Follow Our Progress
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October 1st
2003
We got off to a good start today. Both Becky and I were feeling
a bit more energetic than we have in a little while. We have a
pretty good schedule set up now.
We got some additional money in the bank this morning, so we went
ahead and picked up 3 more sheets of paneling in hopes of getting
finished with the lath and putting up some more siding.
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Becky and I started out by moving almost everything
outside the bus. We needed some room to maneuver and work
on the lath and siding on the right side of the bus.
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We are both so sick of working with the pink foam insulation
board... We made a deal with each other to get the last of
it done and fill in the gaps with the expanding foam so we
wouldn't have to touch it again for this conversion.
Neither one of us wants to touch the stuff, but Becky grabbed a
piece and started hacking away at it, so I had to jump in and
work on it too...
It worked. We both concentrated on cutting and fitting
to fill in the last of the gaps and upper windows. Then I
went around with the last can of expanding foam insulation and
filled in the cracks and really small gaps to finish the
insulation job.
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We worked on the lath strips next, trying to finish the rest of
the bus, but we ran out of sheet metal screws... We
decided to work on paneling everything that we could today and
pick up more sheet metal screws tomorrow.
We covered over the last spray painted window first. As
usual, I cut a hole in the panel to access the emergency release
lever in case we want to remove the window later.
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We then finished almost all of the paneling on the upper left
wall of the bus. We had already finished all of the lath
on the left side yesterday, so hanging these panels didn't take much time.
Becky had to run and pick up Erika from school, so I tried to
tackle the second window by myself. Unfortunately, that
led to a pretty sloppy window cut out and a pain in my left
elbow... Hopefully I will be able to hide my crummy cut
when I trim out the window. I'm not sure what I did to my
elbow, but I can't put much pressure on it without quite a bit
of pain. I'll see how it feels in the morning.
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Two tired people after a long day of work. We're still
smiling though, so it's not a bad thing.
I'm still having a lot of fun working on the bus. It's
hard work at times and seems to go on, but when you get to see
things change every now and then, it gives you new energy to
keep going.
At the rate that we are going now, we hope to be able to take
the bus out for our first adventure in January with our friend
Alan. There's a lot to finish still to make our trip safe
and fun, but I think we're on track still.
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We got a lot done again today. We're hoping to finish up the
last of the lath installation and finish sheeting at least the upper
walls of the bus all the way to the front by tomorrow.
Wife's notes:
Word to the wise - after using the self-drilling screws for a few
days - then running out and having to use the "regular" screws
again... I HIGHLY recommend using the self-drilling screws, even though
they cost a bit more. I'm sure Gary agrees with me.
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