Like Titanic... only different

Made some great headway on the bus in the last couple weeks. We had the maiden voyage of the bus two weeks ago and went camping. This was a great opportunity to see how everything worked and changes we want to make before everything is finished. Unfortunately my camera skills are somewhat lacking and all the pictures I took while camping were set at a half meter focus... yeah, gonna look at that setting next time I take some pictures.

I decided that I was going to give the top of the bus two coats of roof sealant to help with heat and put a good seal on the roof. The required me on top of the bus a number of times and a rounded metal roof is just the recipe for disaster. Luckily my deft footwork surpasses my camera technique and I am happy to report no injuries.

While rolling the paint on top of the bus my oldest son was taking pictures. He yelled up at me.."Dad go to the front of the bus and do that scene from Titanic where she is on the front of the Titanic." So I go to the front of the bus and did my best Kate Winslet. As soon as he snapped the picture he said, "You're such a dork."
Well I guess I learned my lesson.

I won't lie this was a tough job but I know if I took my time and did it right I would not have to be up here again so I made the best of is and the comments that came my way.
* Looks like a prison bus.
* Is that bus from the Afghanistan conflict?
* If I had a big yellow bus I would paint it flesh color also.

Saturday was the big day to get the bus all the same color. During the week and late into Friday night we scuffed and masked the monster. It took about two hours and 1 1/2 gallons of paint to get the mono chromatic theme completed.

So this is the final base coat. Now I can work on an accent stripe and putting the front of the bus back together. We have camps planned in three weeks so I need to get the inside in a "working" order.



Ricky and Lucy's Bedroom

Finished building the rear bed platform today. The goal was to build a rear king size bed but we couldn't fit a king size mattress through the back door, so we went ala Ricky and Lucy with two twin beds.

The cabinets were finished and attached on the right side of the bus this week. I won't lie, fitting the top cabinet was a challenge but I am really happy with how it turned out. This gives us plenty of storage now.

Before I could build the rear platform I needed to finish the rear lights. Early on I knew I was going to lose the big bus lights. Using LED lights take less power, are brighter and look much better. To get them to look right I had to weld in some holes and cut and space the lights so they looked right.

You can now see the outside color for the finished project.

This next week we are going camping. It will be a good shakedown for the bus and see how everything works so far.

Hope we don't freeze....