Still on the Edge in Sumas

Haven't been posting as much lately, since the bus is merely taking up space right now. No new work to speak of.

Unless you count the visions spiraling in my head, and the scratches in a homemade 'bus book'. Most free time regarding bus stuff has been armchair research... Flared fittings for copper seem to be required, maybe along with iron pipe for the main line. Probably a lot of capped branches for future use. Water storage I've been contemplating what's available in surplus stores since I can't quite get over $90 for a 30 gallon plastic box. The hurdle is the pipe connections on the tanks. Electrical I'm leaning toward two-four 6v golf cart batteries, with an inverter to match (1500W or so). Unless that is I can get away with my little 400W box for a time. No large loads anytime soon, though a microwave one day would be nice, in a retchedly excessive sort of way. Then I'm wondering about a battery separator at surepower.com. Not sure how to keep both the house batteries and the engine batteries charged over winter. The bus will sit for a good month maybe more, I can't alway get to where its going to sit either. I've read that a trickle charger and a 24 hour timer left on for an hour a day could work.

A lot of looking at insulation for the ceiling. Drilling holes and spraying canned foam sounds like a pain, also expensive. Flat rigid foam may work for the walls, and maybe even the center of the ceiling, but not the corners. A flat product called Reflectix is bubble/foil stuff that could be put up with carpet tape and contact cement for fairly cheap. Its about an R-3. Then I found some fun sculpted paintable wallpaper that could hopefully be pasted on after the insulation. See it at grahambrown.com.

Also still thinking about painting the outside. Thought about using the bus compressed air, but the connection would be at the water drain, and water in the paint sprayer (oil base) is only going to frustrate me. I could lug up my 2HP compressor but then I'd need a $50 spray gun anyway. I found a reflective sealer for RV's today at Home Depot. Expensive, "Stone Mason Flex Coat" water base at usehickson.com. Has potential but expensive; the 5 gallon can covers 150 sqft--costs $110 Canadian. You can roll it on which is a plus.

Also at Home Depot, Tremclad (rust paint) looks like a winner, lots of colors, or at least red, yellow, and blue, meaning I can mix the rest. Sounds similar to what Jason talked about on schoolie.net. All that looking around I didn't think to price the spray cans, nor the quarts. The gallon can was $30 Canadian; the label says its good for approx 100 sqft. Sounds conservative.

Ooh--also an interesting spray paint to 'frost' glass that might be fun.

Had no luck finding the "ceramic bead" paint additive, nor the "Henry's Snow Seal" reflective roof paint. No worries...