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MCI 102-C3 coach to RV - General/Floorplan

Closing up the seam between the first and second sheet. Dribbling some wax and grease remover with a straw then blowing it off. Works really well.

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Welded that whole seam between the first and second sheets last night. Ran out of gas right as I started the tack on the next seam.
 
Originally posted by Firstram View Post
Story of my life
Right? And I do it on a Friday night every damn time. Picked up another bottle today/
 
Working on the seam between the second and third floor sheet. Getting better welds. Pretty sure the argon regulator that came with the ESAB is junk. Ah well. It still works.

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Starting back up on the bus. Almost finished another floor seam tonight. Fingers were getting a little frozen.

Grabbed a $14 detail paint gun from Harbor Fright a couple days ago to spray off the WD-40 and air dry in one shot. Works very well for the purpose. Might use the same gun to paint the underside of the floor.

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bigun said:
Glad to see y9our back in the fight!
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Me, too. Often lose track of this build with everything else going on. Finished up the seam. I could really use a way to keep my head out of the welding smoke without blowing my shielding gas away.
 
JNHEscher said:
Me, too. Often lose track of this build with everything else going on. Finished up the seam. I could really use a way to keep my head out of the welding smoke without blowing my shielding gas away.
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I use a 3" squirrel cage blower on a magnet that I stick nearby. Either sucking the fumes away or blowing parallel with but not at the weld really helps without shitting the weld up.
 
Firstram said:
I use a 3" squirrel cage blower on a magnet that I stick nearby. Either sucking the fumes away or blowing parallel with but not at the weld really helps without shitting the weld up.
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Would be awesome if cordless tool makers had a mini blower fan that used the same battery as all their other tools. I'll see what I can order on the cheap.
 
https://www.surpluscenter.com/Elect...s/160-CFM-115-Volt-AC-Dual-Blower-16-1549.axd

Maybe that. DC squirrels are even cheaper. Shouldn't need much flow at all. With any breeze outside, there's enough flow inside the bus to drift smoke away. It's mostly at night when all is still and my body heat creates the updraft that draws the smoke right up my helmet. I can only hold my breath and maintain a steady tig weld for so long lol.
 
bigun said:
What brand?
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My collection is currently Porter Cable for two reasons. The grips don't fatigue my hands like most others do and they charge with 24 volts which is perfect for building a charging bank powered directly off the bus battery bank. The plus is that they're cheap. I'd be willing to go Milwaukee. Open to others that fit the desires.
 
Porter Cable and Black and Decker batteries can be interchanged by taking off the little nub on the batteries. I would bet that the same goes for Craftsman or Dewalt (all the same parent company).\nIf you dont want to go that route, you can get a adapter such as: https://www.amazon.com/battery-adapter-porter-connector12-robotics/dp/B07YF329GS?tag=91812054244-20 to let you connect a fan like the Surplus Center one right to the batteries\nAs another option, for $15-20 you can get an adapter to convert from Porter Cable to Ryobi such as: https://www.amazon.com/BPS18RL-Battery-Adapter-Stanley-Lithium/dp/B07MF75V1B?tag=91812054244-20\n\nThen you can buy a bare Ryobi fan and use your batteries. If you can find other brand fans cheaper or like them better, they make other adapters as well, all seem to be in the $15-20 range.\n\nAaron Z
 
aczlan said:
Porter Cable and Black and Decker batteries can be interchanged by taking off the little nub on the batteries. I would bet that the same goes for Craftsman or Dewalt (all the same parent company).\nIf you dont want to go that route, you can get a adapter such as: https://www.amazon.com/battery-adapt...91812054244-20 to let you connect a fan like the Surplus Center one right to the batteries\nAs another option, for $15-20 you can get an adapter to convert from Porter Cable to Ryobi such as: https://www.amazon.com/BPS18RL-Batte...91812054244-20\n\nThen you can buy a bare Ryobi fan and use your batteries. If you can find other brand fans cheaper or like them better, they make other adapters as well, all seem to be in the $15-20 range.\n\nAaron Z
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And here I was just texting my buddy about how I never had a use for a 3D printer until I thought about adapting a DC fan to my batteries. He just got a printer. Maybe I'll just buy the Ryobi fan with batteries. Any cordless fan would be fantastic. The Ryobi pack being $80 probably isn't a whole lot more than what I'd spend on collection the parts to make something. I'm a DIY guy all the way, but ya gotta realize that sometimes it doesn't pay.
 
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If you already have a bunch of Porter Cable batteries, I would probbaly just get the BPS18RL adapter (2nd link in my other post) for $23, so you can just run the fan on your Porter Cable batteries but that is me.

Aaron Z
 
Got us new, scratch and dent Samsung yesterday. $1k less than box store prices. Wife spotted it on the Bud's Warehouse site and threw some of that fancy government money at it.

I'll try to get around to adding it to the SketchUp floorplan this week. As far as we could tell, it fits through a bus window. Neighbor and I got got it unloaded off my truck last night and it was a couple inches too wide to fit through the front door of the house, so in the shed it goes.

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I think we have that exact same model of fridge and it's a total POS. The 10 year warranry is a joke when it comes to service and getting parts has been next to impossible. Came with the house when we bought the house, when it dies the next time we will replace it. Just a FYI for you.

On a more positive note your build on here and the "other site" is one of the things that I look forward to updates on. Keep up the great work!
 
yep said:
I think we have that exact same model of fridge and it's a total POS. The 10 year warranry is a joke when it comes to service and getting parts has been next to impossible. Came with the house when we bought the house, when it dies the next time we will replace it. Just a FYI for you.

On a more positive note your build on here and the "other site" is one of the things that I look forward to updates on. Keep up the great work!
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Total agreement. Our house appliances are all Frigidaire and they are utter crap. I was going to build our bus fridge to be stout and more efficient because most appliances nowadays are trash, but my wife wanted to buy an upright so that it would be one less item for me to build myself. On this model we bought, the compressor and condenser assembly are tucked in the bottom which makes for easy access and service. No warranty with ours, of course. I'll probably convert to a DC compressor later on so that we don't have to rely on the inverter to run it. It's much nicer on the inside than our house fridge, so I'll be happy enough with it. Appliance Parts Pros is my go-to for parts and support.
 
We've grabbed materials over the last couple weeks to work on assembling the closets. I think I explained these once before, but if not, here's the short of it. The closets will be made with these cylindrical concrete forms with 3/4" MDF circles cut to mount in them as the shelves. The centers of the closets will get positioned within walls and will spin like dark room doors for photography. They spin so that clothing can be taken out or put away from either the bathroom/laundry room or the bedroom that they protrude into without ever exposing the closet opening to both rooms at the same time.

We're deciding on a final shelf diameter and axis mount tonight. The thoughts on an axis to spin on were either PVC pipe, MDF swivel plates with plastic ball bearing, or unit bearings off some small car. The unit bearings came in as the easiest and sturdiest method. Their advantages are - a flange with which to bolt to on each side of the bearing, grease-packed bearings to keep the closets from spinning too freely, and very little fabrication required.

I'm hunting for the cheapest, splined unit bearing I can find. A concentric hub bolt pattern would be great, but not necessary. The less distance between hub flange and wheel mount flange, the better. A wheel hub pilot that's really close to an imperial diameter seems like the way to go so I can more or less press it into the MDF to ensure that the bearing is centered with the closet axis. Fleabay turned up an OMNIPARTS 10012212. $18 shipped each and just might have a concentric hub pattern. Oh'Reallys has the Verona hubs. I'll see if anybody has one on hand so I can annoy them by occupying their time while I mic it.

Edit: wife found the 12" version of these, so found the 4" version that works even better. https://www.amazon.com/Four-120mm-Aluminum-Susan-Bearings/dp/B01LYI6R08?tag=91812054244-20

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Four-pack of these came in today. Still debating on whether or not to us these, but I suppose it doesn't get much easier. What bugged me when looking at the listing is that I figured that the bearing balls ride directly on the aluminum rings. Because of they way they look and feel, I'm quite certain that they do. As I told me my wife, the balls will gall up the aluminum and eventually get stuck. At least these are really cheap. The rings are 3/8" thick without the feet.


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JNHEscher said:
Four-pack of these came in today. Still debating on whether or not to us these, but I suppose it doesn't get much easier. What bugged me when looking at the listing is that I figured that the bearing balls ride directly on the aluminum rings. Because of they way they look and feel, I'm quite certain that they do. As I told me my wife, the balls will gall up the aluminum and eventually get stuck. At least these are really cheap. The rings are 3/8" thick without the feet.


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Really, how often and how fast are you expecting to be turning these things that galling would be a concern?
 
SLOWPOKE693 said:
Really, how often and how fast are you expecting to be turning these things that galling would be a concern?
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Probably only turning them a few times per day and obviously not at any high rate of speed. I do expect them to get rough due to all the vibration of going down the road. There's plenty of slop in these to let them rattle around. These are some Chinese units off Amazon. We all know how that stuff holds up. The upside is that these will be super easy to swap out and the slop in them will help avoid any binding if misalignment occurs.
 
The square steel lazy susan bearings are all over amazon, why not use those if you're worried about the al version? Easy enough to add a round flange if you want a press fit.
 
AK_F250 said:
The square steel lazy susan bearings are all over amazon, why not use those if you're worried about the al version? Easy enough to add a round flange if you want a press fit.
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Eh? I didn't see those. I'll try to find them. Ordered one Verona wheel bearing last night for the heck of it.

Edit. I know what you're talking about now. Kinda passed on those. The square ears always seemed rather flimsy. I don't really have an idea of how much this will end up weighing. It's going to hold all my wife and I's clothing.
 
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Another Denver trip to Bud's Warehouse today. Wife got us a Sparrow Peak Natural Cherry Butcher Block counter top for $300. 10' long, a hair wider than 2', and plenty thick. I was a bit unconvinced that it was solid cherry until I picked up one end to help one staff guy to get it on a cart to wheel it out to my truck.

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Wife and I got back on the floor. Welded up another seam. Only one bottom layer seam left and it's the one I need to cut the warped patch from.

Started the wife on practicing tig welding today. Used a router table to set up on and had her run a few weaves without filler. Almost have me a welding helper.

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Finished cutting all the closets circles. Got the wife to set up and cut one today. Rough mocked up the boys' closet to see what it looks like.

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