Bus update!




So, old rotten wood floor is out, and now a new floor is going in. The money from selling the seats went to buying some marine plywood, as recommended by Robbie Baker (who happens to be a professional boat-builder, and thus, is experienced in dealing with wet wood, and wood getting wet but staying dry).

Why marine? Different type of wood, and different type of glue, which makes it repel water without all of the lousy chemicals.


At first, when we went to buy the wood, they only had one type of marine which was not the desired width. They tried to sell me on some normal ply. I said no thanks... I don't want to sit on top of those things when they're off-gassing!

"Oh, they use something different now!" he assured me.
I wasn't convinced. "Do you have the info on that?" I asked.
"Yeah, sure I've got the flyer here somewhere..." he said. He couldn't find it, which was fine, because I didn't want to read what the producers had to say. "That's alright, can you pull up the MSDS or something?"
It ended up being this huge production, but eventually I ended up behind the desk reading the MSDS on the computer. "repeated exposure has been shown to cause respiratory cancer in rats..." "eye and throat irritant.." no thanks.

In the end, thinner marine turned out perfect. The wood was actually supposed to be a special order for someone else, so they gave me a "special deal" and so on.


If you remember, before, there was a layer of stainless steel between the wood and the wheel wells to keep water and dirt out...










We decided to take a different route to prevent that sort of rotting to happen again.

So, the undercarriage was pressure washed by Jesse and Robbie, the wood was sized, cut, (including escape hatch cutouts) painted (almost done!), and will be ready to install as soon as the weekend is over!




Afterall, my car still doesn't run, and I have to show it at Primer... last second stuff as always!







and as lovely as the seafoam and brown color combination is... the paint will soon be buffed entirely off to show the shiny stainless underneath, and the black window moldings and fiberglass... and then what we will do from there... is a secret for now!




More to come...

Rotten floor removal

So, this will be a quick update, since I really should be studying for the last two finals that I have, one of which is tomorrow... *checks the time* oh wait... Today!


Anyhow, enough of that!

Since it has been a while since I have updated, and the interior of the bus has since changed quite a bit, here are some pictures:

From the front:












and from the back:













Last weekend we ripped up the floor panels to reveal the metal underneath. There was quite a bit of wet, rotten, decaying pieces of stuff which smelled, molded, and looked like THIS. (eww.) I poked at it with a stick. I'm guessing that is what aluminum hydroxide looks like in its precipitate form? It's really asking too much to expect me to remember my chemistry from last semester.

ANYHOW, here you can see how directly underneath the metal panels are the storage units (in the far back, there is a thin layer of sound dampening material right above the transmission.) which... we are going to use to our advantage and make escape hatches! They were going to be secret, but I am excited, so I have to write about it here.







I was also thinking about maybe putting a chicken coop down there, so that I could let them outside, and I could have them play with me in the bus by just lifting the trap door, but then I decided that it might be too loud for 'em down there while the bus is in motion, and too dark for 'em when the door is shut.


Anyhow, another exciting happening for the weekend, our other bus seat guy came and bought the rest of our seats. He had seen my listing on Craig's List. (one again, CL to the rescue!) He bought the last 9 pairs for $170, which was awesome. Initially the price was $150, but Jesse and I wanted sushi and kombucha for dinner at whole foods. + $20 cha-ching! (well, okay, we gave him some hardware stuff too...)

Anyhow, so Tim came down and Jesse told me, "He'll be coming in his bus, so we'll get to see it!"
Of course, I was thrilled. MORE BUSES!
Tim's bus was not quite on the same level as Urge, of course. And when Tim got the grand tour of ours, he was a little envious.
"Wow, I'd love to get my hands on one of these!" he said, "I got mine for real cheap, though! Only paid $1,500 for it!"
I did all I could to keep my mouth shut as I mentally compared our two buses in my head. (surely you must remember that this is the same price as Urge had cost me!) Of course, his did have some cool two-toned exterior paint, but... well, that's pretty much all it had going for it. (it's gas, too!) But, I am pretty biased afterall, so I'll let you be the judge of this one!

Here, I snapped a shot of Tim and his "bus" (Jesse and I now refer to these as "vans" - we have achieved a new understanding of the word "bus") while he was loading up with his new seats.











And of course, here is Urge, sitting peacefully and patiently in all of his glory.












Is there really a comparison here!?!
I think not.