U.S Feb 2020

Got two new tenants in our first and second homes in the States. Short quick cleanups, repairs, light renovations, etc etc. Misc unsorted pics below. Not even a fraction of what went on is shown...these are just misc shots. More to come after I get a hold of Jana's phone.

Boat Van: the roofening 6

Misc unsorted pics. Cutting down the old roof panel into usable pieces to plug the holes that remain in the roof-addition from the old side door and rear doors.

Test-fit panel is not attached yet. Still deciding on how much metal folding I'm going to do in the absence of a folding brake. I could use contacts at work to custom fabricate some really sweet panels with elaborate folds...but I'm cheap.

Test panel above the door. Held on with a clamp from the interior by the folded edge. I think I'll end up folding the left and right sides to create exposed seams like the van's original vertical joinery, rather than pop rivet the patch panel to the outer edge.

Bad kitty!!

The land of wealthy yobbos.

https://newclimate.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/CCPI-2020-Results_Web_Version.pdf

Page 17. Good job Australia, you're measurably the worst. 'Gratz everyone who keeps voting Liberal (not to be confused with the literal meaning of liberals used elsewhere...The liberals in Australia are hard-right) because [money excuses here].

The rankings do not continue to the next page. That's it. Australia is the worst. Again.

Australia is the ONLY country in the overall-performance-indicator chart to have NO VISIBLE POLICY metric showing (Page 9). Tony Abbott (Liberal party) scrapped the Climate Commission in 2017.

"...Experts note that the new government is an increasingly regressive force in negotiations..."

"...the newly elected government has continued to worsen performance at both national and international levels..."

While the U.S is doing everything in its power to be as bad or worse, I feel it needs a minor exemption these last few years due to the absolute quantifiable insanity of the Trump factor.

"...with the U.S acting as a destructive player in international negotiations at all levels..."
The behaviour of both countries is exactly the kind of thing that irrational anti immigrant bigots, and objective observers would expect to see out of China or North Korea. When both extremes perceive the same disgust...one has to be embarrassed.

Boat Van: the roofening 5

I finished the basic mechanical fastening of the roof conversion today. This has been an absolute monster truck of a job.

Yet to complete is the filling of the cavities above the side door, rear doors, then final trim sealing via caulking, automotive filler and finally paint. Given how far I've gone with my deep dive into auto body mods...these are minor tasks, though certainly not fast jobs.

Today I sealed and riveted the top-rear and top-front panels and completed the rib-joinery. 204 rivets total for the job. 75mm (3 inch) or 150mm spacing depending on the location. Each hole was de-burred on both sides of all panels to ensure a flush mating and maximum rivet crimp. This means every hole was visited six times or MORE. Drill (1 step), deburr both sides of two or more panels (4+ steps), rivet (1 step). A far cry from the way you'd slap together a tin shed that's for sure.

The sound paneling I mentioned yesterday was absolutely horrible to remove. Just horrible horrible, time consuming messy horrible. Yuck.

I had a bit of a Silastic smear fiasco across the front of the van when trying to install the front-mid roof. This was expected and unfortunately unavoidable while working solo. A big cleanup job is required later with an orbital sander when I get to the trim-work and final cleanup stage in the future.

Man I'm tired.

Horrible muck

Silastic brand ultra goop across the top where I'm about to seal. The two rows are the edges of the overlap.

Quickly locating a selection of holes with up-popped rivets to align everything before I commit.

Images of the internal rib joinery are shown in yesterday's pictures.

Misc tools of the trade. Minus 4 donuts.

The ratchet strap held the roof while I retracted the forklift tynes.

Lots of drilling.

Moar drilling.

The edge of the roof is propped up with a plank so I can get the fork tynes in and remove the roof to clean it up before final assembly.

Difficult to see in the photo, but I smeared silastic all over the place when getting this panel in place. What a mess. Cleanup with rnd orbital later.

Looks primo from a distance anyway.

I guess I'll work on filling these two holes next.

...just cruisin' around the warehouse. (I backed up to the air compressor hose to blow out infinite swarf from the floor).