Follow Our Progress
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November 29th
2003
I've been having a hard time getting motivated to update the web
site. I'm so tired lately when I get home from the bus that all I
want to do is relax and go to sleep. Today's painting didn't
help... The fumes from the Z-Prime are very strong, and even with
the bus door wide open and the box fan running at the highest speed, it
was a bit too strong an odor for my comfort.
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We started off in the morning by cleaning up all of the
tools. We planned to do some painting, so we needed to get
everything cleared out of the way so we could get unobstructed
access to the walls.
The front of the bus looks a lot nicer with all of the tools
and things out of the way. I always find it easier to work
on the bus when it's cleaned up. Sometimes when I get
overwhelmed by the project, I find that picking up things and
concentrating on just 1 task at a time resolves the feelings.
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We started off by painting the left side of the bus from the
front to the end of the hallway. The difference in the way
the bus looks with the primer on the walls is
dramatic.
The bus is a lot brighter and seems much larger as the walls
are covered with paint. It's hard to see from the images,
but the transformation is amazing in person...
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Once the left wall was dry enough, we moved all of the stuff
along the right side out of the way and went to work on the
right hand side.
The entire priming job for the front half of the bus took a
gallon of Z-Prime. We put it on pretty thick so that the
plywood would have really good protection from moisture and to
give us a good base for painting later.
Becky did most of the prep work by sanding, patching cracks
and filling in screw holes with a light weight filler (I can't
remember the name of it right at the moment...). It's easy
to work with, dries really fast, can be painted over almost
immediately and stays somewhat flexible. As soon as I get
back to the bus I'll write down the name of it...
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Becky's mom Barbara stopped by for a visit. We hadn't seen
her since before Halloween sometime. She brought some
gifts for the girls and treated them to some pumpkin bread while
Becky and I were working on finishing up the painting project.
The girls always like to spend time with their grandma.
They were still talking about her visit on the drive home from
the bus.
Becky and I tried to talk her into taking a trip with us in
the bus after it's finished, but she didn't seem to comfortable
with the idea yet. Can't blame her too much - you look
around the bus right now and there are still wires poking out of
the walls, parts and pieces of the bus lying around outside - I
don't know if I'd trust the bus either if I hadn't been involved
with the process... We'll talk her into it yet I bet
<wink>.
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Becky and I have been putting together a list of tasks that need to
be finished before the bus will be road worthy. The list is not as
long as I had imagined, but some of the tasks are quite big and will
take several days to complete at any rate. I'm not sure what we're
going to concentrate on next. The weather is back to pretty much
constant rain, and even with the tarp canopy that we fabricated it's
hard to work on some of the remaining tasks without getting all wet, so
some of them are on hold for better weather. I imagine that we'll
try to get the last bit of paneling done in the front of the bus and
cover up the 2 "D" windows that we prepped a few days
ago. I need to get a few more sheets of plywood paneling to finish
up the refrigerator and back storage area. If there is a break in
the rain I'll swing by the home improvement store and pick them up. The
cabinets are on hold until I can get some more MDF and I would like to
replace the water heater before the cabinets get put up so they will not
be in the way and make the job more difficult. I may have to
compromise and just get the cabinets done though... |
