I Get By With a Little Help . . .

Still caught up with "real" work !!

Fortunately my friend "Sich" came around on Friday and wanted to "play" with my CNC lathe.

I had just the job - lots of threaded shafts to do :

. put shaft in chuck
. press foot pedal to grip
. close door
. press green button
. wait 58 sec's
. open door
. test nut for fit
. press foot pedal to release
. repeat (ad nauseum . . . well a couple of hundred anyway . . .)

I could work on the camper !!!

It helps to have two brains around too.
Just the odd comment makes you realise there are other and often better ways of doing things.

So look close now - it has changed again :

It Feels Like a Conspiracy . . .

The tubing I ordered arrived but it was not galvanised only painted so that stayed on the truck!

Now I'm told I won't get the proper material until Friday at best and maybe Monday!!

Then some old customers tempted me with some relatively simple work to fill in and now all of a sudden I have two weeks work to do !!!

I must be going senile or something.

Oh well it stops the dollars bleeding away too fast as income from interest is through the proverbial floor etc..

Looks like it's back to weekends again for a couple of weeks.

I have to look up that "retired" word in the dictionary again . . .

I Spy With My Little Eye . . .

There are currently over 160 metres of 50 x 25 gal tube in there somewhere and tomorrow I have to order another 80 metres!

Where did it all go ??

Just like last time you will have to look closely to see the changes but there are plenty there.
All the bin bays have been completed and although not yet fitted the flooring for them has been cut (courtesy of "Sich" of bus building fame).























Work will now have to proceed on the main floor level for seats, bed, doors etc.
Some track is now test fitted for the bed and the seats and doors are starting to be framed.


















It's a bit like building a house where at each stage sometimes it looks small and then suddenly it looks large; sometimes it looks like progress made and sometimes it looks like nothing has happened . . .

Nose to the Grindstone . . .

You know that old saying

"Nose to the grindstone, shoulder to the wheel . . . "

well it gives you a pointy nose and round shoulders!

Thank goodness it's a little cooler.
A full day spent . . you guessed it cutting, welding and grinding.
You have to look closely to see it but quite a bit has been added.






















































Mostly it's angle iron around the bottom edge of each bin area to provide support for a 17mm thick ply board. Usually this board is used for making concrete forms so it has a plastic coating to make it waterproof (to a certain degree, but it will also need it's edges treated with "bondcrete" to seal them) and is reasonably strong.

Hard to see here as it's coloured a dark brown but the end bay has the lower floor sections in to test for fit. They will then need a couple of "reliefs" routed into them to fit over brackets etc.


















So with luck tomorrow that will be finished and the rest of the bin door frames can be started.

Kick Me. Please?

Embarrassment PLUS!

Last Friday I started a job I had volunteered to do for a friend of mine.
Simple type of job really.
But you have to pay attention!!
It's the sort of thing we used to make by the hundred so just set up the lathe tools, take a few simple measurements, throw in the material, switch on and away we go.
Didn't manage to get it all finished on Friday so back to it Saturday morning.
Let's get this little doodah out of the way.
OOOOOOPS!

That number was supposed to be a minus NOT a plus!

Better take a trip over to where the job is going to be used and see if it will still be usable.
Not only was the mistake too large to recover but the whole damn thing was completely wrong wrong wrong!

What we were trying to do was replace this


















With this





















Unfortunately it wasn't just a straight swap. The new wheel, very nice walnut and leather etc, was made for a particular type of truck and would not fit onto the steering column of my friends bus.

"No trouble. " I said.
"I'll just machine up a new boss to fit the steering column to the wheel.
A block of aluminium, a couple of hours and it'll all be done."

Famous last words.

It's taken about three weeks since then to actually source the material.
Everything's been going to bloody China!!
(Well that's changed hasn't it? But not soon enough to help with this job.)

Anyway . . .
After the monumental stuff up I had to get a new piece of material and start again.
Fortunately the setup was all done so a minor change to the program produced


















Of course there was a little more to it.
Like the bolt pattern, the internal taper to fit the shaft and the dreaded constant depth keyway on the taper.






















So next time I say I'll just do this little job . . . somebody kick me . . . just to make sure I stay awake!

It's a bit of a grind . . .

Cutting. Welding. Grinding.

Cutting. Welding. Grinding.

and more of the same . . .

I can't believe how many little bits there are to put together!
And when you finish it doesn't even look like much has been done.
This area is a bit tricky.
It's all very well using a computer program to draw walls and doors and lockers etc. just wave the cursor, press a few buttons and there they are.
The reality is a bit different however. I am using mostly 50mm x 25mm galvanised tubing as I think 25mm x 25mm is just a bit too light and tends to distort. This means at best however that there is a 25mm thickness to whatever you do. Then when you cover it with 12mm or 18mm ply on one or both sides space rapidly disappears! Things which fitted together on the computer quite nicely suddenly need quite a bit more room.
The most complicated area is the front left hand side where there is a series of storage bins one above the other housing various items which need to be separated from the interior and each other.
This fits quite nicely with this end being used for the ablutions area. The shower width is walled off right across and used for shower and toilet area. This does not need all the width so the end 300-400mm can be used for a series of storage bins accessed from outside.
The problem is the bays are not the natural width of the structural components and the height of the lowest bay is not the natural height of the rest of the floor.
While I can envisage what the various shapes and sizes of bins need to be and how they are arranged the method of construction while allowing for maintenance when necessary is quite tricky. It already looks like I may have to install a tank and then weld in some pieces which will make repairs impossible without tearing up the bathroom.
However the tanks I have ordered are 8-10mm food grade high impact polypropylene tested to 3bar. For $3000 for 3 tanks they had better be good!

So bottom bay is toilet cassette docking station and spare cassette.


















Above that there are gas bottles ( 2 x 9 kg ) and a small diesel fuel tank for the heating system.
This also happens to be the correct height for the toilet pedestal so the top of the first bin also extends through into the bathroom as a partial raised floor.
There will be a wall between them all the way to the roof.























The next bay up will be an instantaneous gas hot water system and a diesel fueled heating system.
There is still room for one more bay above that but maybe it can be used for internal storage space in the bathroom accessed from inside.

Somewhere or other there needs to be a water pump. It's an AUSSIE MADE Onga 240Vac JS1100 with Minipress 1100 sensor deemed suitable for a small to medium house. Fortunately it is quite small so it should fit without too much trouble.

Now I just need to figure out how to get the pipes from "A" to "B" . . .

Details, details, details . . .

Damn!!

You can do a whole days work and it looks almost like nothing.

Fiddly little bits that need cutting and welding here and welding there and grinding and cleaning and priming.
Like these angle supports for the storage locker floor supports.


















Every little piece needs to be clamped in three directions to make sure all the surfaces are smooth so that the sheet covering wont have lumps and bumps like "the ribs on a starving horse"
So I need more clamps!


















Eventually it all goes together to make the fascia for the locker door so that the "pinchweld" weather seal fits in properly (which reminds me I need to go and get some of that now) and provides a decent seal and the panels are flush and the floor gets held up etc. . . .


















Then I need to make up a door to fit the opening and fit the locks.
I decided to be extravagant and get the stainless steel ones which after all cost $3 more than the zinc plated ones !!






















Mind you in the background I managed to get the blanks cut for 200 bushes I have to make so it wasn't all bad.

Catch as Catch Can . . .

A weekend spent reading ( I find it extremely hard to put a book down once I start ), dinner out, a couple of days near Mount Barker for some friendly competition shooting, a day of paperwork and ordering materials and
a whole bloody week has gone!

I better get on with it . . .

Despite the economy going to hell in a hand basket it is still hard to get materials. Everyone carries less stock, some things aren't made as often/much and you end up waiting for things so it's a case of do what you can.

There are things which were assumed to be of certain sizes in the initial design but now it's time to check the actual components and/or the size of one piece depends on the finished size of another.

A case in point is the seat / door / bed / lockers combination.
It's hard to determine which bit depends on which.
First things first I guess is to draw out the locker door sealing arrangements - a far more complicated arrangement than I would like but I have been thinking about this one on and off for about three months so I better go with what I have now.

Then decide on the bed frame size and structure and make that as it will determine the seat length which will determine the door position etc. etc. etc.
It's the top layer of tubes. . .














I ordered some rails and wheels, at unbelievable prices, from a local supplier without knowing definitively whether I could use them successfully for guiding the bed up and down and for guiding the motorbike carrier frame on the outside of the back "wall".























They have turned up now and there may be a few small problems that I overlooked.
The rails for the bed version are very thin gauge metal but as they don't support any weight and only supply guidance I am pretty sure they will be OK but I will have to make separate structures to support the actual lifting components.
The wheels however are "hard plastic" and will work nicely.



















The larger ones for the bike rack seem to have an anti-sideplay wheel mounted on "top" which means they can't take any force in the opposite direction to normal, which I inadvertently had been relying on for their intended use. Hmmmm. More thinking required.


















I am still waiting for details of small 24Vdc motor-gearbox combinations which I hope to use for lifting the bed and bike rack; and I'm waiting for a quote from a custom water tank supplier
before I start fitting too many brackets.

So a small diversion was quite welcome.
I moved the truck out of the way, which is sometimes a little tedious due to the air bleeding from the brakes while parked, to start work again.
This time however when parked I heard quite a distinctive air hiss from somewhere in the brakes. Hoping it was nothing to do with the work I had done on the compressed air saga I had a hunt around.
The culprit was found to be the pressure safety valve leaking.
So out with that one, it does look a little the worse for wear,























and down to Major Motors for a new one.
$29 later.


















It seems to have reduced the leak problem about 75% so that's a significant improvement.

Now I have to wait for more tubing to arrive so I think it's time to do one or two of the paying jobs.

EEuuwwkkk!!

S.B.M. WINS !!

37 DEG. two days in a row!!

Sore knees from climbing up and down the ladder.

Only Sheer Bloody Mindedness got this done!























The bowing is due to lens distortion.
So far there is no measurement for size, or squareness that is more than 1mm out overall as far as I can tell.

I'm rather pleased with that!

Very Interesting . . . and surprising!

A couple of hours this morning taken up with getting the last of the oil coolers from the powder coater and shipping them off.

Frustrating when you want to get on with the build but it pays the overheads.

The little bit done yesterday working on the back of the truck showed very quickly that that way was going to be very difficult. So time to take it off. . .

This was a bit of a test to see what it would be like for real but without a full load.
So install the airbags (these are taken off when welding to avoid possible damage).
Clamp in some temporary cross bracing.
The exercise yesterday for finishing the mounts showed that it could be unstable under certain conditions.
Undo the bolts.
Make sure nothing was connecting truck and body.
Close the escape valve.
Open the control valves.
Let in the air.
Very nice. The whole thing lifted with about 2 bar pressure.
Very slowly drive the truck out from underneath.


TAH DAH !!














It took a couple of false starts to realise the sequence for lowering was not the exact opposite of raising; not very different but just enough to make sure you needed to keep your wits about you.
Start here :





















End here. . .

















A nice working height, which can be altered without too much trouble.

Actually a very interesting experience.
The workshop air compressor was used as the truck fumes would be uncomfortable inside the workshop for the amount of time required for the operation.
The end which had been worked on was at least twice as heavy as the other end so it tended to lower first and keep pressure in the other end which would not lower until the heavy end was all the way down to the next stop.
This required the taps to manipulated individually (or at least in pairs) to keep the whole thing even.
Even though it proved to be much more stable with more weight involved there was an interesting little phenomena which developed; the "sticktion" within each leg was slightly different which caused minute vibrations to start and then synchronise resulting in quite a significant rocking motion which necessitated stopping as soon as it was detected to avoid the possibility of a complete collapse.
Hopefully when loaded more evenly and with greater total weight this may smooth out.
The cross bracing will definitely need to be in place so this will need a better long term solution.
The other unexpected result was that because of the higher pressure flowing in 6mm tubing it took quite a while for the air to flow when lifting. Lowering didn't seem to be a problem.

So with the height more convenient a little bit more was actually accomplished.























I think I better order some more tubing PDQ!

Making Haste Slowly . . .

Getting the two extra air bags was very useful.
I was able to fit them up (after a small trip to Couplers ( no I don't have shares or get commissions)) and use them to lift off all the bits.

I needed to get rid of part of a few welds to fit in the spring washers needed for the mount bolts which meant taking out the mounts (again) so I could grind them off in the appropriate places.
( I tried using the mill just so it would look neat (even where you can't see it ) but had no tool which would reach to the right spot).

Re-assembled - and now I can't avoid working on the accommodation.

Much clamping, measuring, testing, measuring, adjusting, measuring etc. to ensure that all was "square" and in the right plane and finally start welding.

Just tacking at this stage to minimise distortion and if I come across a problem I didn't anticipate I can grind out a couple of tacks and change it.

Happy so far but man it takes time!!

Somebody Hit the On Button

It seems everybody went back to work today.

Well all the people I needed to "get stuff done".
First things first; take the last three oil coolers to the zinc platers.

Mine was their first job for 2009!
Arrived at 8:01am and they were sitting around waiting for "something" to arrive so unloaded it straight onto the plating line.

"Pick it up after lunch mate."

"Excellent!

Straight to Couplers on the way back.

Control block, 6 taps, 6 push-in tube fittings, 2 thread size adaptors and a 10bar gauge.
$150 Not too bad. Also picked up 50metres of tube to plumb it all into the accommodation unit.
It makes more sense to put it there as it's no use on the truck by itself.









Now with the controls at hand I can lift off the beams to remove the mountings for what I hope will be the last time before I start to weld the accommodation unit together.

I need to do the final drilling and tapping for the mounts.

I have been leaving them while I think about it a bit.
For me I find it helps to approach some problems slowly.

The simplest way would be to just use bolts and nuts (and initially it was drilled to allow for that so that it could be mounted temporarily). I normally put bolts down from the top with nuts up from underneath on the rationale that if the nuts fall off at least the bolt will tend to stay where it is due to gravity. A minor consolation.

But in this case the mount plate will be part of the floor on which the whole thing rests when lowered to the "ground". This would mean the bolts have to be extracted. In addition, no matter which way up they were, either the nut or bolt would be at the bottom of a storage locker and quite awkward to get to.

So I guess there was no real alternative other than to tap the mount plates and put the bolts up from underneath. Spring washers AND thread-locker I think.

Seeing these bolts provide all the mechanical connection, and there are just two smooth plates facing each other, unlike the other fittings which use u-bolts and through-chassis bolts, they need to be fairly substantial, so 16mm and 6 of in each fitting. That ought to do it.


Main cross-beam to go under the main longitudinal stringers. It's upside down at the moment so the burrs from threading the holes can be cleaned off. This will be bolted to the flexible mounts and then the stringers etc. can be welded to it. Holes are still only 12mm plain at this point.























Tilt mount for the front pivot (right way up) with a temporary spacer in between the arms so I can grab it in the vyce to drill it without crushing. Holes are now 18mm diam. to allow for any minor distortions which may accumulate during all the welding which will occur.


















Accurate positioning is achieved by doing it all in one go in the mill.























So now all drilled and tapped and put back in the chassis.

The air control block works a treat and the bags are lifting the small amount of weight at about 1.5 bar at the moment. I was a bit concerned about the air bags being out in the open with 10 bar in them so I looked up the spec's. Apparently they are proof tested to about 28 bar!!
Felt a bit better after that.

It was a bit of a drag only having two available at the moment so I thought "better get the other two ASAP".
The originals were bought for a camper trailer which got scrapped when this project was started and I had bought them from a local suspension shop. About AU$1000 for the pair.

I'll just have a look on the web.

They are sold by "The Airbag Man" in Australia. I have since learned from an internet forum that I could probably have got them for a little over half the Australian price from a company in the US in about two weeks.

But I try to do things locally if I think I am getting a good deal.

It went sort of like this.
(1150) 10 mins to lunch - get on the net.
(1200) Send an email to the Aus. distributor (Sydney) as I couldn't find a local address.
(1330) Phone call from the WA distributor.
"Sure we have two of them in stock and I can get another one from Sydney by next week."
"Great. How much is that going to be?"
"$318 each including GST and delivery."
"I'll take two now and the third whenever is convenient."
(VISA card detail exchanged)
(1400) Better go and get the plated oil coolers and take them to the powdercoaters.
(1600) Knock. Knock. Courier arrived.
"Here are your two air bags".

That sort of local company I am more than willing to support.
(I know the product is made in USA but we don't MAKE them in Australia!!)

It looks like I might actually have to commit to some accommodation welding tomorrow.
SOOOO many decisions to make.
My brain hurts!

Listen to what you say . . .

Dropped in to see what my neighbour (Art) was up to. Thought he would be out on his new boat but he was over the road from me in his workshop! He was only making a bracket to fix the new stereo into the boat so all was well with the world.

Couldn't resist his invitation to go out the next day for a spin around. He was taking some friends out for a "spot of fishing" and a run down to Mindarie. Sounded OK to me!!

So on the boat at 8:00am. Nice group of people (I hadn't met them before) and it turns out that this guy is an electronics specialist and was checking out what was needed to hook up the CAT3208's to a computer management system that Art was having fitted. He was also a source of all the radio and electronic equipment I was going to need for the truck. Neat!!

It seems this boat was sold by the old measurements so it's a 43' er.


















It's more of a "party boat" than anything else but that will probably suit Art who is a really nice friendly guy.
























Plenty of space for people. There were 6 of us and the boat seemed empty.


















Nice lunch at Mindarie and back in the pen before the sea breeze got too strong.
Sit around chatting for a couple of hours and OOPS forgot I had to go and get ready for a New Year's Eve Ball at the dance studio in which I teach.

A good night had by all.

2009

Late start to the day, lunch with some friends and the afternoon chatting and there goes the first day of the year.

Now where were we??

Fixing the mistake I made because I didn't take the time to draw the mechanism out properly. Well that's OK. It was only one of them. So instead of adding the missing 5mm I have to subtract it so that's 10mm back the other way. Right?

Weld up the previous hole, back in the mill, slot it out again, back onto the truck and "Hey Presto" it's WRONG! WRONG! WRONG! again.

DRAW IT PROPERLY !!!!

Damn. I forgot I changed the lower part from 75mm x 5mm flat bar to 100mm x 5mm flat bar and then drilled the hole in the middle of it. What I thought was the original error wasn't the only problem. There was another 12.5mm to be moved.

Back to the grinder | welder | milling machine.

NOW it works properly. Left rear side:























Right rear side:























At this time I only have two air bags as this idea didn't get started until into the Xmas period so now I have to wait 'til Monday before I can get the other two and all the tubing and valving necessary.

Yep. You guessed it. Back to Couplers.
No. The girls are like children -20 years old or something.
It's the fittings I want.