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design, woodwork

Changing designs (for the master bed) (Part I)

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In designing the bus, we worked with a couple of options for what we would do for the master bed in the aft of the bus.

We had debated the pros and cons of a solid bed, a murphy-style bed, and of folding benches of a number of different styles. It was already a given that we wanted as much window as possible, so the build-in bed and the folding benches would work, but the murphy-style really wouldn’t, unless we wanted to lose all the overhead storage area and set it against the bunk wall, but even then, we’d end up with a small, short, bunk-style bed and/or limited access to the back door with an auxiliary bench to make the bed bigger when folded down. The solid bed was out, since we both decided that we wanted to keep the rear exit door fully accessible (since it is the widest access point on the bus).

So the viable option for us was the folding bench seats on either side of the bedroom, but then it got into designing how the benches would fold out and still be stable. Someone’s build thread on the skoolie board had a really cool metal couch whose back would pivot on four attached arms and become a stable bed element. However, I wasn’t able to find it later (because there are TONS of them), and I couldn’t work up a model I liked using wood as the arms.

My first working design was to have a bench where the back would be on two arms (at each end) that would slide down into a channel in the bench while being a bench, but then lift and pivot (on a stop-pin and brace assembly) to fold down and over the bench to become part of the bed platform. However, I still wasn’t satisfied with the way it was going to work. I thought that the middle area of the bed where the two extended bench-backs came together was likely to be wobbly, which meant that I’d need to have support legs that either folded down and locked together (which could be a pain, especially in the back by the rear door where it might be really difficult to reach on a dark, rainy night when one wouldn’t want to open up that back door), or perhaps slid out from the bench, which seemed potentially awkward to maneuver around while lifting and sliding the bench backs into place. But this was the best I’d come up with so far, so I figured on working the details out later.

I got some new inspiration from Tiny Homes on the Move which isn’t so much a demonstration of HOW to fit out a vehicle as a tiny home, but rather a glossy, picture-filled, look-at-the-neat-stuff-other-folks-have-done sort of book, where each wheeled or water vehicle covered gets a one or two-page spread. I’d been going through the book slowly, looking over the projects when I hit one where a pick-up truck camper had been refitted and there were two pictures of the guy who did it reading at a little table between two benches, and then laying down on a bed above the table and benches that extended out over the cab.

This gave me the idea for a way to make a stable, removable bed that would be stored as benches that would leave the back area of the bus available as an ‘observation area’ with 270 degree windows, and access to the back door.

(To be continued in Part II)

164-50, RV oven, RV stove, school bus RV, Skoolie, woodwork

Counterspace

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With the fridge finally in place, I have a firm ‘wall’ to start to build the kitchen in.  I knew for sure that the counter would be at the level of the base of the windows so that we wouldn’t lose visibility, but the actual arrangement of drawers and storage/access cabinets would depend on placement of other things, like the stove and the sink.  If you look on the original floorplan, you can see that there’s a whole lot of potential counter space where things could go.

The stove was easy to place, as my plan was to put it at one of the ’emergency’ windows that can be swung out and give lots of good ventilation if we need it.  As there are two such windows along the counter (colored red in the floorplan diagram), the stove could have gone along either one, but putting it along the fore window would give more ‘working space’ around the sink, which is fairly important when washing dishes and such.  And since we actually had the stove, I could place it so much more precisely than in the floorplan where there’s essentially a 24″ x 28″ space for the (three burner – ha!) stove.

The sink was a more dicey matter in terms of placement.  The window closest to the fridge is ‘sticky’ – there are some scratches in the aluminum frame, and it can make the window hard to close (at least form the inside). My original thought was to put it right in front of that window near the fridge to maximize the available counterspace between the sink and stove, but being able to have fresh air while doing dishes ranks highly, so the sink may move closer.  Actually doing the placement is going to wait until we ‘play’ with the space for a bit.  I had hoped to do this on one last camping trip of the Sprague Brook season, but it just never came to be.

The stove!The first thing I did was take measurements and figure out the placement of the stove.  I was planning for a 24″ deep stove,since I kept seeing that come up as a dimension for newer stoves, but ours is only about 20″ deep, leaving about 4 inches of counter behind it. And while the window comes out to be more than 24″ wide, the stove is only 21″ wide, and that measurement (like the depth) includes 1/2″ of overlap of the trim.

This gave me some concrete information to work with in making the countertop.  While I’ve seen lots of people using some of the pre-made household counters in their skoolies, my wife had shown me an article on how to build a counter that gave the look of thick oak planks and we both liked the look. However, the idea of having beveled edges between the planks seemed to just be an invitation to a continually dirty counter.  So as a compromise, I had decided to use oak to make a counter, with no beveled edges, and as few seams as possible.

It turned out that I had just enough oak in two almost 13″ wide by 1 1/8″ thick planks that, when planed down and jointed, came out to the right length for the counter from fridge-wall to side-facing seat.  These pieces were fixed together with the Kreg pocket-jig and some 1 1/4″ fine-thread screws.   Even with some bowing in the plank, which was fixed with clamps, screwed, and sanded down to fit where the stove would go.

In order to support the counter without actually having counters underneath it, I decided to build in some 2×3″ supports that would hold it up, and just fit the sides of the stove, with allowances for 1/2″ plywood on the inside of the enclosure to help support it.  The 2×3″ supports that attached to the wall rest upon a 2×4″ that is screwed into the wall supports.  I used more pocket screws to attach the horizontal supports to the 2×4″ and then attached the vertical supports to the 2×3″ that was attached to the floor.  The 2×4″ was attached to the wall at a height that would put the 7/8″ thick counter just below the level of the windows allowing for a 3/4-1″ oak backsplash to be added at a later time.

One additional support at the fridge wall and another toward the seat edge, though the one near the seat is back about 10″ so that I could put a small lower drawer and upper ‘bin’ at seat height that would have nice storage space for passengers and the counter above it.

With this all set, I stained the counter and slid it into place, checking the fitting and adjusting the ‘square’ of the stove structural fittings before using more pocket screws to sink things into place.  A 3/4×1 1/2″ edging was affixed to the counter after being rounded with a router and the stove was set in place (the edging had to come up to the trim of the stove.  This was also affixed from underneath with pocket screws.

I had considered leaving the leading corner of the counter as a 90 degree angle, but thought that it would present too much of a chance for a bruise in the close quarters with several people on the bus.  Toward that end, I decided to trim the corner and make it a simple 45 degree angle, which was easy to work with for the trim.

With the counter in place as it is, it looks like a lot of space, though we’ll need to decide where the sink will go, and I was expecting to put in a full size sink as opposed to the RV sink that we salvaged from the trailer.  The salvaged sink is stainless steel and in decent shape, but it’s only 4 or 5 inches deep.  A standard kitchen sink is around 9 inches deep, and a double sink that deep could easily have one side filled with hot water and suds to wash and then use the other side to rinse and thus conserve water while still doing a full set of dishes for four or six people.

One of my concerns right now is that the 29″ height that the counter is at (the bottom of the windows) may be a bit low to be comfortable tpo work at for long periods of time since most counters are at about 35″ height.  That said, I do make cookies and bracciole at our kitchen table and it’s only about 29″ tall, so … time will tell.

 

 

 

 

 

Appliance, Electrics, school bus RV, Skoolie

iLLumi Projections E26 Edison DC 12V-20V LED Light Bulbs *or* Electrics (Part IV)

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Barring the installation of the DC circuit breaker panel that I mentioned before, I went about installing the first 12 volt DC light that would be powered by the house batteries.  The need for this was displayed on a short day-trip we took to help a friend clean out her old family’s house, and the boy was unable to read, and I had some trouble finishing loading and packing the bus because the lights that I had installed were AC, and I hadn’t enough cable to run electric power from the house we were cleaning.  I wasn’t going to just leave the key in the accessory position for the interior lights, because I’m a bit touchy now about running the bus batteries down after our Evangola trip.

Anyhow, I had found two of these lights at Buffalo Reuse, though only one of them had its glass globe, and they both had the original 1920-30’s fabric-coated wiring.  Toward that end, I disassembled the fixture, replaced the old wiring with 14-gauge plastic-coated wire, and installed a new light bulb socket.  (A tip to people who might want to try rewiring such a fixture – use a ball pull-chain as a wiring snake to get the wire through those support tubes.)  In retrospect, I probably could have used 18 gauge wire, but I tend toward overbuilding anyhow.

Unfortunately, the ‘cup’ that holds the globe was lightly cracked and I haven’t been able to find a replacement, as it’s smaller than standard.  It’s a usual thing for such lamps, however, as the older brass gets brittle.  I decided that it would be okay, though, as I was going to cushion the cup anyhow, so I went about that.  I used some vinyl electrical tape to circle the interior of the cup, and then to surround the base of the globe as well, as this would keep road vibration from causing any problems.  I then went about gently scraping all the old paint flecks from the brass and glass.

However, getting the light refurbished was the easy part.  I wanted the light to rest above where the table will be in the cabin area of the bus, and the ceiling there is, of course, curved.  I wanted to have a flat base (parallel to the floor, that is) to mount the light to, and I had the wood to work with, but the curve looked tricky.

The endcap!As a woodworker, I knew the importance of having a jig or template to help and didn’t want to do the ‘trial and error’ method of creating one, until I realized that I had one already – the rear interior endcap!

I used some MDF that I had about, and traced the endcap, and cut it out, making sure to draw on plenty of lines at 90 degree angles to the flat base of the endcap.  These were important, just in case the smaller bit of the template (where the MDF wasn’t wide enough to fit the whole of the endcap might not be exactly parallel to the base) …

So, armed with the new template, I worked out how far from the window edge the light needed to be and set about making a base that would fit the light AND the ceiling.  I had some 7/8″ thick oak to work with and cut it to 5 1/2″ squares, and traced the curve onto one.

Careful cutting on the bandsaw, and then shaping with the bench sander yielded a very nice fitting piece of curved oak.  A 2″ forstner bit cut a smooth access core down through the curved wood, setting the stage for the important attachment bit for the light fixture; the part with the screw fitting on it.

The ‘light fixture mounting attachment’ needed to be sunk into the wood, parallel to the flat base, and this was quickly undertaken with a wood chisel.  Since I was working with oak, and going with the grain of the wood, this wasn’t bad at all.

I put a second piece of oak under the curved one to give a nice solid base for the lamp.  I did this because the thin edge of the curved piece I had cut was really thin.  I was afraid that if I just attached the lamp to it, it would crack or pull the attaching screws right through the wood.  Plus the routing on the bottom would be another nice touch of decoration that would show in the bus.

Using a countersinking bit I put four #10 screws into the two pieces of oak together, and drilled some holes through to the bottom and countersunk from the bottom for the metal pan-head screws that would attach it to the ceiling.  I then gave it a coating of stain and let it rest while getting the rest of the job ready.

 

 

 

 

Loading a drill just smaller than the metal screws that would affix the wood to the ceiling, I pre-drilled one hole, and marked the center of the access channel in the wooden base.  I then switched to the hole saw and cut through the metal of the ceiling to so the wires could be run.

Using a regular wire snake to run the wires, it was a simple thing to get power to the location.  I ran 12 gauge wire from the converter to where the switch was going to be at the windows, then ran the 14 gauge wire from there, as I planned on hooking more lights in on this same circuit.

While I’m really looking to run some manner of dimmer in on this circuit, for now, I just put in a pull-switch.  It was easy to drill a hole in the exposed ceiling sheet metal, and for now the circuit is grounded to the frame.

After that, it was a simple matter of connecting the wires at the lamp, and tightening the screw pole to cinch it up to the wood.

 

 

In trying to make the batteries last as long as possible, I wanted to have the most efficient lighting that I could, and went for some LED lights.  Most of the problems with LED lighting seem to be in that the LEDs only put out light in a relatively tight beam, making them tough to use in a standard fixture.  Toward dealing with this, I found this multi-directional style of bulb, in both 7 and 9 watts:

I have to say that these are SUPER bright on 12 volts, and while they say that they’re rated up to 24 volts, I don’t think I’d want to see them – they’d be way too bright.  As it is, the bulb does stick up over the globe a little, but the upward-facing LEDs provide a lot of indirect light off the bus ceiling (and show the places where it really needs to be cleaned!).

These bulbs are the soft-white version, and the vendor that I got these from indicates that there’s a bright-white version, but these seem very white compared to an incandescent, or even CFL soft-white bulb.  I did light them up when it got dark as well, and got these results: