Schooled by a Skoolie: How many more subtitles will I need?

Ryan has the perfect observation for the whole Rowsdower adventure. “It is an awesome project, but I’m glad I’m not in charge”

Well I am in charge. Which is frightening on account of my inability to make simple decisions. Well most of the time. I did decide to buy a bus. I’ll amend that to: my inability to make smart decisions. After all, I am living in a city that I dislike doing a job that bores the bejesus out of me because I can’t just pick a direction and go.

Something about my anxiety in that. I try to make a change and then end up freezing. I’m a catch ladies. But I do have a bus.

With the roof up, the welding began as I raced time to try and get the bus closed back up before winter arrived. I fell rather short of that goal. I also still needed to grind the rust off the floors as I finished patching up the major holes. That is a slow process. Which I think will be my catchphrase from here on out.

The lift devices held quite well overnight. And the following morning I returned for more welding. There was a lot of welding. You may feel free to Insert my catchphrase here.

I had purchased around 30 lengths of square tube steel pipe. They fit perfectly into the hat channels and would become the new struts. All we had to do was hold them in place with a clamp and weld the pillars into the hat channels. A note, a hat channel sort of a U shaped beam of steel. They run vertically between the windows. We cut them, raised the roof and then inserted the new pipe into the U and welded it into place.

But we had forgotten exactly how to weld. The heat was too low and the wire speed too high. Explanation, mig welding runs a coil of wire through an electric current and uses that wire to melt two pieces of steel together. Basically you have a little gun shaped device that you use to direct the wire. My welder gives you two options, how fast you want the wire to feed, and how high you want the electric current. Simple and straightforward. Except we were having problems getting a good weld.

When it came down to welding, we were getting an intermittent connection and well it wasn’t working. We had the wire speed too high. That was our problem. Gary fixed us up and gave us a refresher. Thanks again Gary.

I got better at welding with this. Much better by the end. Turns out welding in full sunlight is a bitch, as the bright light makes your mask cut out, and really with the blast shield down how am I supposed to weld? But I got it done. Day after day when the weather was nice. I’d change into my bus uniform before leaving work and spend a few more hours making my way towards that goal.

After the uprights were all in place, I cut some angle iron(L-shaped steel) and welded that to the square tubes. They would give me a place to rivet the new walls into place.

Yeah, I welded a lot. And I’m still nowhere near finished. Next I need to get working on sealing up the Transition.

What is the Transition you ask? You know when we chopped the bus roof off and raised it 20 inches? Yeah, that time. Pretty cool huh? Anyhow, there is still that step-up that needs to be re-filled. Usually in the form of some fancy metal work. Les installed the rear hatch of an old suv into his bus Transcendence. And then welded sheet metal around it. I really wanted to do that myself. And I had two Transitions that needed to be filled! Squeee!

So we found a local auto junkyard. $2 each to get in. An hour of wandering, taking pictures and sizing up possible hatches, before we realized that we forgot our tools. Another roundtrip to the bus site. And then I bought myself the rear hatch back to a ‘74 Chevette. It was brown. It would be at home in Rowsdower(I was going to paint it, but a ‘74 Chevette, that just seems magical).

All I needed to do now was figure out how to get it into the gap, and plumb with the roof, on both sides of the transition. I had no clue how to do that, so I set it aside as it percolated in the back of my mind and got onto other work.

You know what a bus has a lot of? Aside from chewed gum and gross rubber mats. Windows.

There are a ton of ways to raise a bus roof. Two Nerds in a Bus chose to cut lower and retain the long rows of windows, as inefficient as they were. I went with Les’s aforementioned approach. But I still do like “having light and being able to see”. So I was going to be forced to fabricate some window frames myself. And install proper windows. After buying proper windows.

Not to worry, I had expected this outcome and was already thinking about it. I just needed to find some slick RV windows. And facebook was a bust.

It appears that America’s RV manufacturing industry was based around South Bend Indiana. And to my luck, there are several businesses that sell parts for RVs. I found one that I dearly wanted to visit, and I must say it was hella-cool. One day of wandering around the yard with my sister and Brigitte and I scored several windows, and a sweet stereo system. All on the cheap. Will need to return for water tanks and a door.

Once again, having the correct tools is important. I don’t usually have the correct tools. For this job I was facing making proper cuts using a freaking hand-held angle-grinder. I pride myself in my ability to adapt. And I also pride myself in my ability to bitch when my adaptations don’t pan out. Stupid angle grinder, is like performing delicate surgery with an icebreaker(the ship, not the opening salvo of a conversation, though that would have been about as effective, I’m just not a man who likes talking, so I’d rather use the ship).

I was happy with my work on the window frames. For a couple of days. Then I took a better look and realized that I might not have been quite as level as I had first thought. Well shit. But the windows fit perfectly in them and I can always just call myself an eccentric artist type.

After that, the front Transition finally clicked in place in my mind and I made it so. AT least for the Chevette door. Still waiting for spring to return so that I can finish the job. Or have one of the people who doesn’t mind heights do it for me. I hate heights. Even sitting atop a 8' wide bus that is a mere 9.5’ off the ground makes me feel a bit wiggy.

Damn but it would be nice to be able to work on this in my own back yard. But douchey city ordinances and all that fun stuff you know. And I don’t have a back yard. I guess the latter plays more into it than the former, but if I did have a back yard, those assholes would have really screwed me over.

Jerks.