Here's our Bus Latcho Drom , which has gone through a couple of changes before we settled down and decided to turn her into a truck that will carry our Solar/Alternative Energy products and such as we travel about to Solar Energy Fairs and the like...

Oct. 30th , 2005
BACK IN THE SADDLE AGAIN !!!!
I'm probably certifiably insane for doing this at this time of year when the weather is pretty much miserable...but damn the torpedoes ...full speed ahead !
I've started the cut our bus down to a better size to tow the trailer with project.
Today I ripped the wooden side panels off the front exterior of the bus and then went inside to demolish the last few cabinets and walls.
Here's a pic of our poor sad looking bus now....Boo-Hoo

In a few days I'll head on down to the Lumber place here and buy a bunch of stuff ...then I'll take down the wooden walls in the bus and start the painful process of hacking large chunks off the bus.

NOTE
If everything works out ok....I'll be able to work on our newest bus project on my days off from work ....which are Tuesdays & Sundays.
Which means this isn't going to be like my last conversion where I was laid-off from my job and could work on the bus everyday. This is going to take some time....

 
Nov. 8th , 2005
I lucked out and got 2 days off in a row so I've been busy working on the bus....
Yesterday I ground off the heads of at least 500 rivets and used a cutting wheel on my Grinder to cut a slice in the exterior skin of the bus....


Today I went inside the bus and ripped down the walls on each side of the forward section ....which was a Nut-Buster for sure !!!
I didn't know I had built them so strong until I started ripping them out ...Wowser my old back hurts.
Here's a few pics

I ran out of cutting wheels so I had to call it a day .....but even so I'm happy with how things are moving toward slicing the roof off . If things work out the way they should .... I'll cut the roof off this coming Sunday.

O yeah... I picked up around $820.00 worth of wood and such last week to build the little house portion with.....

NOTE....one detail I forgot to mention is , unlike our last bus 'HOME' where the interior ceiling panels were secured by a bunch of screws ....in Latcho Drom , the panels are attached with hundreds of rivets. This makes it a real pain to get them down.
Not sure if I'll grind them all off or try to cut the panels out with my grinder. Either way is going to be a time consuming project....
I might just get my courage up and use my Sawzall to cut the whole thing off ...but I'm not at all comfortable with using that tool for major cuts through not just 2 layers of steel , but also the framing up there in the roof. The sensible way of doing that would be to make the cuts from up on the roof , but this is winter and the roof is awful slippery ....
Spooky stuff , for sure.....
 
 

 
Nov. 13th , 2005
 It's my day off so I got busy early hacking sections off the bus....Luckily it didn't rain ,but it was mighty cold though.....
I used my grinder and Sawzall  to cut out two sections and boy I'm tired.

Here's a few pics

 

On this coming Tuesday I'll try to get the rest of the forward section of the roof cut off and then start cutting out the sides.....
 
 

 
Nov. 16th , 2005
 It's 2:30 in the morning here .....woke up about a 1/2 hour ago feeling sore as hell from cutting out the side panels on the bus yesterday .
 It rained big time so I didn't take any pics ...just rushed through the process and put a tarp over it.  When I got done with that I rented a U-Haul and yarded off about 1400 pounds of metal and wood to the dump. Our yard was definitely getting a bit too messy from the demolition process....glad that's out of the way.
 

 
Nov. 21 , 2005
 Since it was my day off  yesterday I really wanted to work on the bus...
But , its been pouring down rain for around 5 days now ....not the usual crappy stuff we deal with here all the time....its more like the stuff that made Noah think building an ark might be a good idea.
Even the local folks who grew up here and think Sitka's a neat place to live (putzs) are looking a bit nervous about this storm.
Boy O Boy I hate this place
Hopefully this will stop soon so I can get out there and finish cutting off the forward front top section ....
 

 
Nov. 27th , 2005
WOO-HOO !!!!
I got the entire forward roof section off today !
It was a cold and miserable job ,but at least it didn't rain.
Here's a pic of what I did the other day....


Today I whipped out my sawzall and grinder and finished the job

This coming Tuesday if it doesn't pour down rain ...I'll cut out a section of the floor and start the process of grinding smooth all the edges I cut  ....when all that stuff is done ,I'll start building the wooden framing for our new incarnation of Latcho Drom
 
 

 
Nov. 28 , 2005
Here's a pic that I whipped up that shows in a simple way what I'm going for......


For awhile I thought I would rig what's left of the bus as a Mini-RV ...which would give us a nice little setup for camping and day trips.
Then I realized that I had to think about storage for my tools and our crafts fair booth setup and such....
So I chucked the mini-rv idea and will install a bunch of cabinets and such for my tools instead.
 

 
Nov. 29th , 2005
 It was down to 20 degrees this morning  ...but even so I ran out there and cut out the section of flooring that now separates the part of the bus that we'll keep and the part I'll get rid of...
Here's a few pics

It wasn't too hard ..... what I did was measure the depth of the plywood floor I installed and the buses original flooring...set the Blade depth on my circular saw to match....and sawed it out.
Then I switched blades on the saw. to a metal cutting wheel...reset the depth and  ...cut through the steel under-floor.
Then cut down the sides and took the whole thing off.

One detail I think I better mention is , before I did any cutting ....I crawled under the bus to see where the Body attached to the framing.
I wanted to make sure that the section of body I'm keeping is attached to the frame strongly.
Here's a pic
 
After I located the bolt nearest to where I wanted to cut the flooring out ....I measured 6 inches out from the bolt and drilled holes up through the buses floor to use as a guide for cutting.

Here's the tools I've been using to do all the cutting on our bus.....

Angle-Grinder, Circular Framing Saw & Sawz-All.

This is SO COOL !  I'm very happy things are moving forward here....
On my next day off I'll use my grinder and jig-saw to smooth out all my cuts...then I'll take the measurements for building the new framing.


 

 
DEC. 3 , 2005
 I've been doing a bit of research and kind of think it might be smart for a number of reasons to turn what's left of the bus into a mini-motorhome/towrig.
We'll be able to register the bus/truck as an RV which will save us a little money ...plus I wont be classified as a somewhat large truck . That means I wont have to deal with as many problems finding insurance and such.
I'll put in this....
Refrigerator
Cook Top
Porta-Pottie
Sink
And design the 'kitchen' counters to work dual-duty as a crafts making area and for cooking....
Here's a CAD Drawing of what I'm leaning toward now....

 

 
DEC. 4, 2005
 Got a nasty respiratory thing and feel pretty awful ....but was going to work on the bus anyways today.
But this happened last night ....so I'm taking it easy till the stuff melts a bit.

 

 
DEC. 21, 2005
I haven't given up on our Bus project ...just need to get through Christmas first.
My job at Radio Shack is extremely Hectic at this time of year...its actually a bit crazy working there .Wish the Hell I could find a better job , but that's not going to happen....on this Island ,I'm afraid.

 

 
June , 11 2006
Got 2 days off from my job at the tourist shop...Sun was shining so I got right out there and did some work on our Bus.
Yesterday , I got out my grinder and saws and smoothed out all my cuts to get ready for the framing .
Here's a couple of pics....

Today I got a good start on framing in the front section.
I used 2x2's and glued and screwed the framing together...for the glue I used Heavy-duty construction grade Liquid Nails and 3 inch Grabber Screws.
Here's a few pics of the framing job ....its not bolted down to the bus yet , I'll wait till my next day off to do that (if it's not raining too hard that is , you never know what's going to happen here )
I'm tired and pooped out but really happy to be getting back to work on the bus
 

 
JUNE. 17-18, 2006
Yesterday it rained quite a bit ,plus I have a god-awful flu or something ...so didn't get anything done on the bus.
But today I did...even though it rained on and off.
First thing , I walked out to our Building supply store and picked up a bunch of 3-inch Grabber screws and glue and some 6-inch galvanized bolt sets and a few 8 inch mending straps.
When I got home I used my grinder to cut a grove in each mending strap and then bent the end into a 45 degree angle....


Then I drilled all the way down through the frame sections and secured each mending strap to to the frame using the 6-inch galvanized bolts and stainless through bolts....after that was done I attached the lower section of the frame firmly to the bus using 1/4 inch stainless steel bolt sets....
Here's a couple of pics.
The first one shows the modified mending straps attached to the wood frame and then attached to the bus by a 1/4 inch through-bolt sets....the second shows how I bolted the wood frame down to the sections where the windows used to be.

After I got everything secured I put up a couple of roof beams and added two more sections of framing to the bus....
 

Feeling pretty awful so that's all I'll get done today ....but at least I'm moving forward.
My general plan here is to finish up all the framing and then paint the bus. I figure it will be a lot easier and look better too if I paint the bus before putting on the plywood...but that's a good ways off.
I still need to build a couple of small frame sections that will tie the sides together and build the rear wall frame where our door and back porch will be.
Then the hard part begins ....the roof framing.
Speaking of framing.....is there any important reason I built the wood frame in small sections that fit together , instead of more traditional house or even RV style framing ?
Not really... I'm just in a position where I'm working by myself in weather that often stinks ...so I'm designing and building the frame in small easy to handle sections that are easy to lug about and work with.
So far the frame is going together like it should and is very strong.... I will have to do a bit of tweaking later on to square things up , but all and all I'm really happy with it.

 

 
June , 25 2006
It's been raining now for almost 2 straight weeks ...which makes it not only freaking depressing , but pretty hard to work on the bus.
Then to make things even more Fu#$%# miserable , all the weather reports say its going to keep raining for another week and most likely continue after that.
But I went out in the crap and built another framing section anyways...

This really sucks ...here it is summer , and it felt no different than working in winter. Same god damn wet wood , same god damned water dripping down my neck ....
 

 
June , 26-27 2006
 June 26....I got out my miter saw early this morning ,before going to work at the tourist shop and cut up some framing pieces ...to the chagrin of my neighbors I'm pretty sure.
I hate to do this , but the weather has me worried . I only get to work on the bus on Saturdays and Sundays...because those are my days off and I'm too tired to work after I get home from my 91/2-10 hour a day job.
But.... if we have a rainy summer , I don't have much choice here and have to work on the Bus every extra minute I have.
I hate this pressure , but I cant afford to have all my work go to shit....

June 27 .... was too tired to do anything on the bus last night ...this morning I wanted to get out there and screw and glue the framing I cut yesterday together ...but its raining pretty hard.
The glue wont stick to the wet wood and just slides off ...so its pointless to even try ....

UPDATE....
The weather was halfway decent when I got home from work ...so I built and attached another frame section......
 

 
June , 30 -July 1  2006
Weather was good so , I Really worked my butt off to get a bunch of framing done this weekend....I got the peaked section of the roof finished . Whoo Hoo !
Still have the front portion of the roof to finish and a few small this and that sections to do.....
What I'm thinking of doing next weekend if the weather is good , is to paint the bus.
 

 
July , 4 2006
Since I'm planning on painting the bus this coming weekend ...if the weathers good ,that is....were rushing around after coming home from work cleaning and prepping the bus for painting...
Here's Millie scrubbing away...

 
July ,11  2006
Got the day off today because my boss knows I need to work as much as possible on the bus and since there weren't any big cruise ships in he took pity on me and let me go.....so I worked my poor old butt off getting plywood up on the bus.
I still need to cover the rear section ...but things are moving along nicely.

 
July , 15-16 2006
Pooped out ...so I'll keep this short .
Before I could cover the plywood sheeting with roofing paper ... I had to screw down the stuff with about 175 screws ....so that meant running inside the bus and taking careful measurements ...then back outside for the screwing process .
So that's what I did yesterday .
After that I headed down to the lumber store and bought a bunch of bus related stuff.
Today , Sunday that is.... I covered up the plywood with the roofing paper.
Whew ... I'm glad this part of the project is over....
Here's a few pics
 

 
July , 23 2006
Nasty Rain storm this week so I had only a few hours clear enough to work on the Bus....
All I was able to get done is install the 1x4 cedar molding on one side of the bus ....

 
July , 29-30 2006
Its one of those landmark days in a project like this ....I finally got all the cedar 1x4 molding up and primed.
Holy Moly I'm glad this part is done ...and man am I pooped.
I used an oil based primer for the cedar because the guy at the paint store said this is really important if you want the finished paint coat to stay looking good.
It seems Cedar will leech out oils and such and make the paint look mostly crappy without primer ...glad he told me this....

 
Aug , 5-6 2006
O my god it poured down rain yesterday ...Big-time rain ! ...drove me crazy looking out the window realizing I might not get to work on the Bus this weekend...
But it cleared up a bit today (only rained on and off that is ) so I busted butt to get the siding on and primed....
Here's a few pics.

 
Oct. 8  2006
Got a number of emails asking me if I quit on our Bus project....No, I haven't quit.
I've been very busy getting our new site up and working with Solar distributors ....so haven't had much time for anything else.
For anyone who's been entering through this page ...check out our new Business ...
Click-Here
 
Once things settle down for me a bit , I'll get back to work on the bus.

 
Oct.  27-28 2006
 The weather was Cold but nice so I got the roof Shingled.
It's not a 'perfect ' job of shingling , some of the rows are a bit off. But I'm happy as long as it keeps the rain out.
Tomorrow if the weather stays nice and it warms up a bit , I'll treat the singles and do a bit of sealing and caulking....

 
Oct. 30 2006
 It rained cats & dogs today and I got completely soaked ...even so, I did get a good start on the shingling on our bus....
Looks pretty good I have to say....
Here's a tip on Shingling I learned , the first row (bottom) needs to be a double layer of shingles so that the seams on the first layer are overlapped by the second layer.

 
Oct. 31-Nov.1 2006
It's been raining very hard yesterday and today ...so I didn't get as far as I wanted to.
But I did finish up the front section and get a good start on the other side

 
Nov. 4-5 2006
 Got the Flu or something  ...so I spent part of the day in bed yesterday trying to sleep it off  .Then got up and built the over-hang for our back porch. The weather is clear but pretty cold so I had to use Millie's Hair dryer to dry the paint a bit on the overhang.
Still feeling mighty Yucky ...but got out there anyways and did some work on the bus.

 
Special Note
 We get lots of emails asking us where we get the various RV parts & appliances we use in our Bus Conversions....so here's our Page on that....

 
Nov. 9 2006
 I still have some shingling to do , but were having a big storm go through with wind gusts of up to 60 mph.,and that's way too windy to be standing on a ladder .
But , to keep things moving forward ...I got out there and started the process of pulling off all the exterior stuff on the back of the bus in preparation for cutting it up.
An interesting and somewhat painful series of events developed when I ground off the last bolt holding up the last wooden panel ....
Things had been going along pretty smoothly , then....Just as the grinder cut through the bolt....the red hot bolt head flew off the panel and landed on my neck , where it gave me a good burn then it proceeded to roll down the inside of my t-shirt...
Felt like I was in some old cartoon ...I was leaping about trying to get the hot bolt head out of my shirt ,all the while holding my grinder ...which was of course running....
Then to make this experience even more fun...Somehow in all my leaping about I ran one of my fingers into the running grinder ...
Cut right through my glove into my finger.....

  There's still a lot more to do before I can start cutting up the bus. I have to get up on the roof and take the vent ,skylight ,Sat.TV and regular TV antennas down...pull the water heater and exterior shower....etc. etc.
Then the really hard part happens....and that's figuring out where am I going to store all the stuff that I've been keeping in the bus.

 
Nov. 11 2006
Yesterday , I had some business stuff to take care of and when that was done headed down and bought a bunch of Sawzall blades and such for cutting up the bus.
I'm looking forward to getting this out of the way , but I'm going through my usual Fear & Loathing of using the Sawzall and my framing saw to cut through the layers of steel . I really hate this sort of thing because its Bloody dangerous work. All sorts of nasty stuff can happen no matter how careful you are .
I will 'Cowboy Up' and get the job done , like I always do ....but O how I hate this.
Anyone watching this project and thinking of doing something like this needs realize that you cant be a Cavalier macho jerk about this sort of thing ..those are the guys who wind up in the emergency room or worse . You have to be extremely watchful of what you're doing all the time. If you get tired stop immediately , take a break or quit for the day. Accidents happen when you get tired and still try to work . This is a Fact I'm fully experienced in .... since I always do projects of this type with the appropriate level of mortified watchfulness going on , luckily I haven't had any major injuries , but I have received some very nasty Boo-Boos when I continued to work even though I was tired and knew it was time to quit.

Here's a tip.... If you want to turn a Bus or truck into a Hauler like I'm doing or a flatbed to carry stuff.....don't cut it up into pieces. The only reason I'm doing this is because I don't have any realistic option to do otherwise. The Smart way to go about this is make one cut all around the section you want to get rid of (top, walls & floor)...drive it to a salvage yard where they have a crane or BIG forklift ...get underneath and cut the bolts that hold the body to the frame . Then have them lift the body off the frame.
This is the way I would go about this if I could. But before I would let anyone lift that body off the bus , I would make damn sure they knew what they were doing. Don't let anyone tell you their small crane or forklift should be able to handle the load ...because if they're wrong and drop the Buses body onto the Frame or the rear axle and wheels you're most likely going to have some serious problems.

 
Nov. 24 2006
I haven't quit on the bus project ...just waiting for the weather to get better
We've been getting an unusual amount of snow piling up over the past week ....and now the temps are below freezing.
I cant realistically finish up the shingling until the temps get up above freezing because the shingles were wet when I bought them ....and now they're frozen ,which would mean they would crack apart if I tried to nail them up.
Like I mentioned previously Shingles are not cheap here in Sitka , so I don't want to throw away money by trying to install them in these conditions ....plus I don't want to have to redo sections later , which would be very likely if I installed frozen shingles on our bus.

While waiting for the weather to get better , I've been doing some thinking about our trailer project . After crunching the numbers a bit , I've decided to build the trailer frame here in Sitka . So I called up Metal Supermarkets down in Seattle and ordered the steel cross members that we'll need to finish up the center section of the trailer frame. Cost us around $1200.00 plus the shipping on the barge up here.
We are going deeper in debt here , which I don't suggest anyone else doing ...but I just don't know any other way for us to build our trailer.
I guess I look at this with the realization that we'll probably spend the rest of our lives paying off our debt , but at least we'll be living in a beautiful Rolling Home while doing that , instead of being stuck in some apartment .
When the sections get here I'll store them away and order more steel for the rear and front frame sections etc. etc.

Not quite sure yet ,I want to build the entire trailer here .... Millie thinks we should because she gets a bigger paycheck as a manager of a store here than she could expect if we moved south. But she really doesn't 'Get' how much a project of this scope costs .
Don't think I want to enlighten her on this either....
This is nothing like buying some School bus down south for $500.00-$1000.00 and doing a somewhat decent job of converting it over to a Rolling Home.
Building a decent sized 5th wheel trailer from scratch and doing the job right instead of chucking in a bunch of cheap appliances ,axles and such costs a small fortune.
Anyone thinking of doing something like this better have a good chunk of cash in their savings account before getting into something like this.
Although I know in the end we'll have a Trailer that will be Head & Shoulders better and of course more pretty than any manufactured trailer on the market... it will be a very expensive project to complete.
I'm figuring just the Frame part of the project is going to cost around $16,000.00 ( over $8000.00 of that figure is what we've already spent for the Axles, wheels , tires , TrailAir Pin box , front landing gear jacks and all the other stuff we'll need)

 
Dec. 24 2006
Being winter and all that ... I'm not working on the bus much till the weather gets better.
One thing I do want to get done before too long is get the exterior shingling finished . That needs to get done before I work on the interior because I'll need to bend down all the nail points before I can insulate and panel the inside.
I've been working on some ideas on how I'll lay out the storage cabinets and counters in the bus ...and would love to get a start on that before winters over...

I'm really happy our steel finally got here yesterday ...
I now have all the pieces necessary to build the center 20 foot section of our trailer

 
Feb. 21 2007
 Still waiting for winter to get over so I can get back to work on the bus...it looked like spring was coming along ,but we just got some more snow.....
But I have been busy working on our web business and small projects for the bus and such.
Plus I got back into making Beer & wine again this winter which has been fun.

Trailer Project Update
A few days ago I ordered all the steel for building the front part of our trailer frame ...which cost quite a chunk of change ($2500.00 plus shipping)
Yesterday I headed out to the Welders Shop ,with my plans and asked him to give me a quote on what the center 20 foot section of the frame will cost to put together....he said he'll get back to me later this week with the price quote.
If its not too outrageous, we'll have him put that section together and attach the axles ,wheels and such and then store that section away till we can afford to have the front section welded together and attach that to the center section.
 I'd prefer doing it all at once , but realistically cant afford that....
I did ask him how hard it would be to weld the front section onto the section already on wheels and he told me they could do that with no problems. If he was just some part-time welder I wouldn't believe him , but he has a big shop where they work on huge rigs for the State and he has a great reputation here...so I think they should be able to match everything up right.
Matching things up is very important for numerous reasons....I want it to tow right ,plus we have to be careful because I went for the maximum legal 102" width axles , so I cant  have the frame going over that width.     

This is pretty exciting .... I'm really looking forward to getting the frame project started ....
 

 
Feb. 28 2007
Trailer Project Update
Hit another snag in our Trailer Project ...I called the welder up and asked him did he have my quote ready and could we start welding up the frame...he was a bit cranky about it and told me call back in another 1-1/2--2 weeks and he "might" have an answer for me.
This freakin town drives me crazy ... I sat with this guy for over an hour (which I'll have to pay for ) and he told me ...no problem, we can start welding up your frame around the 1st or 2nd week of March .
Then he told me since all my steel pieces were pre-cut (sized) it would only take him about an hour to figure out how much this would cost me....and to call back last Monday.

I really wish I could figure out another option here...there are 2 other welders with big enough shops to build a frame this size .....but one is famous for charging 3-4 times the going rate and the other famous for having his welds break.
This really sucks....
Were moving into Spring which is the big-time welding season around here, and all the local welders are very busy ...which means I probably wont find one willing to take on the frame project.....

Yesterday UPS delivered some more frame parts I ordered.
The motor for the trailers front landing gear jacks , the rear stabilizing jacks & skid wheels and our trailers retractable steps.

 
Mar.8 , 2007
The steel I ordered for the front section of our trailer got here yesterday ...this coming Monday I'll call up the welder again and see if he's willing to start the project .

 
Mar.18, 2007
This is the strangest March I've seen since we moved here from Homer.....it's been snowing every day for weeks .And actually broke all records for snow at this time of year.
Very bizarre for sure....
Here's a few pics of some poor dimwitted and hungry seagull that came around yesterday hoping to find something to eat.....

 
April 6 2007
Trailer & Bus Project Update
I called the welder up again yesterday and am still getting the run around , he told me he had to let go his primary welding guy and was trying to get in touch with another welder he could call in for our frame project....turns out he doesn't even know the new welders phone number...which is a bad sign.
So in my most diplomatic way , I asked him does this mean you'd rather not do this . He said nope we'll get it done.
I told him that's great to hear and asked him how much is this going to cost us ...he replied don't know yet.
Which is another Bad sign because he's had a month and a half to figure that out.
I don't know what the hell were going to do about this....it's a damn nightmare for sure.
This kind of bullshit is all part of living on a small isolated island ,and after awhile you get used to this garbage....but even so, it still sucks you have to put up with stuff like this. What sucks even more is you cant afford to burn your bridges and tell someone rightfully off for this kind of behavior when you live on an island .

I'm still waiting for the weather to reach a point where I feel it's good enough to work on the bus.

 
April 10, 2007
I find I can be a bit superstitious on occasion , which is a strange state for a person like me who loves efficiency and realism ...so I'm hesitant to say anything about this till the deal is done.
But I'm excited about this so I cant help myself.....
Last Thursday , I walked out to our local building supplies store to do a bit of window shopping and on the way back home noticed in the lot of one of our auto mechanic businesses a 5th wheeled travel trailer . Since they sell used cars , I figured what the hell, maybe they were selling the trailer too and walked in to find out what the price was.
Turned out it was on consignment and they wanted $3000.00 for it.
So today I went there and put a down payment on it.....wish I could have just bought it outright , but because the owner of the trailer has to make the final payment on the thing I have to wait a week or so to finalize the deal.
I'm not nuts about doing things this way , because you never know what the deal is and if you can trust the seller.... especially in places like Sitka where people think what's the big deal if the titles no good , just park it and don't take it anywhere....which by the way is exactly what the car dealer told me.
For people like me , that's the last thing you want to hear... So this is a bit spooky ....

Why am I buying a 5th wheel travel trailer when I have mostly all of the parts to build one myself ?.... I'm doing this for a number of reasons.
Most importantly , I need a place to store all the things I have in the back section of our bus so I can whack off the back and finish this project up. Primarily ,other than the miserable weather this is the reason its taking me so long to finish up the bus project ...we have a lot of very expensive stuff stored in the bus that we need to protect.
Even so ,I really need to get the bus finished , it doesn't look nice as is and I'm pressing my luck with the neighbors , the City and our landlord .
 I cant put the stuff outside and cover it up with a tarp because of the weather here . Nor do I like the idea of renting storage , because it costs a fortune to do that here on the island
Crunching the numbers , if I was to rent storage space ..we'd easily pay around $1200.00-1500.00 per year .
So for $3000.00 I get something that we own and has plenty of room to safely store and move our stuff.

Second.....honestly I don't think the welder will ever get off his ass and start on the frame anytime soon . This has gotten silly & very aggravating .
 I called the guy up again and not only did he tell me that things were still up in the air , he told me he hasn't in over a month been able to contact the guy he wants to hire as his new welder . Which is about as absurd as you can get when you live on an island where its easy to track anyone down in a few hours.
What I think is going on here is this Welder figures on waiting till next winter ,when things aren't busy to weld up our frame ...and feels the best way to keep me as a customer till then is to continuously tell me call again next week. 
 I'm sick of this very prevalent 'Alaskan' attitude where lots of people here think its fine to tell you they're going to get right on it ...and then string you along for months ,all the while acting like this is normal good Business practices and if you complain they treat you like you're the weird one for expecting someone to live up to their promises .
We've seen a lot of this bullshit  here and in other places around Alaska and I hate it....its very disrespectful to think someone else's time and needs means so little its ok to treat them like this .
If this guy was just honest about things and said I want your Business ,but I cant do this for some time...it wouldn't bother me at all. Actually I don't care if we had to wait until next winter to do the frame ... I have plenty of other things that need to get done before we could start on our trailer . Its this lying bullshit I cant stand. When people do this ,you cant even trust them in a future sense to do the project all.

So to keep myself from axe murdering anyone , what I'm going to try to do here is find someone else who I pray will do a good job and have them just weld up the center 20 foot section of the trailer frame , put on the axles ,wheels etc ....and rig that section up with a simple ball hitch setup instead of a 5th wheel one .
Then I'll build a simple wooden storage 'House' on that which will make it great for storing and transporting the rest of the steel for our frame and other things .
When we get to a civilized place ....we'll unbolt the box , jack it off the frame and have a welder finish the frame up.

Third.... the 5th wheel travel trailer is an older model ,but its in pretty good shape ... when I looked inside it didn't show evidence of leaking and water damage ..... which is highly unusual for trailers that people sell here.
So if this works out well (knock on wood) we'll have something to live in down South while building our Super-Dooper  Energy efficient 5th Wheel trailer.
An added benefit is the people who own this trailer installed a new retractable awning ...which we can pull off and install on our trailer . This will easily save us around $2000.00 ...and ...
Its got a working slide-out ,  I could use on our homemade trailer ...once again saving us a ton of money....

I really hopes this works out for us and were not getting screwed here . I need something good and positive to happen .

 
April 11, 2007
 I'm going to be 48 in a few days and have been doing some thinking about my age and my illness which makes me pretty much tired all the time ....so I've been thinking of ways to make my life a bit easier ...
And also trying to figure out what I need to do to make our Bus project move along in a quicker manner.
Looking back at our conversion process it hit me how much time I was spending walking all the way out to the Building supply store for a drill bit or extra sawzall blades ...and often finding they were out of what I needed , which meant I had to walk all the back and head out to another store.
So by the time I got back home ... I was too tired to do much more on the bus.

To deal with this problem , today I ordered an QElectric Scooter .



It cost around $1000.00 with the shipping up here , which all things considered is a pretty good deal for transportation . Especially taking into account the fact that Scooters in this class are considered Electric Bicycles and don't need to be licensed ,registered or insured.
Then since it's an All-Electric mode of transportation , I feel really good about this from an environmental sense .  
A few people here in Sitka own one of these nifty electric Scooters .After talking to them and finding out they're all very happy with them ... I decided to go with this brand.
It's not the best Scooter of this type ,nor is it the worst ...its what I would call middle of the road quality.
That's all I really need here , I don't need an expensive scooter ... I just need dependable transportation for trips out to the building supply store and to whip around town on.
They're actually pretty nice units all things considered and it's not hard to get replacement parts for them if you need them. Which means I'll be able to keep it running which is an important factor when it comes to choosing and buying any electric scooter.

One of our local stores sells these Scooters ..but was out of stock ...so I just ordered ours from an online source. The store because of size constraints is considering getting out of the Scooter business ... so I'm thinking of selling them here in town and online.
I love Electric vehicles , wish there was an efficient way to switch our bus over to an electric engine ...
What we'll do with our scooter in a future traveling sense that is ...is winch it up on the back platform on our bus to carry it around and rig up a nice 48 volt solar charging system for it.
Here's a few links to a very cool solar charging system some smart guy rigged up for his electric scooter .....  we'll just attach our 48 volt mini-solar panel charging system to our Bus and plug the scooter into it to charge it up...
Download  Plans - Part 1 (2.5MB pdf file)
Download  Plans - Part 2 (3.8MB pdf file)

 
April .18, 2007
 I'm happy to say things worked out fine and we're now the titled & registered owners of a 31 foot King of the Road 5th wheel....
Now I have to figure out where we'll store it....

 
May 17, 2007
 Been Super busy , getting up at 1:30 in the morning everyday and working on our Internet business ...then heading off to my job back at the tourist shop.
Last Saturday I was able to get our 5th wheel trailer into storage ,which is a big burden off me . When I get a day off during a weekday , I'll try to rent a rig and move all the stuff we have stored in the back of our bus into the trailer... then I want to get busy chopping the back off.....
It's going to be some time till I get a day off ....even so I'm really looking forward to getting back to work on our Bus.
By the way.... my Scooters wonderful. It really has made a nice improvement in my life.

 
Aug. 14, 2007
 The Party's Over...
After crunching the numbers and receiving a letter from my landlord saying I need to get the Bus out of our yard before October ...we've decided to get rid of our Bus.
It's a bit of a heart break and I hate to do this , but we cant afford to pay someone to store the bus in a place where they would let me work on it.
The situation here , like most anywhere else ..is people get spooked for insurance reasons ,and don't like the idea of others working on stuff on their property.
And there's just No way to get my project finished before October...So....that's it.
What I've been trying to do for a week now is find someone to give the bus to , because if I don't find someone here willing to take her ...we'll have to pay the City of Sitka approx $1000.00 to dispose of it.
That would really be painful after all the time and money we've put into this project.....

What we'll do is eventually buy another rig down in Oregon to tow our homemade trailer, which is still in the works.
As I mentioned previously I've been pulling the stuff out of our bus we want to keep for the trailer project and storing it in the old 5th wheel trailer we bought and we'll ship that down South on a barge.
That's going to cost us around $3000.00....
Then since the 5th wheel wont carry the weight of the Steel ,axles ,wheels etc.. we bought for the trailer project and our furnishings and the like we'll have to ship that separately .costing another $1100.00
It's going to be very expensive for us to move off this Island ...even so ....
It's going to be really nice to move somewhere where things don't cost so much and where we have more options.....