One piece at a time.

Just in time for winter.

Well a few weeks ago my Dad and I finished the rear window in the camper and man dose it make a difference. There is so much light coming inside now. I remember when I first got it it only had two small windows on the sides. Now it has two very large windows one in the front and one in the back and also a good sized skylight as well.

The back window was a bit more tricky then the front in some ways. It was also a lot easier over all due to the fact that it was something we had done before. Hence it only two about 3 days to do where as the first one took over two weeks. The only part that was harder is that this window is at a angle and the front window is straight up and down. So we found out that everything we had to do was at at 78 degree angle. We made it work.

So now next up will be to redo the back wall in the camper. It has no insulation and there is a bit of wood that needs to be replaced. This will be a good project over Kawasaki's winter shut down. Best of all I will get to work inside the camper away from the frigged elements.

As a side note to any Metroid fans out there. I just started playing the original NES version a few days ago. I gotta say this is a great game once you get into it. I have tried many times in the past and given up due to how hard it is and the lack of any kind of map. Thanks to my recent purchase of a Nintendo Wii I am able to try again. I am already over half way though the game. It really gets great once you get a few power ups and are not dying all the time, then you really get to enjoy this game and see how solid it is. Also it helps you realize how much more awesome the SNES version is and where a lot of its style came from.

A very merry Christmas to anyone who is reading.

All's well that Windows.

Two weeks later. The window is in.

A project that started two weeks ago is finally finished. I wanted to get a window in the front of the camper, one because it look horrible with an old house AC unit hanging out the front and two because I want to do all the outside work before winter. It started out looking not too hard just tearing away the old AC and metal shims that the previous owner had installed and put 2lbs of caulking around. However it branched out into at least 3 or 4 other side projects.

After opening the window and finding rotted wood and also a rotted counter top I tore out most of everything that was there. My dad and I then built a new frame for the opening and also then had to build a new support structure for the new counter top. We visited a few window places with very little success, it turns out no one has windows 2 inches thick, and if they can get them it will cost around $200.

So we decided to visit our local Ace Hardware (Havelock). It was the first place we went where we were told "oh yeah no problem". Woo! The head honcho there, Dave, who is also good friends with a long time loyal customer my dad was more then happy to help. He also let us bring the camper to his own garage and use a tool called a Break. He also hooked us up with some free aluminum sheets to make our window pieces from. Thanks Dave! My dad and I both learned quite a bit about how to use a break which was great. We can even go back later to get more for the back window.

After getting the window skirts I got distracted by another project, scraping and re sealing the roof. Also I put in a really awesome skylight where there once was a defunct vent that would not open. We then got to work on building our window. We installed the window skirts we had just made got some plastic wood trim to build a interior frame\stop for our glass. Put in our piece of glass and then built and installed another frame\stop for the outside of the glass. While making sure to use silicon to water proof the whole thing.

After all is said and done we now have a really well built waterproof large window in the front of the camper. It feels great to walk by and see it now with all its window glory. We also have in a new counter top, fridge (from a break room in a going out of business beauty salon), skylight and a sealed up weather proof roof. None of which I could not have done with out lots of help from my Dad the support of my Mom and our local Ace Hardware.

Now its off to start on the rear window which currently sits boarded up and very ugly. We will fix all that though.

Its Electric!

I have been waiting for some new capacitors to come in from China. On Tuesday I got a note in my mailbox saying they are ready for me to pick up from the post office! I went there promptly after work on Wednesday only realizing too late that they were not open. However it was a good day to be a Veteran, I work with a few people who have served and they were happy for the "Happy Veterans Day" that I gave them. I just wish I had put two and two together better and realized I would not be able to get my long awaited parts.

However I did get them today and got to try something that I have wanted to try since many weeks ago when I burned out my last capacitors. Electric food. I had put an apple on there a while ago with great results. I did want to try anything else food, fruit or vegetable related that I could. And with out further ado here is what I ended up with.

I took all of these pictures on a 4 second exposure time to get the best shot. It looks even cooler in person. You might have noticed that anything too small cant absorb all of the electricity and it comes out all over the top of the coil. Also some things I tried were much too big and just held in all the current. Either way there is a fine balance and once you find something that works really well, its spectacular. The pictures are cool, but if you want to see the real thing just ask and I will be more then happy to show it off.

Make sure to click on the pictures, its well worth it.

Sunday the first post.

Hello Hi, and thanks for reading?

Its Sunday morning of my first post. What a great day it is too for starting a blog. Well down to business. A few weeks ago my dad and I drove to Columbia MO to buy a 1976 NuWa camper that I had found on craigslist. Its a ten foot hard sided non pop up pull camper, which it turns out are really hard to find. I had spent over a month looking for these and to my surprise found it very difficult. I even talked to a few dealers here in town and I guess these types are not widely made anymore. Its mostly all 14' or much longer now.

I was planing to make the trip myself in my Subaru, however I ended up not being able to find a trailer wire harness in time. So my Dad lent my his van under the conditions that he come along as well. Which turned out to make it into one really good road trip. After getting there and dealing with the very interesting man who was selling this camper for a friend and getting a title with white out over key parts we hooked it up and left. It pulled very well given its very iffy origins. We managed to make it home around 8pm completing our trip in about 13 hours.

Since then things have been going even better. My mom has helped me along with advise from her boss figure out what to do with the title. My moms boss has also been gracious to provide us with a parking area for it when its not being worked on. And most of all my parents have been very helpful with the whole ordeal allowing me to park it at their house and work on it there, even know its currently a bit of an eye sore. My dad has also been incredibly helpful with the remodeling. So a very big thank you to all the help I have had so far.

I have started by removing a storage cabinet inside the door and also a closet so to give me more room for extending the bench seats, which in turn will also widen the bed by about 2 feet. There is a "bathroom" (closet with a portapotty in it) next to the closet which I will be turning into storage, since neither Tyne or I like the idea of going to the bathroom in the same 10' by 7' box as we do our cooking eating and sleeping. I have also re done all of the interior wiring, what was there was very poorly done and quite possibly a good chance of being a fire hazard. Most recently I have removed the window AC that plugged up the front window. I had been boarded up around the ac as well, which looked terrible. My dad and I built a new window frame and installed it just a day or two ago, and it went much better then expected. I have also had to remove the "counter top" which was watter logged and rotting near the back. Tyne and I have picked out a nice new actual counter top which will be installed later this week.

So all in all this project is going oh so very well. I had my doubts in starting but I just kept up with my original idea and got past any fears and now its very much worth it. So again a big Thank you to everyone who has helped so far and who will be helping throughout. Its all gunna be great.