and badda bing badda boom!

I couldn't decide on size so I made two prototypes. Which one did I choose? Door number three Bob, I decided I liked a bit of both so I'm creating a hybrid of the two sizes!

Rain Rain Go Away

Another beautiful blue sky day in sunny Alberta, I woke up to birds chirping the warm bright morning sun beating into the bedroom. On my way to work I had to dawn my shades. It was the makings of a great summer day.
And then......4pm hits and I'm not kidding it starts raining and doesn't stop. At 11:30 last night, as I was cutting parking shed prototypes(stay tuned),it was still coming down!!

No lounging in the sun here!

I had to cover her privates....she has no paint anymore....she's naked!

Randy and I managed to find things to do, floor support for the drivers area....couldn't weld it in place (rain) but she's ready to go.

And then onwards with the painting. Careful this stuff is pungent, after a while in the metal tube of Flxy this will make your head feel woozy!......poor Nacho(another story for another time)

Foiled again....NOT!

Remember a few months back when I was going on about POR-15 rust paint? I was relating how I bought some paint and there must have been slop in the lid lip when it was canned because try as I might I couldn't get the lid off. Well the dealer in Red Deer said no problem, just bring it back and we'll swap it out. Of course I never made it to Red Deer and I needed the paint, so... I flip it over get the can opener(sorry honey!) and cut the bottom off. I figure I will just about use it all and the balance I can store in a glass jar, no brainer.

You can imagine my surprise when my black paint was...

Silver. CRAP!!!!!

Not to be foiled, the surfaces I wanted to paint are hidden anyway so the fact that some have been painted black and some are silver will never be known...except by me...and you....and anyone else who reads this blog. OK I have to let this go...

Anyway I set out and painted all the interior surfaces of the interior half of the window wells!

Then I painted the back engine compartment wall.
Not bad considering at the start of the evening I thought I was done!

Just like a day at the beach!

Today was a late start for me, an early morning trip into the city to see an emergency patient, then off to my nephews 1st birthday bash, a training run in with my running buddy(then a delicious dinner at his place)....and THEN some bus time. Needless to say not allot got done but every little bit helps.
Yesterday I told you about my trip to do some sandblasting. Well the good news you already know it was a great success.... the bad news is that sandblasting leaves a little clean up job after.

So with my trusty companions(after a walk of course) we set out for clean up. Dust, sand, more dust, more sand, bits and pieces of cardboard insulation (and I thought I had removed all of it) from god knows where...

The result of sandblasting the bus is kind of like your first time at a nude beach. It's a great idea...you're glad you did it...truth be known you'd likely do it again...but in your rookie enthusiasm you neglected to take the proper precautions to ensure that sand doesn't get everywhere...and it did. In both circumstances.

Yesterday I took out and swept out what I thought was most of the sand....wrong. This stuff just kept coming and coming.

Eventually...I got rid of, well...most of the sand. Then I got to paint. The plan was to paint the interior window well surface in preparation of the eventual insulation and reassembly of the window wells.
Although not finished yet this is phase 1 above is the before...below is the after

What a Blast!

So this morning I got up nice and early...well OK still a sleep in from my week day schedule but out of the house at 7 with the ol' girl to the sand blasting place in Calgary.
If you have never had the opportunity to try a real serious sandblaster...the next time your buddy has to much to drink at the bar, take his car home, sand blast it, and then the next morning put it back in the parking lot. It's a real hoot..... the sandblasting part I mean.

Anyway, and hour and a half of fun and I left with a sandblasted bus. Rear end window wells and assorted pieces.

I spent a fair bit of time making sure the windows are ready for paint and insulation.

It really cleaned up things on the inside.

I returned home and decided to leave her out in the sun. Randy came out and helped lay down the flooring!

Measure once cut twice?....no measure twice....right!!!

Road Trip!

Tonight after a great day of golf with my good friend John(we placed 4th in our member guest tourney with a Gross 70 Net 61)...damn three putts....I spent a few hours getting the bus ready for a little road trip to Calgary in the morning. I want to go in to a self serve sandblasting place....that's right Self Serve Sandblasting!

I thought this one had some artistic merit...but beauty is in the eye of the beholder...so this is beautiful!!

One of the areas I want to clean up is the widow wells. I need to sandblast them, paint them with POR-15, insulate them and then put them all back together before the bus gets painted. There are also a few other areas that need clean up (in my humble and not neurotic or OCD opinion). Such as the bays under the floor before tanks and such go in, rear bumper, rear bumper flashing, bump rails, etc etc.

With the tarp essentially wrapping the bus right now, there is no natural light getting in. I got really tired of lugging a trouble light around... so I jury-rigged some work lights....maybe a little overkill with 6- 100Watt flood lights?

This is probably the cleanest this old girl has looked in 9 months!

Ground control to major Tom

The bad news was that Michelle and the kids left this morning for Manitoba, even before I got home from work I was feeling sorry for myself. I had already planned to keep occupied with working 'The bus'. The good news was it was a nice welcome when I arrived home to find Randy blissfully grinding away inside the bus already! It's always great to have another set of hands. It seems that the amount of work that gets done is an exponential increase to the number of hands available. AND!!...the creme de la creme....he came with a plate of short Ribs and German chocolate cake from his lovely wife Leslie!!(YAY!!)


This pic is definitely out of order in the Timeline....but what an opener! Looks like something out of Kubrick's Clockwork Orange

Randy was busy cutting the angle iron to create floor supports for the drop down center isle

Once they were cut and fitted...time to weld into place..looks like a mad scientist from a Sci-Fi scene.

The end result, center supports for the floor. Tomorrow I shall get some wood and some self tapping metal screws and we are in business!

Body work

As you have already seen, while Michelle was away I pulled the bus up close to the garage to have better efficiency during my work times. Great idea........limited execution. Being the stand alone parent,like Michelle often is when I'm at work/rehearsal/singing gigs etc etc, you often get caught in the trap of thinking...."Man I'm going to get a tonne of stuff done on my days off".
I did get some stuff done, but not as much as I thought I might....C'est la vie


The weather over the last few days has been erratic at best, sun one minute rain the next....and a little hail for good measure. I strung the tarp from under the eve over the bus....making what Jeff likes to call the bus tent.

Here's my little helper taking a break from biking to paint a strip for under the bump bar.
You likely remember from a recent post, I had a 'mishap' when bending one of the panels on the passenger side just behind the front wheel.
Well now in my handy-dandy 'bus tent' out of the elements, I was able to rectify the situation.
It still will require some sanding and likely bondo to smooth it all out but...not a bad result!

Before...

After