Electrical Test Run

Electrical Test Run.

It’s just like it sounds. Elissa and I go for a test ride of the electricity.

I set it up so that the control panel is in the front of the bed and we have easy access to it. The battery however is going to be mounted in the rear of the vehicle. A wire will bring the current up to the control panel. This is just a test run to see if I wired, soldered, and fused everything properly. It turns out I did. Hip Hip Hurray. This has been quite a steep learning curve. There was one minor-ish issue. I had hoped to have wired an on/off switch to the charging station. The reason for this is because I choose (accidentally I might add) a back-lit kind and the light is always on. There is no way to turn it off, so I thought if I put an on/off switch before the current it would turn the thing on and off. I did it wrong and it was always on.

****Author Shrugs his shoulders****

You'll see what I mean in the video and I’ll keep at it and get it figured out at some point.  

Well, thanks for stopping by, and be sure to keep coming back for updates on the van and other miscellany.

Have a great day gang and keep the shiny side up.

Trevor Marty

PS Next week we unfurl the bed and take it for a test run. Watch out for the mosquito's.

A Realistic Bed Build

 

     Well, I guess I’m a day late and a dollar short, but here it is anyway...Monday’s blog on Tuesday.

You see I wanted to include the bed build into Mondays blog because it’s finished.

Well sort of.  The ‘sort of’ only means there is always something more you can do to it.

I’m sure if we wanted we could have sanded the boards, stained them, or both. We could have measured better, and probably not scuffed the walls up while we installed the silly things.

However, we didn’t do those things what we did do though was this.

Build the legs and support parts, then measured a few times, scratched our heads, made more coffee, and finally cut the one piece of ¾ inch plywood we had. I have actually had that piece around for probably close to 10 years. It’s held a motorcycle, leaned against the door, been set between two saw horses with a sheet for a table cloth and a bunch of good food on it for my wedding rehearsal dinner, and probably more that I can’t remember. Now it’s going to be a bed for my wife and I as we begin another chapter in our lives and travel the country.

      It took quite a while to settle on the design we did because there are just so many good ones out there. Just when we thought we had decided we’d be astounded by someone elses design. What finally made us decide what we wanted was a realistic look at my own abilities. Don’t get me wrong I’m not downing myself at all, but a construction guy I am not. It’s only recently that I’ve been able to tell the difference between my thumb and the head of a nail. 

     I think to set oneself up for success you have to have a realistic view of your starting point or you’re just going to get disappointed. Doing this project has helped me to actually get some ‘street cred’ and walk into Menards or Home Depot head held high shouting to the world “I know what a hammer is.” as I strut down the long aisles.    

     The hinges in the middle of the bed were given to me by an 95 year old WWII veteran who lives two houses down from us. His gutters needed cleaning and he couldn’t get up that high on the ladder, so I did that and he gave me four hinges and an on/off switch which will also be used in this build.  I’ve tried to include photo’s in the blog because I know not everyone has the data plan to watch the video, however there is also a video.

Thanks for tuning in and having a look here.

Next week we’re going to have a look at the components I’m going to use on the electrical install.

Until then see ya

    Trevor Marty

PS The video is under the photo's.

This is how the legs look.

Under the bed.

I just used what screws I had around.

It's true. You are cool. Thanks for reading this.

My baldness laying in the bed.

Two different colored socks and a bird feeder.

Great Storage!

A week, A van, & a dream

     Today we’re going to talk about my vacation. I got a week off and it was beautiful. Now in April in Minnesota you can get anything as a matter of fact as I write this it’s the last day of April in 2017 and there is a Winter storm watch for Northern and Central Minnesota. Nothing like that happened on my days off though. It was a beautiful time and I got a lot of stuff done.

I put a sub-floor in, a laminate floor on top of that, painted and finished the walls, and built a counter top which I sunk my homemade sink into. There’s a blog about that sink here. All of this got done in a week.

     Before you tell yourself that I must have all of this experience doing this sort of thing let me assure you that I don’t. I don’t know my ass from my elbow when it comes to construction and constructing things. I did however make it a goal to learn as much as I could about it while doing fun stuff in life. Hence the van. The sub-floor that I built, and I’m sure that I did it wrong, was made with plywood cut to the shape (more or less) that the floor of the van was in. I did put this sticky stuff that I bought at Lowe's which I forget the name of. It’s suppose to keep heat out and take the noise down. It was a lot cheaper then that name brand stuff.

Now I saw pictures of people doing floors like this and they had this special tape they put on the boards to make the pieces hold together better. Eh, I used duct tape.

                             ****shrugs shoulders and makes a funny face****

I don’t know if it’ll work. I just did it. Afterword I got to thinking. I probably should have made sure that the floor was level which is something to remember for next time. 

     Then I started putting the laminate flooring in. Now everyone will tell you it’s super easy. They’re lying; however, having said that I will also say I’ve done harder things. Think post hole digging in August then think a lot of post hole digging in August and you’ll be on the right track.

Okay the laminate wasn’t super hard, but it had challenging parts. I think if someone does it a few times they will get it quickly or if someone has a nice square area to put it in you’ll be fine. A Chevy Express 1500 is known as a curvy lady. She is not square anywhere.

     Elissa, and I also finished with insulating, priming, and painting the walls as well. We found the primer and the paint in the basement. We used them when we painted the house a couple of years ago. We have the same green on our windows and edging. 

     The counter-top was relatively easy. It had it’s tough moments, and I’m sure would have been screwed up without the help of my neighbor who asked me if I was going to be using a guide when I sawed the board. I had no idea what that was so he showed me. Then he changed the blade on the circular saw I got at a pawn shop. Imagine my surprise when I realized that cutting the wood could be easy and not have burn marks with the new blade.

I built the legs for the counter from what I figured they needed to be to hold the top, and I was right. I got the shape, the support, the size everything right.

     Next came the hard part. I had to drill the holes which would become the cut out for the sink. I measured like three or four times. This wood was my baby. I had sanded it, and preened it with mineral oil I didn’t want it screwed up with one miss measured hole.  Eventually I got it drilled, and cut out but I had to keep cutting and slowly widen the hole for the sink. I did it slow and took my time so that it would work well. Elissa was right there helping with her eye’s as well. As you will see in the video it turned out terrific.

Now the next steps are to start building the bed and begin putting the ceiling together. Keep tuning in to see how this goes.

Thanks

Trevor

Van to RV Plans

     With Summer not to far off it’s a good time to start planning where and what you’re going to be doing. My wife and I will probably be camping a lot this year which brings up my van to rv conversion project. I live in Minnesota and the van is much to large to get into my garage so any work that I’ve been doing has been outside and in the snow. Yes, you’re right that does mean that it’s been going slower than usual even for me. If we go back in time to my other entries you’ll notice over and over one common denominator. I have very little experience with construction. Which means that this whole project is a big challenge for me and something I am very excited to learn about.

Today, let’s talk about the counter top, flooring, and the water situation.

Countertop, sink, and the junk that holds it all in place.

    

    We’ve decided on the counter top and the type of wood it’s going to be. We’ve also decided on the height, length, and depth of it as well. The counter top is going to be Aspen with a butcher block oil all over it to protect it. The height will be between 33 and 43 inches, the length around 5 feet, and the width/depth (I get those confused all the time) about 18 inches.

Counter top

 Aspen, as you can see in the picture is a light wood and sort of reminds me of Pine a little bit. The height was completely dictated by the window it’s going to be sitting in front of, the length will be five feet because that’s all the space we've got on that side of the van.

    “What’s going to hold it up”, you ask? Well, that’s the part I’m excited about. If all goes well it’s going to be a light skeleton frame tall enough to fit two or three of these plastic drawers under and strong enough to hold the counter in place. 

Storage under the sink.

      As far as an outside covering I think we’re going to use anything we can find for the sides but leave the front open. When I say open what I mean is we’re going to have some kind of draw string curtain covering. Now this is just an idea and it can change. The reason we’re leaving the front open is weight. We’re trying to keep the weight down. Weight and gas mileage don’t play well together and as it is we get between 12 - 18 miles per gallon. Imagine with all this wood.

Under the sink

The Sink

The cute drain plug

     The sink is made out of a big red plastic rectangle thing we found at Goodwill. I’ve drilled a hole large enough to put a drain in and after I get the counter top oiled up I’ll cut a space in it. Of course it’s one thing to say something like this and quite another to actually do it. When that happens I’ll be sure to get photo’s and we’ll have fun watching it.

Water

    We’re still deciding on the containers, but have decided on where and how it’s going to work. There will be two containers located right underneath the sink. One will be fresh water and the other will be gray water. That’s it. Chances are they’ll both be bungee corded in place.

Flooring

     We were looking for the perfect flooring for our little camper van thingy. That's a technical term by the way. 'Thingy'. We checked out Menards, Lowes, and any other place that we thought might sell that sort of thing. Eventually we found an open box item. It was way cheaper and although it’s not our favorite color we’re good with it. You can see it’s darker, but that’s okay with us. We did get this at Lowes, and we figure one box will cover the floor in our little van. 

      As you can see the plan is finally at a place where we can really start putting it all together. Now all we do is hope for some sunny days. When that happens I’ll be sure to take more photos.

Keep it tuned here for more updates.
Thanks for taking the time to read and hang out here. You're awesome!!


-Trevor Marty

Happy Holiday's and The Electric Plan

Dearest Fellows-

     This weekend was terrifically cold and so with wind chills going as far as 40 below zero I decided it would be best if I didn’t hang out to long outside and work on the van.

I did shovel it out of snow, turn it on, and drive it out of it’s stuck spot. Then I looked around it, wished it well, and promised to return in a few days when the temperature gets back above zero.

We have a lot to shovel out and last year I was in a wheelchair (go here for that story) and wasn’t able to do any shoveling. Elissa did everything which was wonderful. This year I plan to shovel all of it. That’s what I did Saturday. I shovel ours and helped with two other places down the block. Saturday was only like 10 below so it was way more doable.

     The holiday season is coming upon us quickly and this demands more time, so I hope to get out to work on the van this week but I’m not sure it’s going to happen. There are lots of things that are also demanding my time, and I hope the weather gets a little bit warmer. I mean if it’s at least at zero I can get a few things done.

    

     The plan then is to get heavy gauge electric wire and run it from the solenoid and the starter battery to the house batteries with a giant fuse in between and the whole mess grounded to the frame. You can see why I hope for the temperature to warm up a bit since I’ll be crawling under the vehicle on the snow. (My shed isn’t tall enough for van.) From the house batteries I will connect a lighter gauge wire to a DC fuse junction box. The kind you find in cars. At that point I’m a bit lost, and don’t entirely know what to do. I think I’m going to need to connect a couple of dc cigarette type plug in to that fuse box, but I’m not sure. I do know however that we will be needing an inverter. Here’s the one we’re thinking about getting. You’ll notice that it’s sort of small. Well this is why. We aren’t full time boon-docking yet. We are only going to be “trying it out” and thus won’t have the same demands as other folks do. We won’t be putting a refrigerator on it, we won’t be using hair dryers, toaster, or coffee makers. We will only be charging a few devices once in awhile also when we upgrade I’d like to be upgrading to solar charging and get the right inverter for that. This will be connected to the house batteries with the same heavy gauge wire and have a B.A.F. (Big A$# Fuse) between the batteries and the inverter. The whole thing will have a large red On/Off switch, so we can turn the whole mess off if we so choose.Here's that link.

    

     Well that’s about it for this week I wish you a happy, healthy, and wonderful holiday season. Remember this can be the hardest and most depressive time of the year, so give someone a hug and let them know they’re loved.

All my best

Trevor

A photo just for fun.

Insulating the van and snow.

Greetings fellow spirits on this grand adventure called, 'Life'.

     These are photo's, and two videos on insulating our van which we have lovingly called, 'Woody'.  First off we did buy heavy R value insulation and made sure that there was no formaldehyde in it. The R value is a way of rating how good it is at keeping the cold out or in. We went with the biggest we could afford.

     The foam board stuff was two inches thick (I think) and easy to cut and shape, but be aware it makes a nasty squeaky sound and a hell of a mess as you'll see. I found it difficult to measure all of the shapes in our van and struggled to remember what Mrs. Kleppe, my 7th grade math teacher, taught me about measuring arches. In the end I just kept cutting and shoving pieces into the hole till it was filled not very clever or interesting to see. If you're interested this is the formula for measuring an arch. (ie the wheel well)
The radius of the arch is the radius of it's finished circle which it is a part. R = H/2 + W(small2)/8H Yes, I agree with you. I'll just skip over that and stuff that hole with parts of insulation till it's full, or you could always go here and plug your numbers in. Height and Width.
  Link to carpentry website.

From that point I took out the fiberglass stuff and started cramming it into every little crevice I could find. I reminded myself of a bird preparing a nest for a hoped for lady-friend and babies.

Stuffing it in.

I wore gloves, a breathing mask, glasses and covered all of my skin just like they tell you to.
Using a straight edge, a measuring tape, and my Swiss Army knife I did all of the cutting for everything. I'm pretty sure I'll need to sharpen that knife now.

Straight edge, Swiss Army Knife, and the dreaded insulation.

We have a 2001 Chevy Express 1500 with two TV's and a big sub speaker in the back. I took the TV's out and am keeping the speaker if I can. The TV's were mounted to a smallish black plastic square which is stuck to the ceiling. I tried to take it out but the bolts were stripped so I thought I'd cut it out with my rotary tool. Here it is before and after.

Mounting square for the TV before cutting it.

After

As you can see I was not successful in cutting it off. That cut goes all the way through, but it still wouldn't move. Yes, I even tried to break it. Cut through like that it still held my weight.

Gave up and cut around it.

Here you can see I just went around the whole thing. I hate being beat by a plastic square.

The best I could do.

You know when you look at other peoples insulation it looks so sweet and nice. Everything fits just right, and they don't have any duct tape holding it in. I totally thought this would be the easiest part, and it turned out not to be. Oh well. Next is the wiring. Here's the final video of the insulation.
We wish you all the best in everything you do.

Peace, Love, and Doritto's
The Marty's

Gutting the Van and Nanowrimo

Gutting the inside of the van and Nanowrimo.

Hello Gang-

    How are you doing today? We here at the Marty Estate are doing fine. Two thumbs up.

Today’s blog is all about the gutting of the van we’re turning into an RV. The van is a 2001 Chevy Express. They made three different types a 1500, a 2500, and a 3500 I believe ours to be the 1500 and it does have a 5.7 liter V8 engine in it. Quite the difference between that and our little four cylinder wagon.

    First though a little about Nanowrimo. It stands for National Novel Writing Month, and I have been participating in it. It’s a sort of race to see if you can get a novel written in thirty days. Now the goal is 50,000 words and I will admit that does seem like a big deal and it is, but as far as novels go that is a bit light. The type that I choose to write, an anthropomorphic murder mystery should weigh in at between 80,000 and 89,999 thousand words and that is what I’m shooting for. Having said that though I have only gotten as far as just over 32,000 words and the end of the month is only a week away. I don’t think I’ll be making it, but I still feel good about getting to 32,000 words. That’s a pretty big deal, so this weekend instead of sitting and writing all weekend I wrote a few thousand words per day and then started work on the van.

    As you’ll see in the video below there are several speakers, two T.V.’s, and a power amp thingy. The speakers are all Bose which I thought was a fun discovery, but I’ll probably take them all out. Also there is this weird air conditioner/heater thingy (don’t you love my technical parlance) in the back of the van. This two will be coming out. Besides those things the back area is gutted.

    This is exciting, because now the next step will be to sweep it out and then to start putting up the wall, ceiling, and floor. Oh and let’s not forget about the insulation and the wiring for the lights. Which means I have a lot to learn about. For example. We are planning on putting solar panels up on the the top, so we have to wire for that. Do we wait to put the finishing on the ceiling till after we put the panels up? I’m thinking, ‘yes’ because it seems easier to have that all finished before we put the ceiling on.

    There are a lot of options as far as learning to wire it and I plan on exhausting all of my options. I also plan on showing y’all every part of this transformation. Whether you’ve found this place by accident, my music, or someone pointed you doesn’t matter. What matters is that you’re here now, and I am grateful. Thank you for dropping by, and please bookmark this and check back. I post another entry every Monday, and some have video’s like this one.

Thanks again for stopping by.

I wish you good health and happiness. 

Trevor Marty

 

Trevor Marty