The Ratrace Losers

The Asshat Files: Craigslist Edition

2013-06-16T00:10:00.000-04:00

Profile of an Asshat: Torrey Conn

A few days before the city of Hamilton was scheduled to tow the Motorless ( and now Homeless ) Home, I decided that I'd give it one more chance on Craigslist. On the 9th of June, I posted the following:

CURB ALERT! FREE 1985 37' Georgie Boy Encounter Motorhome (Hamilton, Ohio)

1985 Georgie Boy Motorhome $FREE! REQUIRES TOW TRUCK. WILL NOT MOVE ON ITS OWN
-------------------------------------
I need this thing gone ! City demands that it must go!!! They are towing it wednesday night. If you dont come get it, they will!

NOTE: The first picture is NOT how it looks now! This is how it looked the day I bought it. The rest of the pictures are current. The first pic is the only one I have of the whole thing right now.

Description:
----------------
"Curb" Alert!

MUST GO NOW NOW NOW NOW NOW. Bring a BIG tow truck. I have the title already notarized and will give it to whomever shows up first and tows it away. It MUST BE GONE BEFORE WEDNESDAY, JUNE 12. Otherwise the City of Hamilton will be taking it.

I bought this motorhome in early 2012. While driving it home (200 miles) the engine blew. I had it towed home, planning to replace the engine. It has sat too long and the City is forcing me to get rid of it. So, I pulled all the easy to get to stuff that worked out of it and am ready to scrap the rest. It is water-tight, but that's about it. All the appliances and electricals have been removed.

You could tow it onto your land and use it as a man-cave or a hunting lodge. Or you could scrap it. There is still quite a bit of good copper and aluminum in there, as well as all the steel. It has wheels and tires on it and it does roll. All the tires are inflated, but it is missing one of the duallys on the passenger side. It should be just fine for towing.

There is also some demolition debris inside. You have to take it. All of it.

When you get this motorhome, you WILL NEED TO HAVE IT TOWED. It does not run under its own power, at all.

The first one to show up at my address with a tow truck to haul it gets it. I work during the day, so the earliest I can be there is about 5PM in the evenings.

Location: Hamilton, Ohio
it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests

I got no nibbles. Nothing. Until the 12th. The day that I was told that the city was coming. A lady (Torrey Conn) contacted me about the posting:

hey there.

my husband and I saw your ad on craigslist about the motor home. We'd like to come get it, but wanted to make sure you still had it before we drove all the way up there and got a tow truck set up to tow it. if you could give us a call back at 513-707-8262 that's our cell (you can text us too), or call us at the house at 513-752-3162. ask for torrey or jami. Thanks! hope you still have it!

I called her and spoke to her about the RV. I told her all about it, and that it had to be towed. I warned her that it would likely be rather expensive to tow. I also advised her that the city was supposed to come tow it sometime that day and that if they were interested, they needed to act fast. She told me that she was going to call a few tow companies to see what the rates were.

I asked her to call me back regardless of her choice to let me know, so that I 'd know how to proceed.

She never called, and never showed. So I sent her the following email:

Torrey,

I wanted to send you a quick note to let you know two things:

1) The motorhome is now gone.

2) You are a crappy Craigslist Person.

Item #1 needs no explanation. However, let me go into a little more detail about item #2:

Craigslist is a free service. I post an ad for free, and you can respond to my ad for free. In this particular case, even the item being posted was free. However, my time is valuable.

It seems that most people think that they can treat people that they meet on Craigslist like crap; they make agreements and then fail to see them through. Worse yet, they don't even pay those people the common courtesy of an email or a phone call to let them know that they have changed their minds. Didn't your parents teach you about a concept called "common courtesy?" What makes you think that I like sitting there by my phone

When we spoke on the phone yesterday, I honestly figured that you'd decide that you didn't want to come get the motorhome. Those things are very expensive to tow. I know. See my blog post about the whole ordeal.

When you told me that you were going to research the towing cost, I even warned you of the possible costs, yet you said that you were going to look into it and call me back. I even asked that you call me back to let me know either way whether you were going to come or not. You agreed to that.

You didn't call me back. So, around 4PM, I called to let you know that the city was coming to get it and that I might be able to hold them off if you wanted it. I again asked you to call me to let me know. You still never called back.

Shame on you. Thankfully, I had other things to do with my time, so it wasn't a complete waste. However, you didn't know that. For all you knew, I was sitting there, waiting by the phone for a callback.

You should be ashamed of yourself. I have decided to feature you on my blog in a section called: The Asshat Files.

Maybe someone out there some day is trying to decide whether to give you that great job or the important promotion and they go out looking for information about your morals and character on the Internet. Maybe, just maybe, they will find this note, forever immortalized on the Internet, and make a judgement call based on what they find.

Karma. You should always ask yourself, "How could my treatment of this person now come back later to haunt me?"

Well, now you know.

Torrey, all you had to do was the common courtesy of a quick phone call. I called you twice more that day when you did not call me back. I even asked you in a voicemail to please call me. Yet you still ignored my simple request. You are an example of how our society is crumbling, and simple things like courtesy are fast becoming a thing of the past.

You, Torrey Conn, are an Asshat.

The Long Goodbye, Part 3

2013-06-14T12:19:00.003-04:00

Motorless and Homeless

The City of Hamilton came and towed away the Motorless Home.

Thankfully, over the last few days, I've been able to harvest all the remaining "good stuff" out of it that I care to get. There's still quite a bit of usable scrap materials in it, and if someone wanted to work on it hard enough, I suppose they could wind up reviving it. Most likely it will be torn down for the valuable metals contained within. Aluminum, copper and steel.

The Past Few Days

The original deal with the city was that I had until the 12th to remove the Motorless Home or the city would come and tow it away. So, once Linda and I had accepted that fate, I went ahead and posted it on Craigslist as a curb alert.

I posted it on the 9th of June, and got absolutely zero hits. Until the 12th. The day the city was supposed to come. There's a long story that goes with that and I won't go into it here. Let's just say that once again, I was shown that on average, Craigslist respondents are unreliable.

Since they never showed, I called Ms. Hogg at the Hamilton Health Department and explained that I was ready to have it put on the "tow list" for the 13th. She suggested that I contact the towing company to see if they would take it for scrap since I was not planning to contest the removal, and was willing to surrender the title. She told me that the two companies that the City contracts with for vehicle towing were Day's Towing and Wright's Towing. I put in a call to Day's.

I was transferred to a man named Mike who told me that he would come out and take a look at it and then let me know if he wanted it. Since I had a bunch of brush to cut to make it possible to remove the motorhome, I spent the entire evening out near the garage, only feet from the Motorless Home. I can say, without a doubt, that the guy never, ever, showed up. He never called me to tell me that he wasn't coming. This seems to be a theme with people lately. People are completely devoid of common courtesy these days!

It's clear that the guy didn't want it. Motorhomes are a real, nasty pain in the ass to scrap. They basically have to strip them down to the chassis before anyone will take them. So, I knew he had done the math and realized that there probably was no profit in it for him.

Honestly, that's just fine. I would only ask that you please do me the common courtesy to call me and say "Sir, I've decided that I don't need to come out. I've decided that I don't want it." Since this guy neither called nor showed up, I was a little miffed. I told Linda that I hoped that this place was the one that the city called to come get it. I thought a little karma for being an asshat would be nice.

Had the guy called me, I would have moved on to calling Wright's. But since he left me hanging, I only made contact with one service.

The Cops

When I got home from work today, I went out to keep working on some projects in the garage. After a little while, I hear the gravel in the alley making a slow gentle crunching sound as a car slowly crept down its length. I looked up and saw a police cruiser stop behind the Motorless home. The officer got out, and before he could go into his official "cop" routine, I explained that I was expecting him and that I was ready for them to come get the motorhome.

He rather apologetically told me that he would have to cite me for having a junk vehicle on private property. I was not expecting the citation, but I was not really all that surprised, either. In order for the city to confiscate my property, I have to be accused of some crime. In my case, it's for violating Hamilton City ordinance 1735.91, "Junk Motor Vehicle on Private Property." Wow. So much for the idea of private property.

He told me that he would stay there until the tow truck came and got the motorhome. I informed him that I would be taking pictures for my blog. Then he said something that absolutely
blew

away.

"I'd appreciate it if you didn't use my name or my picture on your blog," he said. "Of course, it's absolutely your right to take those pictures and use my name, but I would just appreciate it if you didn't."

Wow. In addition to showing me some respect, this police officer volunteered that it was my right to use his name and publish his picture. For this reason, I will honor his request, and he will will be forever known as Officer Constitution.

I honestly wish that I could publish Officer Constitution's name. I wish I could stand on the steps of City Hall and give this officer an award for recognizing and upholding my rights. Wow. Fucking Wow.

After we waited for the tow truck for a while, I walked up to Officer Constitution's cruiser and thanked him.

"I just wanted to say thank you for volunteering the information about my rights. So often, we hear of stories of police telling citizens that they do not have the right to photograph a police officer while he is on duty. I already knew my rights, and I never had to say anything -- you volunteered it. Thank you."

"My first responsibility is to the public," he replied. "I believe strongly in the Constitution and that my job is to protect your rights. Heck, I work for you!"

"Regardless, you didn't have to volunteer the information about my rights. I really appreciate it. And, because you were polite in your request, and because you are actively preserving my rights as a U.S. Citizen, I will certainly honor your request."

The Move

After about 20 minutes, I hear the sound of a diesel engine. Figuring that it was the tow company, I got out my camera and started taking pictures.

I was quite pleasantly surprised when I saw that it was Day's Towing that had been called by the city. My wish had come true! So, it seemed that the asshat known as "Mike" was going to have to deal with the disposal of this motorhome anyway.

While I'm not really in favor of revenge, it sure is nice when the universe conspires to deliver some karma.

Thankfully, the driver of the truck was not Mr. Asshat. I didn't want to deal with that confrontation. He proceeded to hook up his chains to the front of the unit and drag it toward the garage until the tail end contacted the fence. He then hooked up a chain to the rear axle to try to pull the tail end away from the fence. He got it to move a little, but the angles were all wrong and he could not get the leverage he wanted.

During this entire process, I stood by and took pictures. I even assisted the tow driver in the removal. At one point, he had me inside in the driver's seat steering. I provided him with some tools that he needed in order to remove it without damaging the fence.

While we were doing this, I couldn't help but chuckle. Ken and I used my Jeep and a tow strap to get this thing in here. We have less experience and far less sophisticated tools, yet we managed to get it into the driveway without any contact with the fence!

When he pulled it forward, the bumper caught on one of the vertical fence poles. The only way to fix that was to either back up or somehow cut or weaken the metal in the bumper. I got out my cutting torch and weakened the metal. I would have just cut it off, but you can't cut stainless steel with a cutting torch. So, I melted enough of the metal for it to drip away and it allowed the bumper to bend instead of ripping up my fence.

What would they have done if I hadn't been there to loan them my tools?

Finally, after much wrangling and cussing, we got the motorhome free and he took off down the alley with it.

The "Other Shoe"

About an hour after the motorhome left, my phone rings. It's Day's Towing. On the other end of the line is Mr. Asshat himself, Mike.

"Are you the owner of the motorhome?" he asked, in a snotty tone.

"Yes. The title is taped inside the door and it's notarized open. You don't have to wait for the impound time. You can just sign it over and do what you want with it."

"There ain't SHIT in here," he said. "There's trash inside, the motor is gone, there's no transmission and all the appliances are gone!"

"Yes," is said pleasantly. "You can do what you want with it. I'm done with it."

"You know what's gonna happen next, right?" he sneered.

I stated the obvious. "Um, you're going to take it apart into a million pieces and scrap it."

"No. I'm going to send you a bill. I have to pay my guys to tear this thing apart and I will have to get a trash container brought over here." He droned on about how he was going to have to pay to scrap it. My eyes glossed over and I started to think about this whole thing.

Before all this crap with the city, I was fixing this motorhome. I had firm plans to purchase an engine in a few months and to remodel the inside to make this into a functional RV. At the very least, I was going to turn it into a trailer and still planned to live in it in Texas. But the city stepped in, waving their ordinances around, depriving me of my right to own property and to keep it on private property. The city is the one who created the need for the expense. I got pissed. I got my ass in the air. I'd had enough.

"Tell ya what." I interrupted. "I'm not paying it. Goodbye." I hung up the phone.

Had this been some other towing company, I would have taken a different approach. Had Mike not stood me up the night before or called me to let me know that he had decided that he didn't want it, I would have been far more courteous to him, and I probably would have tried to work with him to mitigate the cost to scrap it. Hell, I might have even volunteered my labor to come help them tear it down. However, since he was such an asshat by not calling or showing the other day and was a douchebag on the phone, I decided that since his company had chosen to enter into a contract with the City of Hamilton to tow junk vehicles, that he would have to take his lumps.

If you dance with the devil, you sometimes get burned by the hellfires.

The city created this expense by forcing me to get rid of the motorhome in such a short timeframe. Laws are always supposed to be tempered with reason, and the spirit of the law should often be given more weight than the letter of the law. Unfortunately, our society is so ready to cry "foul" when one person has a slightly different outcome with the law than another, that we've made the shift to using the letter of the law, rather than it's spirit.

This is yet another example of how our society is crumbling. Sad. Very sad, indeed.

The Final Chapter

It's finally gone.

Goodbye.

Adiós.

Good Riddance.

Motorless Home, you have been a number of things to me. Among these are a symbol of hope, a symbol of futility. A source of inspiration, a source of depression. A teacher and a patient.

The story of the Motorless Home has been a real emotional and financial roller-coaster for Linda and me. While this adventure represents 18 months of our lives and $5000-$6000 spent (and lost), I am finally at peace. This closes a door, but actually unlocks several others.

I am ready for the next phase of this adventure. Bring it on!

See? This is Why We Can't Have Nice Things!

2013-06-10T16:12:00.000-04:00

Abuse of the Welfare System, an Eyewitness Report

Let me first say that I think that helping someone when they are down is a very, very noble thing. To that end, as a concept, I don't have a problem with the basic premise of Welfare. Any of you that know Linda and I personally will know that we help our friends and family whenever we are able. Sometimes this means letting someone take a free grocery trip through Douglas-Mart, and sometimes that means fixing a car or computer for nothing more than the parts cost.

I get it; I've been there. I've been the guy who needs a little extra food, or needs some help with a project because it's too big for me to handle on my own.

However, let the government take anything and bureaucratize it, and you wind up with our Welfare System. Yay.

My Tax Dollars at Work

So, here I am getting a Big Gulp at my local gas station. I'm third in line waiting to pay for my drink, all the while consuming it. Hell, I figure, if I wait long enough, I'll just refill the dang thing, right? In front of me in line is a younger white woman, maybe in her late twenties. She's waiting to purchase two 40-oz bottles of Colt 45 Malt Liquor. At the head of the line is this much older black lady, stooped over and obviously having a hard time staying upright. She's buying four Monster Energy drinks.

I chuckle to myself about how this seems so incongruous. Then, the younger woman says "Yeah, they're classified as food now. They are no longer a supplement, so you can get them on food stamps."

The guy behind me in line says "What? Monster on food stamps? I'm from Kentucky and you can't get squat like that on food stamps!"

"Yeah," Says the young lady, "they used to be listed as a supplement, but they changed it to food by putting the nutrition information on there. I work over at Wal-mart, and we haven't switched it in the system there, but you can buy them here on food stamps."

This entire time, the old woman at the cash register is fumbling about with her 4 Monsters and her food stamp card. She finally finishes her transaction and starts walking toward the door.

"I should have just minded my own business," says the young lady to the cashier. "She gets to talking about my kids and I'm just a sucker then." She pays for her beer with cash and heads outside.

My Big Gulp half gone, I walk up to the register and pay. The whole time, I was thinking about what I had just seen.

My Tax Dollars At Work

As I said before, I don't have a problem with giving a guy a hand when he's down. That's just part of being a good person. However, I think that the rules for food stamps are so screwed up that they must've been created by politicians. Oh, wait. They were.

If I'm going to subsidize a person so they can have food, why on Earth would I want them to buy Monster Energy drinks? Food stamps should be used only for real food. I'm not talking about prepared and prepackaged stuff. I'm talking about bags of potatoes, fresh veggies and whole chickens. This money would go much, much farther if the recipients were ~~encouraged~~ required to purchase meal components rather than the prepackaged junk that's on the shelves. If they want to clog their arteries and eat junk food, they can go get a job somewhere. If I'm paying for it, by God, they need to use the money I'm giving them sensibly!

The food stamp rules are so screwed up. I've known some people that have been on food stamps and welfare. There are certain necessities that are non-food that should be included in the list of allowed purchases. Toiletries, for one. How can I expect someone to go out and get a job if they smell like dirty socks and butt-crack sweat? Let these people buy feminine products, toilet paper, deodorant, toothpaste, etc.

Isn't the goal of Welfare supposed to be to help these people get back onto their feet so they become productive taxpayers again? From what I've seen, that's not the case.

How About a Logical Approach to Welfare?

Welfare is a trap. You are given a stipend to live on that is insufficient. They give you food stamps that let you buy junk food rather than the less expensive items. They penalize you for getting a job. The amount of assistance they give you is not enough to live on and they shrink your benefits by the amount that you're paid. That keeps the recipient at the same income level regardless of how much they work. This gives the recipient absolutely no incentive to work or to get off of Welfare.

(Please note that the figures I present here are not actual, I'm just pulling them out of the air for an example)

If someone, say, gets $1000 per month of assistance and then goes and gets a part time job at Wal-Mart and makes $250 per month, the welfare system will lower their benefits to $750 per month, keeping their total income at $1000 per month. I understand the reasoning behind this, but the execution is stupid! I know that they are trying to make sure that they don't have somebody getting $1000 per month in assistance and out at a full time job making $1800 per month. I get that.

But when the base level of assistance is lower than the poverty line, you can't just do this via simple math! How about this. Let's say that the poverty line is at $1500 per month, and the system is only giving them $1000. The recipient should be allowed to go out and make up to $500 per month before the benefits diminish. This gives the recipient an incentive to go work, since they could be making $500 more a month. Then, once they are working, they may be able to advance at the job and make more money, and slowly wean themselves off the system.

With the system the way it is now, there's no reason to go out to work! Hell, I wouldn't! If I can get paid $1000 per month to sit on my ass or make $1000 per month to work, what the hell do you think I'm gonna pick?

DUH!

Yeah, and this is only Part 1 of the story from the gas station that day.

But Wait, There's More!

As if it weren't ass-chapping enough to discover that people can purchase "legal speed" with food stamps, the real kicker was just about to unfold. As I exited the gas station with my Big Gulp, I noticed that the two ladies in front of me in line were standing next to each other and chatting. Then I noticed.

They traded.

The old, barely-able-to-stand drunk lady exchanged the four monster energy drinks for the two ice-cold 40-ounce bottles of Colt 45. I rewound the scene at the cash register in my head, and suddenly, it all snapped into focus.

The drunk old black lady knew that she could not buy beer with food stamps, and it's all the money she had left out of her check. I'm presuming that she bought beer and drank it all up with the cash portion of her assistance check, given how she could barely stand. She likely waited outside the gas station until someone she knew approached.

She then propositioned them. I imagine that went something like this: (DL=Drunk Lady, PSx=Poor Sap #x)

8:05am

DL: Hey mithtur. Y'goin in there?

PS1: Yes, Ma'am, I am. Can I help you?

DL: I wan t'get thum more beer, but all I gots is food thampth. If you buys th' beer, ill buy you whucha want from food thampth.

PS1: Um.. Isn't that illegal?

DL: Fuk you, you fucking fuck! Yu fucking athhole!

8:13am

DL: Hey mithtur. Y'goin in there?

PS2: Um...yeah, I guess.

DL: I wan t'get thum more beer, but all I gots is food thampth. If you buys th' beer, ill buy you whucha want from food thampth.

PS2: Oh, I'm sorry, Ma'am. I'm just going in to pay for my gas. I don't need antthing else.

MAN ENTERS STORE

DL: Fuking worphlissss honky jakazz.

8:39AM

DL: Hey! Hey you! I know you!

PS3: Oh, hey! How are you doing today Ms. DrunkLady?

DL: Oh, pritty good, mosssssly. I'm just over here to git thum beer. How'th your little baby...um..Stephen?

PS3: It's Cassandra. She's doing well. Just finally getting her front teeth.

DL: Aw, Cuthondruh. Yeah. When ya get old, yer memory fades. She's a real darlin! And that pretty blond hair. She's prethusth.

PS3: Um. Her hair is black, but yes, she is precious.

DL: Hey, what you goin in there for?

PS3: Oh, I'm just going to get a Monster Energy to help me wake up before I head to work.

DL: Hey, I gotth an idea.........

This part really, really chaps my ass. If the lady were trying to circumvent the system because she needed sanitary napkins, then I could understand it. There are certain necessities that can't be bought with food stamps. But BEER? Are you serious?

I was half tempted to write down the license plate number of the girl who had bought the beer for the drunk lady. I even had started committing it to memory and decided against it. Had the drunk lady gotten into a car, I would have recorded her plate and reported her. I decided that in involving Poor Sap #3 would just bring the law down on the lady who HAS a job, not the one who is drunk and scheming the system.

This is why I dislike welfare. I'm not a hater. But it only takes a small number of abusers to poision the entire thing.

Hair of the Dog

2013-06-05T23:17:00.001-04:00

Providing Some Relief to a Good Friend

Many of you know that Linda and I have three Pomeranian dogs. We used to have four, but over the last winter, our "old man," Don Vanillo (Neo) passed away. RIP Neo. We miss you and love you.

He always had breathing problems (collapsed trachea), which is common in Pomeranians, and when the weather got hot, he would just lie on the floor, panting and coughing. You could tell that all that luxurious fur was a bit much for the sticky, humid Southwest Ohio summers.

For the past several summers, we had given Neo a full-body shave with the exception of his face, "mane" and tail. He always seemed to appreciate the results, although he didn't appreciate the process of being shaven very much! He would squirm and complain and even try to bite the clippers from time to time.

This is the only image of him shaven that I have. This was from the first time we had him shaven by a shop. They trimmed his mane and tail and we didn't like that. So, for future shavings and to save on the expense, I just got out my clippers and did it myself.

My clipper cuts aren't nearly as neat as the one done by the shop. However, I never messed with his handsome mane or tail. Also, it was "free," and Neo didn't seem to care that he was a little "clumpy" in places. He was just glad to be free of all that hot insulation!

Those Wacky "Dog People"

Before we had our dogs, we thought that the people that spent thousands of dollars on vet bills were just silly. We were of the (typical) mindset of "just put 'em down if they cost you too much." Then we got Yasmina (Mina). It didn't take long for her to steal my heart. She became "daddy's girl."

When she was just a few weeks old, she got very sick and had to be hospitalized. That was over $1000. When they told us what it would cost, we didn't hesitate. We coughed up the cash. Somehow, in that few weeks, I had completely "switched sides."

Then, after she had her litter of puppies, one of them, named "Puppy A" at the time, got Parvo and we had to hospitalize him. Again, over $1000. Again, we didn't hesitate.

At the time, we were selling the puppies from the litter. But, after this ordeal, we had bonded with the little guy but emotionally and financially so we wound up keeping him, and naming him "Puppy."

A few years ago, Mina developed a dangerous uterine infection called a pyometra. We tried treating with antibiotics, and that seemed to help at first, but the infection came back in full force about a month later, and we had to give her an emergency hysterectomy to save her life. Generally, a spaying costs around $150 at the most. This was closer to $1500, due to the emergency nature of the surgery and the careful after-care required.

As is common in animals after a hysterectomy, she gained weight. This caused a complication with her ability to breathe, and when the weather got hot all that wonderful, beautiful fluffiness started to get in the way.

The Hair of the Dog

Today, I decided to give Mina a shave, much the same way that I used to with Neo.

I called her down to the basement and she dutifully followed me. She seemed to know that something was up, but she trusts me implicitly and knows that I won't do anything to hurt her.

I got out the clippers and tried to start shaving her. Her undercoat and fur were so dense that I had to go get some scissors and trim her fur down before I could start clipping.

It was so dense that if I had a set of sheep shears and the requisite knowledge to use them properly, I could have removed her fur as a fleece, in one piece.

I trimmed and trimmed. Then I set in with my clippers. She never once complained. She seemed to know that I was trying to help her. She even cooperated with me. When I told her to stand, she stood. When I told her to sit, she sat. She didn't wiggle or whimper at all. What a good girl!

The pile of fur that I cut off her was so large that it could have easily been a dog curled up and sleeping. Unfortunately, this picture doesn't do it justice.

It took me about an hour to get all her fur removed. This is mostly due to the fact that my clippers are a fairly fine set and can't easily cut through dense fur.

If I had those sheep shears, I would have been done in a minute or less!

Yeah, she looks a little funny, and her fur is a little clumpy, but she is not panting like a mad-dog anymore. She seems quite comfortable. I left her mane and tail untouched, since those are her "signature" features. I think she will be able to stay cool this way, and she should have most of her fur back by wintertime. I'll probably make this an annual ritual for her now.

I don't care if she looks strange. She's still my "baby girl!"

The Long Goodbye, Part 2

2013-06-02T22:28:00.001-04:00

Turning Frustrations into Profit

Sunday, June 2, 2013

Wow. This weekend has seemed like an entire week. In fact, I meant to post Part 1 of this series on friday evening. I got sidetracked and only finished it up a few moments ago!

Well, my Craigslist buyer turned out to be mostly unreliable, like so many are. He called me Friday morning wanting to come buy the old motor. I told him that I'd call him when I got home and we'd figure out a plan. When I got home. I called. Voicemail. I left a message. He never called back.

So, Saturday morning I called him. He again made a promise to come by. Thankfully, I had a lot of work to do on the motorhome, so the fact that he never showed wasn't completely infuriating, but I did have some errands to run. Luckily for me, I did manage to sell the transmission - and it wasn't even from Craigslist!

My neighbor was outside and packing up a trailer for sale. I was telling him about the latest adventures with the Motorless Home, and he mentioned that the friend that was coming to buy the trailer might be interested.

His friend came, and after a few minutes, he offered me $100. I jumped on it. I was annoyed that my "motor guy" was ignoring my calls, so the sale was quite welcome!

I spent the rest of the day removing all the 12VDC lighting fixtures from the Motorless Home, and removing the microwave convection oven so that I can post it on Craigslist. I plan to keep all the lights. They could come in handy down the road. I have two 12VDC fluorescent lights, 6 "eyeball" spotlights, 2 wall sconces, and a whole mess of the standard 2-bulb fixtures that are common in motorhomes.

When my Craigslist buyer still didn't show up or call me, I sent him a relatively nasty message. I was pissed about having been stood up two days in a row. What is it with people on Craigslist? Why are they so unreliable? When I make a deal with someone on Craigslist, I keep it. If I can't make it, I call you to tell you about it. It's just common courtesy, for cripe's sake! (Who the hell is "cripe," anyway, and why do I care about his sake?)

So, this morning, the guy calls me. I had given up on him completely. Since I was going to work on the Motorless Home, I told him to call when he got close. I figured I was getting screwed again, but it wasn't going to be a big deal since I had work to do that would keep me here.

Oh. My. God.

He showed up.

He didn't dicker on the price for the block at all. What that tells me is that it was worth more than that if I was willing to wait for the right buyer. I am happy that I got what I was asking for it, though. Then, I was showing him around and he offered me $100 for the front wheels and tires. These tires are brand new. They have less than 200 miles on them. We bought them just before we left Toledo and the engine blew up half way home.

It was a lot less than I was hoping to get for them, but I had a buyer there with cash in hand. So I let them go. It was sooner than I had planned to remove the wheels since I didn't have the wheels from the tag axle ready yet, so I took them off and left it there with it on the hydraulic jacks.

So, I set about getting some wheels on the front. I checked in the back of the Motorless Home, and sure enough, there was a complete spare! The tire was dry-rotted, but it will work to keep the chassis rolling.

Since I had let the air out of the tire on one tag axle, i figured it would be easiest to remove that one to put it on the other remaining front wheel. My little 2-ton hydraulic jack had only just barely enough strength to lift it high enough to remove.

Unfortunately, the tire was off the bead and I could not inflate it. So, I finally got a chance to try something I've seen on YouTube many times.

Explosive Re-beading

Basically, you spray something flammable inside the tire and then ignite it. The sudden expansion will put the tire back on the rim and then you have to quickly add air to the tire so that the vacuum that forms won't pull it back off the bead.

It worked! I used brake parts cleaner. That's definitely something I will keep in my bag of tricks!

Well, it turns out that you can't just remove the wheel from the tag axle. In fact, this isn't a tag axle on this unit -- it's a full set of tandems. If you remove one of the tires, it just pivots and drops the axle without the wheel to the ground. Crap. So I still needed to have a wheel on there. Dammit.

So, I decided I would swipe one of the wheels from the dual-wheel axle right in front of the tag axle. This will reduce the load capacity of the axle, but since this motorhome will likely never see highway travel again, I'm not worried about it. I just want to make sure that the chassis can roll.

It was all going swell until one of the wheel studs just turned and I could not get the final lug nut off. Grr. So, again, since I am not worried about this having its full weight capacity, I just used my cutting torch to remove the lug nut.

Finally, I got all the axles to have at least one wheel with an inflated tire. So I used the Jeep to pull the Motorless Home forward far enough to get all the tires on the concrete driving area. This wil make it a lot easier for me to get the remaining stuff off.

The tire you see here is one left over from when we bought this beast. It's a bit dry rotted, but it's functional. I'll put it inside when were done pulling stuff out.

Since the tail end of the RV was closer to the concrete, I decided to remove the broken generator. I'd like to try to repair it. Since I know that the motor runs it could be a very handy genny to have! I certainly should be able to repair it for far less than it would cost for me to buy a 7kW generator with similar capabilities.

The generator is on a sliding tray that you pull out of the side of the RV. Unfortunately, the sliding mechanism was completely rusted and frozen up on this unit, so I had to use a sledge hammer to get it to slide. Eventually, the slide mechanism failed and it dumped the genny out onto the grass. Holy crap this thing is heavy! I had a hard time even rolling it over so that I could use the engine hoist to carry it to the garage!

After much wrangling and a fair amount of cussing, I was finally able to get the genny into the garage. I wanted to play with it to see if I could get it to run. However, I was already feeling the soreness from the day's activities setting in, and I don't want to get distracted by the generator right now. I still have a lot of stuff to remove from the motorhome before I call the city to come get it.

I retreated into the house and took a megadose of ibuprofen to help control the inflammation that's bound to set in. If I don't do that after a big work day, I won't sleep well.

Tomorrow, I will work on getting more stuff out of the inside of the Motorless Home. I need to clear a path to the side door so that I can get the refrigerator out.

The Long Goodbye, Part 1

2013-06-02T20:46:00.001-04:00

The Tear-out Begins

Friday, May 31, 2013

Since we are going to lose the Motorless Home, we've started taking stuff out of it. We had been stocking it with foodstuffs and keeping the fridge cold, but not anymore.

I had already begun remodeling the interior. Well, now, we're going to switch from remodeling to harvesting.

Last night, I posted the remainder of the engine block on Craigslist for $100. I have someone coming over tonight to buy it. I hope to get between $50 and $100 for it. It's definitely rebuildable.

I really hate selling stuff on Craigslist. Unfortunately, its often the only way to sell something fast.

Somehow, I usually wind up getting the annoying jerks that screw you around. Let's hope this time is different.

I also posted the 3-speed Chevy TH400 transmission for $150. It works fine. No bites on it yet though.

It's a perfectly good transmission. It was working fine when the motor blew up.

Then, I turned off the refrigerator after Linda emptied it and took everything inside. I took these pics and then posted it for $350 on Craigslist. These things go for about $1200 new, so I think that $350 is reasonable for a working one.

This weekend, we will be moving all the small stuff out and I will be removing as much of the things from the interior that I can. All the 12V lights, fans, microwave, refrigerator, coffee maker, etc. I will put Linda to work moving the smaller housewares back into the "Big House."

Then, as weather permits, I will remove the items from the exterior that I want to keep. The AC units, the hydraulics (as much as I can get to) the power heated mirrors and the aimable floodlight.

If I can find a way, I will also salvage the front tires. those things are brand new! If I can move the Motorless Home forward enough to get the tag axle over the pavement, I will remove the wheels from the tag axle and install them on the front wheels.

All the salvage items will go into the garage. and any items that are in the garage that we won't be keeping will go back into the motorhome for whomever. When we're done, it will be just a shell.

Once we have all that we want from it, We will call the city and arrange for the tow.

For Whom the Bell Tolls

2013-05-29T21:48:00.000-04:00

The Story of the Motorless Home is Coming to an End

I finally spoke to Ms. Hogg at the City of Hamilton Health Department. I was really hoping that she was a coarse, nasty, bitter old woman, so that I could berate her on the internet and call her Ms. Piggy and the like.

Unfortunately, she was very nice, calm and understanding. However, that didn't really get me anywhere. In short, I've got five days to either make the Motorless Home roadworthy or to have it removed from the property.

Yes folks, we are losing the Motorless Home for good.

At first, I thought that there might be a ray of hope; she told me that motorhomes are not subject to the particular ordinance that she is required to enforce, and therefore she can't do anything to me. She did, however, tell me that I needed to speak to someone in the zoning office, and gave me his number.

Hoping that I would be okay after the second call, I dialed. I spoke to the man, and then he hit me with the zoning regs.

The vehicle must be parked on a prepared surface (concrete, gravel, asphalt, etc.) No part of the vehicle can be on the grass.
The vehicle must be at least five feet from the property line.
The vehicle cannot have any flat tires.
The vehicle must be properly and currently tagged and registered.
The vehicle cannot be more than 25 feet in length.

Well, the Motorless Home violates all of those. I could fix the first four with some money and within a few days' time. However, the last one....well, I can't exactly cut 12 FEET off this thing.

Since the vehicle is not currently registered and has some flat tires, it is considered a "junk vehicle" by the zoning regulations, and therefore is back in the purview of the Health Department. I explained that I can have the vehicle running in a few months, but that I cannot afford to remove it from my property immediately. I also conveyed to him that there are no storage lots that will allow me to conduct the level of repairs that this unit needs. Minor roof repairs? Sure. Complete engine swap? No way, José.

He told me that he'd call and speak to Ms. Hogg and they'd discuss what my options are and that he'd ask her to call me back. I didn't expect to hear from her until tomorrow. However, within about five minutes, she called.

She told me that the zoning officer had concluded that my motorhome was a junk vehicle and that I was subject to the five-day rule. I asked her what that meant. She told me that I have five days to either fix the things that make it a junk vehicle or to remove it. If I fail to comply within the five days, the city will come and tow the vehicle away to an impound lot.

I explained that I have absolutely no way to pay for an engine or a tow bill within the next five days; it was a logistical and financial impossibility. She very kindly told me that there was no recourse, and that the city would be coming to tow it. I expressed concern about any storage fees associated with the impound. She told me that I only need to worry about it if I wanted to keep it. After some period of time, the tow company could petition the state to take ownership.

At that point, I realized that I was completely painted into a corner. There are no two ways about this; in five days' time, the Motorless Home will disappear forever. I told her that this was my only option, and that I wasn't happy about it. She offered to have the police come and tow it the next day. I told her that I'd need time to get my possessions out of it. She even offered me a single five-day extension so that I could have the time I needed to get my stuff out. I told her I'd call her back the next day and let her know what we wanted to do, since I had not had a chance to discuss this with Linda yet.

So, that's when I decided that I'd let them take it. But first, I will be taking everything that has value out of the thing. Here's the list that Linda and I came up with:

Hydraulic valve body
12v converter/charger
auto transfer switch
Rear Roof AC
Front Roof AC
Hydraulic pump
12v light fixtures
coffee maker
alternator
batteries
fire extinguishers
CB & antenna
heavy gauge battery cables
water pump
microwave
cooktop
breaker panels
long 30A power cord
propane tank
propane gauge (kitchen)
front furnace
small water heater
Refrigerator
Generator

So, I've got 10 days to strip all this stuff. I'm gonna be really, really busy!

Anybody want to come help?

Houston, We Have a Problem...

2013-05-29T03:48:00.001-04:00

Venting so I can sleep

Middle of the night - and I can't sleep. This BS earlier today has really got me rattled.

Why is it this hard to "get out?" All I'm trying to do here is prepare some things so that I can go live on my own and be LEFT ALONE. I really try to keep a positive attitude, but some days, it's very, very, very hard.

Every step I take toward exiting the Rat Race seems to set me back. Almost as though there is some conspiracy to keep me in the Rat Race. I'm not saying that there is one, so put away your tinfoil hats, please.

Here I am, trying to make this motorhome functional and I have now hit a stumbling block that may be insurmountable in the time I have. I am going to call Ms. Cindy Hogg tomorrow if I don't receive a call back early in the morning.

Hopefully, there will be something that I can do to enable me to keep working on the Motorless Home. However, if the city insists that it be moved or made to run on its own power within 5 days, I will just have to tell the city that they can come remove it. They can charge me all they want; I won't pay it. They can put a lein on my property if they want to.

I've had enough of this bullshit.

If it turns out that I can't continue working on this, I will begin ripping out any and all items of value from the RV so they can be sold on CraigsList to recoup some cost. Its too bad. This RV is salvageable. But since the Shitty of Hamilton and that HOGg that runs the Health department have bowed to our consumerist society, they expect me to just throw money at the problem, and can't seem to appreciate subtleties of "Reduce, Reuse and Recycle."

Everyone focuses on the third R, Recycle. They think I should send this thing to the junk yard and let it be ripped apart into its component pieces and remelted.

But there is a reason that it's third in that list.

Let's explore those for a moment.

REDUCE: First, use less. If you stop running out and buying new stuff and just "do without," you will do a lot toward helping the environment, since the byproducts of manufacturing the "new" thing won't be put out there, and there won't be any waste generated from the purchase (fuel spent, packaging materials, labor to install, etc)
REUSE: Next, if you have to buy a new thing, try to find a new use for the old thing. Maybe that means spending a little money on parts to repair it to make it whole again, and not buying the new one. Perhaps that means that you take the small microwave out of the kitchen that no longer suits your needs and donate it to charity so that someone who needs sone can find it. Or, maybe, just maybe, that means to take the blown engine out of a motorhome and replace it with another one to make the motorhome whole again.
RECYCLE: Finally, if you can't find a way to REDUCE your consumption of something, and you can't find a way to REUSE that something for another purpose, then, and only then do you recycle.

Everybody just always jumps to "recycle." I admit, I don't always start at "reduce," but I usually try to jump in at "reuse." I really get a kick out of taking something that was "junk" and making it "not junk."

Where I have trouble is that I also try to REUSE without spending a ton of money. So, waiting for the right deal, or saving up until I can afford to purchase the thing I need are common themes.

Unfortunately, The Shitty of Hamilton feels that you can't take your time. You're not allowed to have a broken vehicle on your private property that can be seen.

I understand the reason for the ordinance. I really do. They don't want some derelict vehicle up on blocks rusting away in someone's yard. I understand. If it's sitting there with no wheels and doors, a busted-out windshield and is either not changing for the better or getting worse, then yes, it's junk and should be removed and is subject to this ordinance.

However, if someone is actively working on the vehicle, its not derelict, and is not junk. If the damage is just a few panels that can easily be replaced and there is evidence that the owner is working toward that end, it's not junk.

If the owner can be seen working on it frequently and it's not just to strip off parts of a derelict vehicle, but actually working toward the improvement of that vehicle, then it's not junk.

It's really, really clear that I'm working on the motorhome and not just leaving it there to rot. I can be seen working on the exterior on good weather days and on the interior when the weather is less cooperative. I don't have a lot of money to throw at this right now, so I am doing the things that I can that have little or no cost. To me, this is simply good time management. Why wait until I have the new motor in-hand to remove the old one?

Also, If I had a garage that was large enough to hold it, I would park it inside. However, I don't! So, I will have to work on this outside.

Also, as I mentioned in the earlier post, I might be able to handle this by having the motorhome registered as a collector's vehicle. After re-reading section (b) of the letter they handed me, having it listed as a collector's vehicle may not be enough, since they amended the ordinance in 2003. If I have to comply with ALL of that section and not just one of those sections, I may be hosed.

I dunno. I just needed to vent. I hope that I can get a few hours of good sleep before 6am comes and I have to get up for work.

Wish me luck for when I speak to Ms. Hogg tomorrow.

Ya Vol, Mein Führer!

2013-05-28T19:50:00.000-04:00

The Shitty of Hamilton Sends the SS Police to My House about the Motorless Home

I don't understand this. The Motorless Home has been sitting behind my house since the winter of 2012. In all that time, it has never moved on its own power. This is because when I bought it, it blew up.

You may recall a FaceBook post a while back when I was working on the Jeep to make it roadworthy. I had removed the damaged bumper and quarter panels from it and was working on the repairs. Some asshat called the Shitty of Hamilton Health Department on me for having a "junk vehicle" in my yard. My solution to the problem with the Jeep was to put it in the garage until the repairs were completed.

I was all set to post about having gotten the transmission out today. I was exiting the motorhome to clean up my tools and saw the police cruiser in the alley behind my house. I approached and asked them if I could help them.

They told me that they were here on behalf of the ~~Führer~~ Health Department. The told me that they had been dispatched to serve me with papers for having ~~illegal books~~ a junk vehicle on the premises. They handed me a document regarding ~~the laws against being a Jew~~ the ordinance about junk vehicles.

Well, according to the definition laid out in this document, the Motorless Home is a "junk vehicle." So was the Jeep at the time I got the notice about it, too.

Well, the Motorless Home is just a teeeeeeny bit too big to put into my garage.

So, how can I handle this? Of course the ~~enforcers~~ officers would come after the Health Department closes. I explained to them that I was actively working on this motorhome, and that it is not derelict. I told them about the Jeep and that I had put it in my garage -- they agreed with me that I wasn't going to shoehorn this thing into the garage.

I told them that this thing has been here for over a year with nobody saying anything, and now that I start actively trying to make it roadworthy, ~~Der Reichstag~~ the City of Hamilton steps in and tells me I have to remove it.

The Police gave me the name of the person I need to speak to at the Health Department. Cindy Hogg. Wow. What a name.

I called and left a message for Ms. Hogg. I explained that I am working on a motorhome and that there is absolutely no way I can put it in the garage. I asked her to please call me back so that we can discuss this.

Hopefully, there will be a positive resolution to this. I've already been looking into ways that I may be able to get around the silly ordinance.

You can see a reference in section (b)(1) on the first page, they talk about a collectors's vehicle being exempt from the provisions of this ordinance. They specifically refer to ORC §4501.01(F). Here's the relevant text, links and emphasis added by me:

(F) "Collector's vehicle" means any motor vehicle or agricultural tractor or traction engine that is of special interest, that has a fair market value of one hundred dollars or more, whether operable or not, and that is owned, operated, collected, preserved, restored, maintained, or used essentially as a collector's item, leisure pursuit, or investment, but not as the owner's principal means of transportation. "Licensed collector's vehicle" means a collector's vehicle, other than an agricultural tractor or traction engine, that displays current, valid license tags issued under section 4503.45 of the Revised Code, or a similar type of motor vehicle that displays current, valid license tags issued under substantially equivalent provisions in the laws of other states.

4503.45 [Effective Until 7/1/2013] Collector's vehicle license.
An owner of a collector's vehicle, upon complying with the motor vehicle laws relating to registration and licensing of motor vehicles, and upon payment of the regular license fee as prescribed under section 4503.04 of the Revised Code and any tax levied under section 4504.02 or 4504.06 of the Revised Code, and the payment of an additional fee of five dollars, which shall be for the purpose of compensating the bureau of motor vehicles for additional services required in the issuing of such licenses, shall be issued validation stickers and license plates, or validation stickers alone when required by section 4503.191 of the Revised Code, upon which, in addition to the letters and numbers ordinarily inscribed thereon, shall be inscribed the words "collector's vehicle."

4503.45 [Effective 7/1/2013] Collector's vehicle license.
An owner of a collector's vehicle, upon complying with the motor vehicle laws relating to registration and licensing of motor vehicles, and upon payment of the regular license fee as prescribed under section 4503.04 of the Revised Code and any tax levied under Chapter 4504. of the Revised Code, and the payment of an additional fee of five dollars, which shall be for the purpose of compensating the bureau of motor vehicles for additional services required in the issuing of such licenses, shall be issued validation stickers and license plates, or validation stickers alone when required by section 4503.191 of the Revised Code, upon which, in addition to the letters and numbers ordinarily inscribed thereon, shall be inscribed the words "collector's vehicle."

Amended by 130th General Assembly File No. 7, HB 51, §101.01, eff. 7/1/2013.

So... Looks like I may have to declare this vehicle to be a collectors item. Now, to look up what qualifies as a collector's vehicle.

According to the BMV, they get to decide if a vehicle is collectible. I'm hoping that since this is a motorhome, it will be easy to do. Unfortunately, it looks like I have to pay "crony tax" to find out. What's a crony tax? When the state requires that you purchase some commercial product in order to find out if your motorhome is collectible. Somebody stands to make money off me from this. Probably some lobbyist.

Hopefully I won't have to go through all this, and there will be some way that I can satisfy the City.

Ugh. Can I please move to Texas now? I know that I will still have to deal with government out there, but somehow, I think they would like the fact that I'm working on my motorhome to improve it, rather than give me shit for trying to fix something.

Our disposable society has gone all the way to the top. We're no longer allowed to repair anything; it's unsightly. "Eww. Yuck. Who would want to 'fix' that? Are you some kind of hick? Why don't you just pile this thing on top of the landfill and just go buy a new one?"

Asshats.

Mirrors in the Bedroom, S'portin' Wood & Screwing

2013-05-27T12:01:00.001-04:00

Remodeling and Stair Repairs

When we bought this motorhome (before it was motor-less), Linda and I could not figure out why there were mirrors on the top of the walls in the bedroom. At first, we thought that some kinky previous owner had put them there for sexual shenanigans in the bedroom. However, under closer inspection, it was clear that they were installed by the manufacturer. I'm sure they didn't put them in there for sexual deviants, so I concluded that they were there to make the room feel larger by reflecting the ceiling.

Regardless of the reason for their inclusion, they will have to be removed to repair the ceilings, and honestly, we didn't really care for them anyway.

It was raining this morning. After getting the motor out on Saturday, my plan was to try to remove the transmission today. However, rain has a way of squashing plans to lie on the ground underneath a vehicle. It also pointed out that we still have a small leak in the roof over the bathroom. Damn leaks. I'll get 'em all eventually!

So, this morning, I set out to remove the mirrors, since it is an "inside activity." At first, I was concerned about possibly breaking them when pulling them off the walls. However, they were secured with double-stick tape and a wooden frame. Once I removed the frame, it was pretty easy to remove the mirrors from the walls. Most of the double-stick tape came right off, too.

We're going to keep the mirror panels for now. We think that one would make a nice body-length mirror to include in the motorhome after the remodel is completed. For now, I propped them up against the wall by the fridge. I'll put them in a safe place in the garage later.

I've even saved enough of the wood frame that was around it that I should be able to reuse it. One of my goals in this project is to preserve the building materials I remove whenever possible. I will take reasonable steps to save it, since it could be useful later. Sometimes, however, given the way that this motorhome is constructed, the only way to remove something is to destroy it. Too bad. I wish I could just remove stuff, fix the damage and put the same stuff back.

Well, you can't win 'em all.

Another area that's been bugging us is the landing at the top of the steps at the entry to the motorhome. It was not well supported and you could feel it bend a bit when you stood on it. Given the extent of the water damage elsewhere, we figured that it was reasonable that this flooring was rotted out. Linda asked me to cut away the carpet and investigate.

I had to put a new blade in my utility knife, since it was pretty dull from all the other cutting I've been doing lately. I cut a large rectangle of carpet away to expose the subfloor. The carpet pad was so worn out that it just tore when I tried to cut it. I removed it and threw it away. Since we will probably completely redo the flooring in here, I'm not too worried about damage to the carpet.

There was 1/4" of dust underneath this section of carpet. I guess 28 years of coming in and out from campgrounds left a lot of dirt and grime on the carpet to filter through as a fine dust. I got out my new vacuum cleaner and cleaned that up.

Strangely, there didn't seem to be any rot here, The structure was still just as sound as it was when it was built. Not sure how this got to a failed state then. I decided that I'd cut the top layer of the subfloor off by setting the depth on my circular saw. I wanted to see why there was a weak spot in the floor.

After removing the top layer of wood, I found the ever-familiar pink foam insulation that is everywhere in this motorhome. I could see no structural failures here, either. So, I decided that I needed to remove the section of insulation and look to see if there was some missing structure underneath, and rebuild it.

I set the depth on the saw again and carefully cut through the foam and the sheet metal backing, praying that there was nothing in my way under there. Thankfully, there wasn't.

Once I got that piece of insulation out of there, I found absolutely no evidence that there ever was any supporting structure under that section of floor. In the hole, you can see the central spine of the steel frame of the vehicle. You can also see the ground. There's just this insulation between us and the elements! Even with that insulation in place, there would be a 2-3" gap between the bottom of the panel and the spine.

I decided that I'd put some structure there to hold up the floor. I stacked two planks of 2x6 that I recovered from the removal of the closet onto the spine. they are a little bit longer than the width of the hole, so that I could attach the floor on either side to this as well, and improve the structure of the whole thing.

I then placed the insulation panel back in its proper location. Once I had the floor paneling back in place, I'd run several screws through the paneling, insulation and sheet metal into those planks I put in. After a test fit, I discovered that it still wanted to sag a bit between the panks and the leading edge of the stair, so a screwed a couple blocks of wood to the underside of the hole at the edges to act as additional supports.

Then I put the "sandwich" all back together and used 3" screws to get through the entire thing, and then some 1" screws on the edges to attach it to the internal structure of the sandwich.

It felt pretty secure! There is a small section that flexes up near the cabinet, but it's not in the main area that you walk, so I'll deal with that later when we redo the flooring.

I decided not to put the remnants of the nasty padding back in; it was in pretty poor shape.

I laid the segment of carpet back in place and put several staples in it to hold it down. You can see that surgery has taken place here, even after I vacuumed up the sawdust you can see in the upper left of this image.

It definitely has a "repair scar." Honestly, I'm not worried about that part at all -- even if we didn't have plans to replace the flooring. This motorhome will never be "like new" or "perfect." It is, however, mine. That means that function gets a lot more priority than aesthetics.

Now that it's dried up a bit, perhaps I'll go work on pulling that transmission out.

Who's Yer Daddy?

2013-05-25T19:08:00.000-04:00

The Motorless Home is Truly Motor-less

This is a landmark day.

I finally have the old Chevy 454 block out of the Motorless Home. I tried recently to remove it, but it didn't want to come out. Today, I slid underneath and found that I still had two bolts holding the transmission to the engine block. Once I removed those, it separated easily.

There's no way in hell I would have been able to get this thing out of there with the cylinder heads still on it. It was a tight fit the way it was, and if I don't find a better approach, putting a new one in its place will be quite the challenge. That fiberglass lip that you can see in the first picture was a real stumbling block. It limits how far in I can push the engine hoist. The lower lip below those protruding frame rails is removable, and that will be coming off in a little bit.

I was just so charged about getting this thing out that I had to post about it right away! My best friend, Ken was here to mug for the camera, too! Unfortunately, I didn't get a "trimphant" picture of me, but that one will come when this thing moves under its own power!

I may just leave this thing hanging from the engine hoist for a few days, like a hunter hangs his kill. Of course, I'm not "bleeding it out," but I think I want all the other engines in the neighborhood to know that they shouldn't screw with me.

Now that the motor is out, I was able to get a better picture of the damage to the pistons. Here, you can see pieces of the chewed up valve seat embedded in the piston. All eight pistons on this engine have similar damage. It's too bad, really. The previous owner had just spent a lot of time and money rebuilding this engine. Too bad that he missed a few critical things, like a temperature gauge and making sure that the alternator belt was tight. Had he done either (preferably both) of those things, the engine would probably never have blown, and there would have been no fire.

Well, I have made a lot of progress today. I think I'm gonna go remove that chin spoiler too. I might even get out the sawzall and remove that piece of fiberglass chin that is in the way, and decide later whether it's even needed or not. If it is, I'll find a way to remount it. If not, well, the Motorless Home will be a pound or so lighter.

Taking a Leak...

2013-05-24T12:05:00.000-04:00

...And Making it Worse

The Motorless Home has leaks. We've talked about them previously when I blogged about fixing the leak over the bathroom and the front cap. Well, the one at the rear cap raised its ugly head the other day.

Linda and I have been "testing" the RV for the last several days. We've actually spent most of our time in there. It has working air conditioning and running water, so we can actually prepare meals and sleep in there. Using the bathroom is a bit of a challenge, but we're close to the house.

The other night, it rained. Apparently the rear cap leaked and dripped water on Linda all night long. That does not make for a very happy wife! She was absolutely miserable, and the wet made her really cold. She didn't sleep too well.

So, last night, I decided to repair it like I did to the front cap, by applying a layer of sealant after removing the old, dead stuff.

"Official" Instructions

The stuff I'm using as a sealant isn't the usual self-leveling stuff that is recommended for RVs. That stuff is really expensive! Since it will be a while before the Motorless Home is mobile again, I'm not as worried about using a nonstandard sealant. The stuff I'm using is for roofs, but not specifically for RV roofs.

I've looked at the "proper" stuff, and when I read about how to apply it, I was appalled. The instructions say to clean up the existing surface with mineral spirits and make sure it is clean and dry. Then, just apply the new sealant over top of the old and let it cure. To me, this is just stupid. With the exception of this stuff, I've never seen a sealant's instructions tell you to skip the "completely remove all old sealant" step.

I just can't abide that. When I worked on the skylight and front cap, I used a utility knife to remove the old sealant. This time, I brought power tools. I brought an angle grinder with a wire wheel on it to grind off the old sealant. I put on my eye protection and ground away. That stuff made the most hellacious mess I've seen in a while. It was like sticky dust particles. It got everywhere. But, in the end, I was able to get the old sealant ground away to a point that I was happy. After cleaning all the sticky-dust away, I applied a generous coating of sealant to the entire seal. So far, so good. Or so I thought.

Mr. Murphy, You Can Just go Away, Thank You.

The sealant that I use takes 24 hours to cure completely, and several hours to cure enough to be water-tight. Since it seems that it's latex-based, it just rinses off with water until it cures. This makes cleanup really easy. It also means that you had better not try to apply this stuff when it's about to rain.

About ten minutes after I completed the "re-gooping," it started to rain. I was worried that there had not been enough time for it to cure, especially since it was overcast and rather cool outside. The curing takes longer when the temperature is lower. It rained for just a few minutes, and it didn't seem to rain that hard, so I thought I had dodged a bullet.

I was wrong.

I went back to the bedroom to check on something and felt a huge wet spot on the bed. Since my excursion to the roof was supposed to STOP leaks, I investigated. It was leaking, allright, and the water coming in had a milkiness to it that told me that it was dissolving the sealant. I hurried back up onto the roof to find a puddle washing over my freshly applied goop. Not good. I had to get that water off there and redistribute the sealant and protect it while it cured, in case it rained again.

So, I spent the next hour drying the roof and getting the water away from the sealant. I then applied a layer of plastic over the sealant to (hopefully) protect it long enough for it to finish curing. The duct tape didn't want to stick; the surface was irregular, cold and slightly damp. All of those are the enemy of good duct tape adhesion. I did the best I could and went inside.

Although there was no more rain and I was reasonably sure that the area was sealed up again, the ceiling continued to drip. I guess a lot more water got into the walls than I thought. I will just have to wait for that water to make its way out of there. Linda decided to sleep in the house since she didn't want to get dripped on again. I don't blame her.

Redo the Redo

Since water is the enemy of uncured latex, there is a good chance that I will have to completely remove the sealant that I just applied and redo it at a time that I know there will be no rain. Once I've given the existing stuff time to cure, I will reinspect. If I have any doubt about the seal, I will remove it and redo it.

Stalking My Prey

2013-05-19T20:15:00.001-04:00

Scoring Big on Little Money - The Annual Trenton Yard Sale

Linda and I got an unexpected check for $70 in the mail the other day. We were very grateful for that timing. It really made the difference for us, and it enabled us to take advantage of some awesome deals we were able to find this weekend.

Every year in May, the city of Trenton, Ohio holds a city-wide yard sale. It's quite an event, and often you're able to find just about anything since there are so many yard sales. We decided to drive around to see if we could find any deals on some items that we've been looking for.

Early on in our adventure, I spotted a small vacuum cleaner. I've been wanting one of these to use in the Motorless Home for cleanup while I work on the remodel. It's too small in there to haul a full-sized upright vacuum in there, let alone, the shop vac.

I spotted this little Dirt Devil model. The sticker on it said $5. I had already decided that I was not going to pay the sticker price for anything.

Don't get me wrong; $5 for a working vacuum cleaner is not bad. It's just one of my "yard sale" rules -- Never, ever, pay the asking price.

I started with an offer of $2. The lady considered it for a moment, but respectfully declined. She told me "There is a lady who said she would come back for it later today and pay me the full $5." I told her that I had $3 CA$H that I would give her "right now" for it, and she didn't know for sure that the other lady was coming back. She countered with $4.

Oddly, I had decided that I would pay the $4, but for some reason, I was taking a while digging in my wallet and hadn't yet agreed to her counteroffer. Suddenly, she said that she would accept $3! So, I pulled $3 out and handed it to her and absconded with my prize.

After I loaded the vacuum into the Jeep, Linda made an interesting observation: "It's interesting watching these people. It's like they're hunting. They're 'stalking their prey.' " I thought about it. She was right. In our society, most of us no longer have to hunt for our food. We just drive over to the grocery and pick it up. So, how does an animal that is genetically programmed as a predator express that behavior after they have become "civilized?" They shop.

We approach the item of our desire. Our pulse quickens. Our irises widen. If it's a particularly good find, our palms may sweat. We sneak up on the item. We don't want the seller to know that we're after that one. If they knew, they would jack up the price. Then, when we're ready, we move in for the "kill." We will make an offer to the seller and engage in "retail battle." Once the battle is over and we've "won," we will grab our "kill" and run off with it. You can take the animal away from the hunt, but you can't take the hunt away from the animal.

The next item I found was this multi-tool. We stopped at a yard sale that had a lot of tools visible. When I went up to the guy, he was busy selling a gun to another guy. I jumped into the conversation since the gun he was selling was very similar to one that I own. I was telling the buyer all about it and what to watch out for. I think I actually helped close the deal.

Once they were finished, I asked about the tool. The guy wanted $3 for this Winchester brand multitool. It's no Gerber or LeatherMan, but it was of reasonably good quality. So I offered him $2 and he accepted. I will probably keep this thing in the car or on my bike, since it's a handy tool to have around!

We stopped at another yard sale and picked up a replacement electric can opener, since ours died a couple months ago and we've been using a hand-cranked one that also needs to be pitched. They wanted $2 and I offered $1 and they accepted. Great!

So, by this point, we had spent $6. We still had yet to find our two greatest deals of the day.

We stopped by a parking lot where several people had set up. I walked around and checked out the booths and nothing really caught my eye until I saw this.

An older Sears Craftsman table saw!

The guy had no price listed on it, and he had some goofy metal cutting blade installed that didn't fit it right. Since new table saws cost hundreds of dollars, I didn't figure I'd have a chance to get this thing, given the extremely short budget we had for yardsaling.

"So, why you selling this?" I asked.

"It used to be my Dad's." he replied. "After he passed, I bought it from my Mom and I used it only once. I really don't want to take it back to the storage unit. Make me an offer."

Knowing how extremely short on cash we were, I didn't really want to make an offer, since anything I could afford to pay would have been an extreme lowball. "I'm serious," he said, "Make me an offer. I just don't want this thing anymore."

I just stood there looking at it and poking around. I even suggested that he might want to tighten up the blade on there since it was loose and wobbly. I was honestly giving him sales advice since I didn't think I could afford it -- so why not help him sell it, right?

"How about $40," He said, while fiddling with the blade. At least he was taking my advice!

Now, $40 for a table saw is a pretty darned good deal. The truth of the situation is that I really couldn't justify spending $40 on it. So, I told him. "Sir, I'm really short on cash, and I hadn't planned to buy something of this size. I mean no disrespect by this, but the most I could pay for this would be $20." He looked at me and seemed to consider it.

He countered, "Come back later. If I haven't sold it later today, we'll talk." I agreed to stop back in and I left, thinking that I had just pissed the guy off with my low-ball offer and he was just politely telling me to go pound sand.

We drove around a bit more, stopping here and there. We were also on the lookout for cheap scrap blue jeans for Linda to use for making rugs on the loom. However, the people were deluding themselves if they thought I was going to pay $2-$5 per pair for jeans, even if I was going to wear them, let alone have Linda cut them up to make rugs. We never did find any cheap jeans. What a bummer.

We were starting to get tired when Linda spotted this item.

"Ooh! An antique treadle sewing machine!" she exclaimed. Again, thinking that there was no way we would be able to get something like that, I decided to stop and take a look. I quickly discovered that it needed some maintenance, but mechanically, everything operated. It looked like it was complete. There was no price tag on it, either.

"What are you asking for the sewing machine?" I inquired.

"She's got that marked at $35," the lady in the lawn chair replied. I poked at it some more and decided I'd low ball her, just in case.

"Will she take $20?" That was close to half of the asking price. Again, I was concerned that I had insulted her. She went inside to ask the owner if they would accept it. While I waited, I noticed some rather humorous stickers that were on the door leading into the house. This was a fairly nice neighborhood, so they seemed really out of place. They read "Gone Fisting" (WARNING: LINK NOT WORK SAFE) and "Up the Butt." I had just enough time to chuckle about it and Lawn Chair Lady returned.

"Yeah, she'll take that." I was shocked. Not even a counter offer. I kicked myself. I should have offered $10. I gave her $20 and loaded it into the Jeep.

We were pretty much out of money in our budget at this point, having spent $26. However, Linda encouraged me to go check on the table saw anyway, since it was a really, really good deal. So, we made our way back over to the sale with the table saw.

I took $20 with me, just in case. I walked up to the guy and said, "So, are you ready to take $20 for this?" Figuring I would get shot down, and since we had already spent what we felt we could easily spend, I waited for the denial.

"Yeah, sure." He said. I quickly handed him the $20 bill I had in my hand to seal the deal before he had chance to reconsider. I told him that my car was full and that I'd have to run home and drop off the stuff and come back to pick up the saw. He agreed and we headed home.

After we dropped off our first load, we returned and picked up the table saw and brought it back to the house. That sucker is heavier than it looks! It needed a little work. Someone had gotten some kind of gunk in the threads that controls the blade angle, and you could not adjust it past about 38*. I took a screwdriver and scraped it out of the threads and lubricated them. I chucked the stupid metal-cutting blade that the guy had in there. It wasn't even the right kind for that saw! That explained why it was so poorly mounted when I saw it at his sale booth. I put a general purpose wood blade in it and made some test cuts. It worked fine!

The rip fence that came with it needs some more attention, since it has trouble staying square. That can cause the blade to bind. That's not a good thing! Considering that I only paid $20 for it, I figured it would have some flaws that needed to be worked out.

After that, I spent the rest of the evening cleaning and lubricating the sewing machine. I did some research on it, and it turns out that this unit (based on its serial number) is 120 years old! It's a Singer Model 27 and it was made in 1893...and it still works! Boy, I wish we had quality like that these days!

It's got some rust on it a few places, but since we're not terribly worried about its value as an antique, repairing the rust won't be too hard. We're far more concerned with making it functional.

Today, I decided to test the vacuum cleaner. The motor ran, but it didn't pick anything up and the beater brush didn't operate. It looked like it needed a belt. I looked at the bottom, and, as is typical of many vacuum cleaners, there was hair and string wound around the beater bar. So, I decided to take it out and clean it up. Once I had the bottom off, I discovered what had caused the belt the break.

This is one of the things that really disturbs me about today's society. We live in a society of "disposable technology." Rather than take the few minutes and few dollars to repair a malfunctioning vacuum cleaner, we just junk it and go buy a new one. This is extremely wasteful, as well as just plain stupid from a financial perspective. That Dirt Devil vacuum probably cost $50 or $60 new. All it needs is a belt and a new HEPA filter, which should cost less than $15 total. Why do we dispose of things like that?

While cleaning it out, I discovered that the reason the belt had broken was because of a major clog. Someone had sucked up a wad of paper and it allowed dust and debris to accumulate until the hose was completely occluded. This caused the belt to overheat, and because of the string on the beater bar, the belt started to slip until it had burned through.

As for the clog, you can usually just use a long tool like a chop stick to fish the clog out. Unfortunately, this was so completely impacted that I had to remove the hose from the vacuum to clear it.

So, with about ten minutes of work and $15 in parts, plus the $3 I spent on this vacuum, It will cost a whopping $18 to have a $60 vacuum cleaner. That works for me! It totally fits into my goals for reusing and sustainability.

What comes out of this is what is most disturbing of all; our society's penchant for trashing items that need simple repairs is that the manufacturers no longer make items with as much quality. Since they know that they will be thrown away and replaced with a new one at the first sign of difficulty, they "don't make 'em like they used to." This leads to a spiral effect, since the item is more likely to break in the first place, and many items are not user-repairable anymore.

Luckily for us, I know how to take things apart and make them work again. That's a really useful skill when you're in the Zombie Apocalypse.

You Can't Compress a Liquid

2013-05-15T22:30:00.000-04:00

The Power of Hydraulics

I've been so busy working on the hydraulic leveling system on the Motorless Home that I forgot to take pictures!

Anyway, I'd been trying to think up ways that I could get the old blown motor out of the Motorless Home. When I discovered that the boom on my engine hoist wasn't long enough to reach, I got really discouraged, and that's part of the reason that I let the blog go for so long.

After getting started with repairs recently, I took another look. I realized that if I removed the front bumper, I might be just barely able to get the boom over the engine block to remove it. So, I got under there and started to take it off.

It was clear that someone had recently removed the bumper. Several of the bolts that hold on have been replaced with new stainless steel ones. I'm guessing that the previous owner had the engine out at some point, and had used this very method to reach into the engine bay. Once removed, I slid my engine hoist in for a test fit.

Son of a bitch. I could see that I had enough clearance to get the engine hoist into the engine bay, but now, the top of the engine bay opening was hitting the top of the hoist. I could not push it in any farther! Argh! I thought to myself that if the engine hoist were only a few inches shorter, I could get it in there. Then it hit me. If I raised the front of the Motorless Home up, it would have the same effect.

If only that hydraulic leveling system worked, I could use it to get the clearance I need. Since I was frustrated by the engine hoist problem, I decided to take a detour and explore why the hydraulics didn't work. When we first got the Motorless Home back to the house, we tried to make the hydraulics work. They didn't. We tried putting power right to the pump, but it would not move. We even smoked the solenoid trying to deliver enough power. We just concluded that the motor was toast and moved on to other things.

When I decided to explore the hydraulics, the first thing I did was to disassemble the electric motor that turns the hydraulic pump. It was clearly in poor shape. Water had pooled in it and rusted out some of the components. I cleaned everything up and reassembled it as best I could. To make sure that it worked properly, I bench tested the motor and it ran beautifully. However, after reconnecting it to the hydraulic pump, it would not turn -- just like the day that we got it home.

Well, it turns out that the reason that it would not turn was twofold; the hydraulic pump requires that the fluid that it is pumping go somewhere or the pump will lock up. It can either go into a hydraulic cylinder to expand it, or it can cycle through the system and return to the reservoir via the return line. I removed the supply and return lines from the pump, and when I gave it power, it shot a stream of hydraulic fluid several feet! Thank God. The pump actually works. Now, trace it to the next place.

I thought that the problem might be a blockage in a line, or perhaps in the control valve manifold. In order to troubleshoot it, I had to dismount the manifold. Guess what? Some genius spray-foamed the bejeesus out of it. I can understand why they might have wanted to apply spray-foam in that area. Some good reasons include:

There may have been water leaks, and getting sprayed by the driver side tire is no fun.
Soundproofing. You can get a lot of road noise from right there, and perhaps they were trying to make for a better driving experience.
Insulation. Maybe they didn't want their little tootsies to get cold while driving.

All of these are very good reasons to apply spray-foam to that area. But...

Hey Genius! How about you put a piece of plastic over that valve manifold before you spray? That way, you can still have the insulation you want, but you put a "bubble" around the unit so that it's not completely encrusted!

I spent 30 minutes lying on my back, working over my head with a screwdriver chipping that foam out of there until I could figure out how to remove the valve manifold. Even with safety glasses on, that stuff still got in my eyes. What a pain in the ass.

Once I got the manifold dismounted, I had to disconnect the hydraulic lines. There were six in total. One for each of the four jacks, a supply from the pump, and a return to the pump. They were all corroded and rusted. I hosed them down with SeaFoam Deep Creep, and started to remove them. It was quite an ordeal! While attempting to remove the line that feeds the right rear jack, the fitting broke. Son of a bitch! That is the longest line on the whole coach! GAH!

I also discovered one of the reasons that the pump would not turn. The return line was melted (from the fire, no doubt) and was completely sealed. After much cussing and finagling, I was able to get the valve manifold removed and into the garage to my workbench.

This thing was definitely in need of some cleaning and TLC. The levers would not operate smoothly, and there was loads of gunk.

I slowly dismantled the unit, making sure I kept track of where all the parts went. After I removed all four spring sets, I noticed that there was a single steel check ball laying on my disassembly towel.

This was troublesome. Since all four valves are identical, they should all have the same parts in them. Unfortunately, since I had taken apart the first one and it did not have a ball, I wasn't looking for one. After I found that ball, I checked out the work area. Nope. There were no more. They were missing from the manifold. Great. Someone's had this thing apart before and not put it all back together right.

I set the ball aside for later consideration. The only other complication during the disassembly was the pump switch. Apparently, the casing was cracked or I damaged it while disassembling something else, because It came apart in a few pieces. Luckily, by reassembling the switch, it worked fine -- I just had to figure out how to stick it back together again. Also, the screws holding the switch onto the bracket were so rusted out that I wound up breaking one of them. So, a trip to the hardware store was in order later.

Once it was fully disassembled, I cleaned it up really well using a wire brush. Got all the gunk off and reassembled it. I chose not to put that check ball back in since I only had one. I surmised that they would be needed, based on the design of the valve. However, since I wasn't sure, I left it out, and figured that the manifold would behave strangely if it needed them.

Wow! This thing cleaned up nicely! I had to stop for the night here since I had run out of time to hit a hardware store to get the screws for the switch and a 1/8NPT pipe plug to block off the port for the broken hydraulic line.

Today, I stopped at the hardware store and got what I needed. I reassembled the switch and screwed it into position. However, the switch did not want to stay assembled because of the pressure on it. So, I mixed up a blob of JBWeld Stick and used it to hold the switch in the right alignment. A bit of overkill, but hey, it worked, and I had the JBWeld Stick already!

My next challenge was to reconnect the hydraulic lines and the electrical stuff so that the manifold's switch could operate the power to the pump. In order to get the pump working properly, I had to drill out a broken bolt so I could secure the power cables, and I had to borrow a solenoid from another area under the hood since the one that went with this pump motor was cooked. I wired up the electrics and went to connect the valve manifold to the hydraulic lines.

Well, in the process, I bumped one of the levers. Since the electrical connections had already been made, the pump activated and I got a face full of hydraulic fluid. Thankfully, that stuff doesn't burn like gasoline would.

I also had to sort out the return line, since the one I had was completely melted shut. I found a section of air hose in the garage that already had the right fittings on the ends. It was a few feet too long, but when I go to remount everything, I'll make sure that's neatly tucked away.

Now, for the moment of truth: It worked! The three jacks that I had connected function!

However, it looks like I will need to get those check balls and reinstall them. When I would operate the lever for one of the jacks, the others would get some fluid too. This is because those balls need to be in there to completely seal off the other channels when one is getting fluid. I will also need to tighten the supply fittings, since they were seeping a little. My guess is that the previous owner tried to troubleshoot the hydraulics, and when he disassembled the valves, he wasn't careful and lost the check balls.

Because I don't have all four jacks working, I can't level the unit. Also, the rear jacks are over the grass, and they would just sink into the ground anyway. I'll have to put some blocks under them to spread out the load.

I did, however, manage to raise the body of the Motorless Home up just enough to get my engine hoist into the front all the way. It looks like I now have enough clearance to remove the blown motor!

So, what's next?

I need to get that broken hose fitting replaced. I will have to completely remove the hose from the vehicle and take it to a hydraulics shop to see if it can be repaired. I really hope so. Since this is the longest hydraulic line on the whole vehicle, it will be quite expensive to replace. The line this uses is $0.33 per inch. That's over $4 per foot, and it's probably close to 30 feet in length. So the hose will likely cost $150 to replace! Yikes! If I'm lucky, they will just put a new fitting on the end and I can get out of there for $30 or so. Thankfully, I still have one of check balls for the valve body. I can measure it with my digital caliper so that I can be sure to get the right sized replacements, probably at the same shop that I take the hose to.

Also, I can start working to remove the old engine block. That is a real sore spot for me, and having that thing out of there will really be a milestone on this project. Cross your fingers!

Out with the Old and in with the ... Water Damage!

2013-05-13T22:29:00.001-04:00

Making Space and Finding Faults

Linda and I decided that the large closet in the hallway of the Motorless Home had to go. A previous owner had tried to remodel it and did a piss-poor job of it. Also, since Linda and I don't own many articles of clothing that need to be hung up, it seemed like a colossal waste of space.

After removing the crap job that the previous owner did of moving the sliding doors to the bottom, I then ripped out all the crappy structural work that he did to try to make this modification work. You can see the huge pile of lumber and junk on the floor.

That's one upside to this -- I will have some extra lumber to use in the project for other things.

I then removed the paneling on the inside to expose the hidden factory wiring. I'm going to have to redo a lot of this wiring, since there are several feet of extra length that we won't need in the redesign.

In this image, you can see the wheel well for the tag axle on this RV. I can't remove or change that, except to remove that god-awful carpet. I'll have to incorporate this wheel well into the new design.

Both wheel wells are visible here. I was hoping to open up the area much wider than the closet that was in there, but that wheel well for the drive (dually) axle will determine width of this space.

Since I believe that the metal of this wheel well is rusted out, I may be able to replace the metal and tweak the width a little to make more space.

You can also see a little light coming in between the wall and the carpet. The sidewall of the RV has separated from the floor along this side, as well. Yay. More water damage.

The wiring running across the floor will also need to be moved. It appears that a main 12VDC supply line comes up through the floor here. I will have to move that, as well.

I spent the next little while removing the wiring from the walls and removing the walls themselves. You can see the 12VDC and 110VAC wires hanging from the cabinet here. I'll have to find a way to reroute those.

For now, I've left the vanity that is part of the bedroom intact. It will be removed eventually, but since there is plumbing involved, I need to have the supplies to cap the water and drain lines before I tear that out.

When I was removing the rearmost wall, I found more water damage in the ceiling. So, I cut away part of the ceiling covering to inspect. It's not as bad as some of the other areas, but it will need to be completely replaced.

I had planned on replacing this section of ceiling anyway, but it just goes to show you that water damage usually goes a lot farther than you think. I guess I need to get up on the roof tomorrow and apply a layer of temporary sealant to the other areas, just in case water is penetrating there, too.

A popular modification of RVs is to replace the dinette with a bartop and additional storage. Linda and I like this idea, since the bartop can do triple duty as a work desk, an eating area and a food prep counter. So, I decided to start removing our dinette, as well.

I figured that I'd remove the rearmost seat first, since that would free up more space, while leaving the forward one for a seating area while we conduct repairs.

These things are beefy! It's made of a welded steel frame that is securely bolted to the floor. I'm guessing that it was made this way so that it could be rated for use as a vehicle seat, and therefore could be occupied while the vehicle was in motion.

Sadly, the bolts just turned. The bottom end was far too rusted out. So, I removed the seat top from the pedestal and decided to use a sawzall to cut the bolts.

The seat top was easy to remove. Four nuts and washers, and I lifted it right off and carted it into the garage.

Then the fight started. I spent 45 minutes and killed four metal-cutting blades trying to cut through these !%@$# bolts. They must have been made of fsck!ng Unobtainium or something!

After much cussing and finagling, and a little "bonus" damage to the floor structure, I finally got the bolts removed and the pedestal frame carted off to the garage.

That's when I discovered even more water damage. This is a result of the separation of the wall from the floor. Right at the floor-wall joint between the two seats, the paneling was delaminated. I picked at it. It was dried out, but clearly water damaged. When I get this sidewall reattached to the floor, I'll have to replace part of this inner panel and make sure it's all watertight.

I reinstalled the tabletop from the dinette so that I'd have some usable space. I'm worn out and I am definitely done for today.

I picked up my tools (mostly) and will start tackling cleaning up some of the wiring and mess where the closet used to be tomorrow.

I'm going to bed. Good night.

The Spammers Keep Upping the Ante

2013-05-13T09:07:00.000-04:00

Increasing Security While also Increasing Anonymity

When I originally created this blog, I wanted it to be open to anyone to comment. I even liked the idea of allowing anonymous comments, since anonymity and privacy play a very large role in my politics and in the mission of this blog.

However, due to spam, I was forced to require that comments be posted by persons with a valid OpenID. I also disabled the "word verification" captcha that blogger uses, since many (including myself) struggle with them and find them very annoying.

Well, the spammers are now using OpenIDs. They will post a comment similar to this:

Posted by: Michael Johnston

I really liking your site. It's got lots of useful informations. Thanks again for a really great blog. Also, please to considering the visit of (INSERT LINK TO BARELY PERIPHERALLY RELATED SITE)

Yeah, like someone named Michael Johnston speaks English that poorly? I know that our schools are in a really sad state and that we routinely graduate morons, but this is clearly evidence that someone who does not speak English natively is masquerading as a person with a very native-English-sounding name. Judging by the specific kinds of butchery, I'm going to guess Chinese. Or at least, Asian.

Why not leave the comment and link, you ask? In order for you to really understand why, you need to know how Google (and many other search engines) decide how relevant a given search result is.

The short version is that Google doesn't just rank how often a web site's link appears or how often people click the link from Google's result page. One of the key factors are links on other pages. When other pages provide a link to a site, Google gives that target site a little more weight, since they figure that if OTHER people link to it, it must be more relevant.

If you want a lot more information about it, check out this page about Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

So, What Next?

I've had to increase the annoyance level (for the admins) for comments on this blog. Luckily for you, the reader, that annoyance is only minor. I have turned on comment moderation. So, any time someone posts a comment to this blog, one of the admins of this blog (there are three) must log in and approve the comment before it's visible.

What this means is that your comment won't immediately post. This will allow us to review comments and prevent spam. The good news about this is that because I've turned on comment moderation, I have also re-enabled anonymous postings.

To date, there are not a lot of active commenters on the blog, so I don't really see this as a big issue. If, however, I start being absolutely slammed with anonymous SPAM comments or even OpenID-authenticated SPAM, I will have to further increase the annoyance factor, probably in a a way that will annoy the users. I really hope that I don't have to take steps like that.

So, for now, enjoy the increased privacy that anonymous posting will give you. However, if you post anonymously, please don't expect me to know who you are. If I need to know who you are, please don't post anonymously, or at least include your first name in the post.

Enjoy!

Pluggin' the Holes

2013-05-12T21:26:00.000-04:00

Temporary Waterproofing Project

In order to repair the water damage to the Motorless Home, the first thing that has to be done is to stop the leaks. The proper way to stop these leaks is to use a product like EternaBond. This stuff is absolutely amazing. Here's a video that describes how to use this stuff for exactly the repairs that I need.

However, a 6"x50' roll of that stuff is close to $70! Since I don't have the money to spend on that right now, I decided to make some temporary repairs to stop the major leaks until I can repair the structure from the inside. I went over to Lowe's this morning and picked up caulk gun and some white elastomeric roof sealant. It's not a proper lap sealant that is normally used on RVs, but until this thing has an engine in it, the vehicle part of "Recreational Vehicle" doesn't really apply.

Since the roof over the shower area where the skylight mounts is where the worst structural damage is, I couldn't just climb up on top and walk over the area where the shower is. I weigh 300 lbs, and even though there is an aluminum sheet for the roof, I don't think I'd like to press my luck and rely on just that piece of metal to hold me up. So, I used my ladder next to the Motorless Home. I put some tools up on top, and then cut the old failing sealant on that side and removed the screws on that side.

Once the outboard side of the skylight was loose, I climbed up on top to finish the removal. I cut all the old sealant off and removed all the remaining screws. I pried the skylight off and discarded the defunct factory rubber gasket. It's clear that the previous owner of this RV didn't have a clue how to use sealants to make a true seal.

Resealing the Skylight

When they encountered the leak, the just spread sealant all over the outside and inside and didn't actually get any between the skylight and the roof. It was pretty easy to get the skylight off. What was a challenge was removing the old sealant goop that the previous owner had used. This stuff was so tough that I could not cut it off with a utility knife; I literally had to use pliers to break it off! Had this guy used this stuff between the skylight and the roof, it would have never leaked. What a dumb-ass.

I spent the next forty minutes breaking and scraping the old sealant off the top of the roof and the flange of the skylight. It was quite a bit of work to clean up those surfaces! I then sanded the surfaces of the metal and the skylight so that the adhesive would have more to bite. I also rotated the skylight 180* so that the screw holes in the skylight would not line up with the old holes in the metal. I put a liberal layer of adhesive down and placed the skylight onto it. I made sure I wiggled it around to get full contact with all the surfaces. Then, I used new self-tapping screws to fasten the skylight to the roof.

Once that was done, I smoothed the adhesive around the edge of the skylight and made sure that it overlapped onto the top surface. Although I was sure it was thoroughly sealed, I added a blob of sealant to the top of each of the screws to make sure that no water could penetrate. Sure, it looks really ugly. But keep in mind that this is a temporary waterproofing job, not meant to be permanent or pretty. It just needs to keep that water from coming in. Only time will tell, but I think it will work just fine for now.

The Front Cap

I still had a lot of daylight left and since I was already up there, I decided to tackle one of the other major leaks. This one is where the fiberglass nose cap meets the roof of the main body of the Motorless Home. The structural damage to this area is not as severe as in the bathroom area, but it will need to be rebuilt as well. So, I set out to create another temporary seal. By looking at this picture, it looks a whole lot worse than it really is. The original seal was black, and someone came along later and added a white sealant to the top. So, what looks like a huge gaping crack really isn't. In the center of the image, you can see where the seal has failed and the metal of the roof is visible. I decided to completely remove it and replace it with my sealant. The original seal (the black stuff) was some seriously gooey shit! I'm not sure what it was made of, but I had to cut it off with a utility knife and it was seriously slow-going! I cut and scraped and scraped and cut. I used a screwdriver to dig out the old sealant until I got all the way down to the metal on the roof and the fiberglass on the nose.

Here you can see both the condition of the seal and what it looked like partway through the removal. It was quite a bit of work to get all the goo out of there and to then sand the surface down to give the sealant something to bite on. I didn't scrub the surfaces completely clean; it doesn't need to be a seal that lasts 15 years. This seal needs to last long enough to repair the structural damage and once that's done, I'll really to a complete job on the entire roof, sealing everything up completely and using EternaBond on all the seams.

Once I had removed all the old sealant, I laid a heavy bead of sealant down and then used a piece of duct tape to cover it. I probably could have just left the sealant up there, but I wanted to have a little more physical structure there. After getting the duct tape and sealant all the way across the top, I decided to add more sealant on top of the duct tape and really "goop it in there good." Since this repair is only temporary and the Motorless Home won't be mobile for quite a while, its durability while the vehicle is in motion is not a factor. I just want to keep the water out.

Here's the completed patch. Again, it's not too pretty, but it should keep the water out while I fix the structure from the inside and get everything all dried out. This stuff needs to cure for 24 hours before it's fully set. Once that happens, I am actually hoping for some rain to test it out.

Conclusion

There are still plenty more places on this roof that need attention before I can say that it's waterproof; but these are the two biggest leaks. I still have a couple more tubes of sealant that I can use to cover up cracking in other areas. When I'm working on those, if I find anything that's particularly interesting, I'll grab some photos and write a quick post about it.

Mike Holmes Would Cringe at This

2013-05-11T15:14:00.000-04:00

Starting to tear into the Motorless Home

The biggest enemy of any RV is water. The sealants on the roofs of RVs deteriorate in time, and they eventually crack and allow water to penetrate. When we bought the Motorless Home (when it wasn't motor-less), we knew that it needed repairs due to water damage.

What I didn't know was the extent of the damage. It looked like the damage was confined to the area above the shower. With the recent rains in our area, the need to stop the leaks and repair the damage has become more urgent. I've also located leaks at the front and rear of the roof, where the fiberglass endcaps meet the main body of the motorhome.

So, I started tearing into the ceiling in the bathroom. The wood above the shower was so rotted that it was mush. The laminated plywood panels that form the top and bottom of the ceiling panels had completely delaminated. I removed the plastic surround from the skylight and from the vent over the toilet and started pulling off the rotted material.

That dark-colored material is actually water-soaked wood. It should be a very light color and quite rigid. It's not.

All the stuff I pulled out of the ceiling landed in the tub. It's quite a mess in there now! Aside from a razor knife, I did not need ANY tools to remove any of this. The wood was so rotted that the screws pulled right out.

Using just my hands, I was able to remove a section of the rotted wood all the way to the underside of the metal roof. Basically, in that part of the coach, there is no real ceiling support. It's a good thing that I stayed off that area when I was up on the roof!

Here you can see the pile of crap that came off the ceiling. I will be taking all that junk and putting it into contractor bags for disposal. The only salvageable items that came off the ceiling were the plastic trim panels for the skylight and the vent fan in the bathroom.

Further inspection revealed that the ceiling in the entire back end of the motorhome has significant water damage, requiring full replacement of the ceiling panels, and probably most of the structure, too.

It's going to be a lot of work. I have to empty the bedroom completely, and also figure out how to remove the cabinets, since they seem to have been screwed on from the outside before the endcap was installed.

Since only Linda and I will be living in this space, we will take the opportunity to redesign the space a bit. We both feel that the queen-size bed in there is too small for us. So, we plan to free up as much space as possible when we remove the interior to hopefully get a king-size bed in there.

I'll take pictures and post more as this goes along. This is bound to get "interesting." RVs have both 12VDC and 110VAC electrical systems. Making sure that I have the right kind of power routed to the right locations with the right kind of switches is something that I've never done before.

GAME ON!

Dude, Where's My Blog?

2013-05-08T14:28:00.000-04:00

A Long Overdue Update

Wow, it's been what? 8? 9? Months since my last post.

Well, we've had a few setbacks in our plans, and with my J.O.B. and classes, I just didn't have the energy to work on stuff, let alone post on the blog. I've been dealing with a few financial issues, personal issues, and medical issues. Hell, even my issues have issues.

So, a quick update is in order.

Soapmaking

When I left off the blog, I had just completed Part 3 of my series on soapmaking. I will be revamping that series soon, since I have changed the way I make soap. I now use a method I am calling the Warm Process method, that combines parts of Cold and Hot process soapmaking to make a quality bar in a shorter period of time. I won't be milling soap and rebatching. That's just too damn much work.

Firearms and the Second Amendment

Since my last post, there have been a number of tragedies in the US centering around firearms and terrorism. These actions have sparked national debate about Second Amendment issues. We're all familiar with what happened at Sandy Hook Elementary.

There are many evil, crazy whack-jobs out there. Restricting my right to have firearms won't stop crazy people from killing -- sure, it might lessen the impact slightly, but it's not going to prevent it. I don't think we should do nothing. I also don't think that just handing anyone with a pulse a gun is all that swift, either.

The way I see it, the real issue is not about firearms, knives, bows or pressure-cooker bombs. It's about figuring out how our society is manufacturing these crazy people and putting a stop to it.

I don't think that expanding background checks in a way that would violate HIPAA is a good idea. For the record, I generally think that HIPAA takes things too far; my own wife can't inquire about my medical status, for cripes sake! However, I think it's a violation of my privacy for someone to look at my medical records to determine if I should be allowed to possess a firearm.

If a qualified medical professional has a reasonable belief that someone is a danger to themselves or others, they are already required by law to report it. I think that reports of this nature should be revealed during gun purchase background checks. The fact that my second cousin's best friend's piano teacher's ex-husband once took antidepressants is not grounds to suspend my second amendment rights. There have already been cases where a man's rights were suspended by the State of New York, by mistake.

Concealed Carry Weapons / Concealed Handgun License

After the craziness in Sandy Hook, Linda and I decided that it was time that we were armed and trained. She and I took an accredited Concealed Carry class at Point Blank, and have purchased our carry weapons. We both applied for our licenses, and Linda's was approved. Mine was denied because there was a 20-year-old run-in with the law from when I was a teenager still on my juvenile record. Once I get that officially expunged (this Friday), I will be able to reapply and be granted my CCW.

The Motorless Home

Well, now that it's spring, I've been working inside the Motorless Home. I'm happy to say that last night, I was able to get the onboard refrigerator back to 99% fully functional status. The only reason it's not at 100%, is that I need to purchase a $3 IC to solder onto the control board. Right now, I've got the system manually controlled to run on house current.

Linda and I have gone back and forth on what we want to do with the Motorless Home. We've discussed just scrapping it. We've discussed converting it into a flat-towed trailer. We've even come full circle, back to the idea of putting a motor in it and driving it. I'm not sure where we are going with this. I can, however, keep working on its internal systems. Next up: fix the front AC unit, find and stop the roof leaks and repair the rear furnace.

Well, that's about it for now. I promise that I'll try to post a little more often, and I'll work on getting that soapmaking stuff completed.

Now, has anyone seen the Continuum Transfunctioner? It's a mysterious and powerful device, whose mystery is only exceeded by it's power.

I've Been Lyeing a Lot Lately, Part 3

2012-09-16T12:53:00.000-04:00

Making Soap from Butcher Shop Trash

This is part three in a five part series on making homemade soap for personal use or sale. If you want to view the earlier posts, use these links:

Part Three: Making and Casting the Soap

In this part, I will explain how to turn your purified tallow into soap, through a process called saponification. By combining a strong alkali with some water and the tallow, you create an exothermic reaction that chemically alters the fat molecules into detergent.

I'm not going to go into the specifics of the chemistry that is going on here; it's really out-of-scope for this series. If you want to know how saponification works, check out these links:

For my soapmaking, I use a two-step process.

First, I make a base soap that has no extra fat in it, no colorings or fragrances. I make two different base soaps: lathery and not-so-lathery. The only difference is the addition of some white sugar to the lye mixture to make the base soap lathery. Since this soap does not contain extra fat (superfatting), in its raw form, it may be slightly drying or irritating to the skin. The non-lathery formula of this base soap is excellent for use as a laundry detergent, or as the base soap in homemade liquid laundry detergent.

Once this soap has finished curing, I "re-batch" or "handmill" the soap. It is at this point that I add additional fats to make the soap more moisturizing, and add colors and fragrances. During the second step is when I will place the soap into its final molding for storage or sale.

So, let's get on with making the base soap. The next part in this series will deal with the handmilling process.

Tools you'll need:

100% sodium hydroxide (NaOH) lye, available at some farm supply stores or online
1 gallon of white vinegar, to neutralize the lye in case of spill
Rubber gloves
Safety goggles
Crockpot
Scale accurate to 0.1g for measuring lye and one accurate to 5g for oils (I use this one for oils, and this one for lye)
Non-reactive container to weigh the lye
Non-reactive container to mix lye
Non-reactive tool to stir lye mixture
pH test strips, either full range [0-14] or alkaline range [7-14], available at drug stores and aquarium stores
Stick blender, preferably with stainless steel shaft (I melted my plastic one!)
Heat-resistant container in which to cast the hot soap

WARNING:

Lye is extremely caustic. You don't want to get any of it on your skin or in your eyes, so make sure you've got your skin and face protected by gloves and goggles. If you get any lye on your skin, immediately flush the area with white vinegar, then with lots of water to neutralize the lye and remove the vinegar.

When mixing lye with water, the mixture will heat up quite a bit! Make sure you are using a non-reactive and heat-resistant container to mix in!

During the soapmaking process, there is risk of what is called "the volcano." This soapy, bubbly mixture is extremely hot and can cause second and possibly third degree burns if you get it on your skin. Make sure you watch your soap carefully while it's cooking to avoid the volcano, and have cold water nearby in case any gets on your skin!

Preparing Your Recipe

For simplicity, I use the metric system for all my measurements. It's just plain better when you're dealing with chemicals that can maim you. Feel free to use whatever units you want, but I will use metric measurements here.

I will be using the following amounts of materials to make a base "lathery" soap:

1000.0 g beef tallow
380.0 g COLD distilled water
142.6 g lye
10 g sugar (omit this if you don't want a lathery base soap)

If you want to use different amounts to make more or less soap, DO NOT just "scale" this recipe up or down. Use the Soap Lye Calculator at soapcalc.net to get an accurate recipe. The soap calculator does not have a field for the addition of sugar to improve lathering, so you can use 10g per kilogram of base oils.

Make the Soap

Weigh your ingredients. Be careful. Take your time to be precise. When working with the lye, make sure you are wearing gloves and eye protection!

Here's everything you'll need to have on-hand. Make sure all of this stuff is ready to go so that you don't have to go digging. There are parts of this process that happen quickly, so you may not have time to go looking for something later.

Add the sugar to the water and stir until dissolved. Then, slowly add the lye into the water. NEVER add water into the lye crystals! It can heat up and cause a steam explosion and spew highly concentrated lye into your face! Place the container that had your lye crystals in it into the sink and run lots and lots of water in it to dilute any remaning lye.

Pour the tallow into a cold crockpot. If its solid, warm it gently in a sinkful of hot water until it liquefies. Slowly add the lye mixture to the oil. You will see that it becomes cloudy. Place this container in the sink and also flush well with water.

Using the stick blender, blend the mixture until it reaches trace. With tallow, this can take some time. In this batch, it took about 10 minutes. Trace is the stage at which the lye/tallow solution thickens to the consistency of runny yogurt, and when you remove the blender from it you will see that the liquid piles up on itself for a few moments.

Once you're at trace, cover the crockpot and put it on low. While you're waiting for it all to heat up and cook, line your temporary mold with wax paper for easy removal later. This batch took about 30 minutes to get to the next stage.

This stage is when the soap begins to cook and turn over on itself. You can see the bubbles forming at the edge of the mixture. This region will grow and darken in color as the mixture turns in on itself. Once there is a ring of cooked soap about 1/4 to 1/2 inch all the way around, turn the crock pot up to high. Do not leave the crockpot unattended for very long!

Once the mixture has turned over, stir it down and allow it to cook for a few more minutes, then turn the crockpot off.

This stuff is extremely hot! Treat it like molten lava! It will burn the bejeesus out of you if you get it on your skin!

Now, test the pH. Take a small sample of your soap from the crockpot and wet it sightly with some water. Touch one of the pH strips to the wet soap and read the pH according to the package instructions. Your soap is safe if it's pH lies between 8 and 9. pH levels much higher than 9 can irritate the skin considerably. If the pH is too high, your soap is lye-heavy and either needs additional fat to react with, or it needs time to cure. If you follow this recipe precisely, you should wind up with a good soap.

Some people like to use the "zap test," but pH strips are more precise and you're not risking a chemical burn to your tongue. However, if you don't have access to pH strips, I suppose the "zap test" is better than nothing. If you do get zapped by a lye-heavy soap, I suggest swishing vinegar in your mouth to neutralize any lye that remains on your tongue to minimize any chemical burns.

Since this recipe is not superfatted, it will never reach the separation stage that you may see in other recipes. Once the soap has reached an "applesauce" or "mashed potato" consistency, you can put it into your prepared mold. Several times during the process, bang the mold on a hard surface to remove excess air.

Once you've transferred all the soap, set it aside to cool and harden.

Once the soap has cooled and solidified (several hours) remove it from the mold and cut it into bars. If you have trouble removing it from the mold, try placing it in the freezer for a few minutes to help the soap release.

Set your base soap aside to cure and harden for a few days, or until you're ready to begin making handmilled soap.

ALTERNATE ENDING: If you don't want to handmill and just want to use hot-process soap, before molding, add 30g of additioinal tallow to the mixture and stir it in completely. This will superfat the mixture and give it moisturizing properties. If you want to add colors and fragrances, allow the soap to cool to about 160F, then add your colorants and fragrance oils and stir them in completely. Then proceed with molding and cutting.

Now, clean up your mess so your spouse doesn't kill you for tearing the kitchen up!

Stay Tuned!

In Part Four of this series, I will show how I grate the base soap and recombine it in molds to make a final product.

I've Been Lyeing a Lot Lately, Part 2

2012-09-09T11:58:00.000-04:00

Making Soap from Butcher Shop Trash

This is part two in a five part series on making homemade soap for personal use or sale. If you want to view the first post, you can find it here.

Part Two: Rendering and Purifying the Tallow

In order to make homemade soap, you need to have oils. Many soapers use purchased oils in their soapmaking. I am going for a more sustainable approach, so I have chosen to render the trimmings from my local butcher shop. If you don't want to bother with this step, you can purchase lard, tallow and many other vegetable-based oils at your local grocery. If you choose not to make your own oils, you can move right on to Part Three.

Tools you'll need

large pressure cooker or stock pot
a second large pot to hold all the liquids
a sieve or strainer to catch the solids
thermometer with temperature probe
cheesecloth or fine sackcloth
fire extinguisher (hopefully you won't need this!)

Contact Your Local Butcher

If you're going to render your own fat for soapmaking, you'll need a source of meat trimmings. Large butchering operations usually have a specialized company come to pick up their waste. On a large scale, it's worth it for them to pick it up. So calling a large grocery or large meat packing operation may not help.

We called our local Mom-and-Pop butcher and asked them what they did with all the meat trimmings. They told me that they just put them in the garbage. So, we asked if we could pick them up. They told us the best days and times to stop by.

We swung by recently and picked up this bucket of meat trimmings. The butcher actually apologized for it only being half full, but told me that if we come back in a couple days, he will have a whole lot for us, since he's preparing a side of beef for a customer.

Sort the Mess, Load it Up, and Start Cooking

When our butcher is processing meat, they often toss little bits of paper or sections of plastic wrap into the bucket. I don't gripe about it since I'm getting all this stuff for free. You will find all manner of stuff in here. I recently found an entire knee joint! As long as it's not foreign matter, you can use it all; bones, meat, fat, whatever. Its usually mostly beef, but I've found a fair amount of pork meat and trimmings in there, as well. Since rendered pork fat (lard) and rendered beef fat (tallow) have very similar properties and saponification rates, it's OK that these are mixed at an unknown ratio.

I like to use my large 21-quart pressure canner to render the fat using a wet process. If you don't have a large pressure cooker/canner, you can use a large stock pot. It will just take longer to render the fat. Since there is a lot of bone and meat mixed in with the fat, I can get a couple other useful products out of the trimmings, namely a meat/bone mix that I use as food for my dogs, and lots and lots of yummy, healthy stock.

I fill my pot about 3/4 full with meat trimmings, and then cover them by about an inch of water.

I then put it on the stove and cook it at 10psi for about three hours. If you're using a pressure cooker, I don't recommend exceeding 10psi, which is what most pressure cookers are set to if you don't have selectable pressure. Pressure cooking this stuff at higher temperatures (and pressures) can lead to some discoloration of the fat. It will still be perfectly usable, but your soap may not be a pure, clean white color. If you are not using a pressure cooker, cover the pot at keep it at a low boil until the bones are soft and break easily. This will take quite a long time (perhaps as long as 12-24 hours), which is why I use the pressure cooker to speed the process.

Make Dog Food

Once you're done cooking, take the pot off the stove and allow it to cool. You can speed this process by placing the pot in the sink and filling the sink with cold water, stirring both the "soup" and the sink water occasionally. When the sink water gets hot, refill the sink.

Once the "soup" has cooled enough that you can put your finger into it without a trip to the Emergency Room, (150F-160F) pour it through a sieve into another pot that can hold all the liquid. Spray some hot water over the solids and allow it to drain into the pot with the liquid. This will get some additional fat off the solids. Put the pot with the liquid back into the sink to cool more. While it's cooling, you can make your dog food.

There still will be some fat left in the solids you just strained out. We've found that our dogs get "the runs" if there is too much fat in the dog food we make, so we sort through the solids, pulling out the large chunks of fat and bones that did not get soft enough. We usually hand those harder bones to the dogs to keep them occupied while we sort through the meat. Once this is done, we pack the meat/bone stuff into baggies and freeze it. Sometimes, we'll put some of it through the food processor with the softened bones to make a pâté-type dog food.

Once you're done making a sticky mess of your hands, check on your liquids. When they have cooled to around 130F, cover the liquids and place them in the refrigerator. They will need to stay there for a couple days to allow the fat to separate and harden. This cooling is extremely taxing on your refrigerator. Don't be surprised if some of the stuff in there isn't as cold as it should be for a while. Try to avoid opening the refrigerator as much as possible so the liquids can cool.

Now, clean up your mess so your spouse doesn't kill you for tearing the kitchen up!

Two Days Later...

Once the fat has solidified, it's time to complete the separation of the stock and the tallow. The fat should be bright white and hard to the touch. Take it out of the refrigerator and remove the fat from the stock. Put the pot with the stock in it back into the refrigerator for later use.

Place the fat in a large pot over medium heat. Make sure that pot is no more than 1/4 full of oil. Too much oil in the pot can result in boilover and possibly a grease fire. Place the thermometer probe into the oil. Slowly increase the temperature of the oil to about 300F, stirring regularly. You must to do this with the lid off so that the water vapor can escape, so watch the oil carefully!

IMPORTANT! If there is any water in with the fat, it will boil out during this process and can pop loudly and splash hot oil all over the place. This is why it is extremely important that you stir the oil regularly so that large pockets of water will not accumulate and flash to steam.

CAUTION! Please take great care when heating oil of any kind in your kitchen. Grease fires destroy many homes and kill many people every year. If you have a grease fire develop in a pot, put the lid on it to snuff the flames. Then take it off the heat until it cools down. If the fire has gotten out of the pot, use the fire extinguisher, or call 911.

Do NOT spray water on a grease fire or you will make it worse!

You will know when the oil is done when the gurgling sound it makes from the water boiling out stops and all you hear is the faint sizzle sound from the frying of the solids that are left in the oil. Then, take it off the heat and allow it to cool down to under 180F.

Line a suitable container with several layers of cheesecloth or sackcloth and pour the hot oil through it to remove any remaining solids. Make sure the container can take the heat! You don't want it to melt and spill hot tallow everywhere!

Gather up the corners of the sackcloth and slowly pull it out of the container, straining out the solids. Cover the container with a tight fitting lid or a layer of plastic wrap and store in the refrigerator for later use.

TIP: Some people will use a pressure canner to store their tallow in jars. This fat is useful not only for soap, but for cooking as well. It is a saturated fat, so be sure that you don't use a lot of it in your cooking! Canning the tallow allows you to make it shelf stable for a long period, so you can make your soap at a later time. I did some measurements, and it looks like 20 fluid ounces of beef tallow at about 100F measures out to just about 0.5kg. So, if you want to make your recipes by metrics and store tallow in jars, only fill them to the 20oz level. You will still need to weigh your oils before soaping, but at least you can get close.

Make Soup!

Now that you have your tallow, take the remaining stock and store it. I prefer to pressure can my stock so that it is shelf stable. If you don't have a pressure canner, you can freeze it. This stock will be very bland in flavor because it has no added salt. I always make my stock with no added salt. I figure you can always add salt later when you need it, and you sure can't take it out very easily!

Now, clean up your mess so your spouse doesn't kill you for tearing the kitchen up!

Stay Tuned!

In Part Three of this series, I will show how I make the soap and cast it into blocks for later use in the handmilling process.

I've Been Lyeing a Lot Lately, Part 1

2012-09-03T10:29:00.000-04:00

Making Soap from Butcher Shop Trash

You all know that I'm branching out and learning new skills that will help me when the Zombie Apocalypse comes. One of the things that will become hard to get if/when the economy completely collapses is soap.

I've decided to do a series of blog posts to talk about the soapmaking process. It's just too complicated and long a process to do it all in one monster post. I will divide this post into five parts:

A Brief History of Soapmaking (this post)
Rendering and Purifying the Tallow
Making and Casting the Soap
Handmilling, Molding and Cutting
Curing and Packaging

Part One: A Brief History of Soapmaking

For millenia, humans have been making soap from rendered animal fats and caustics. Many credit the Babylonians for being the first ones to discover the chemical process that turns fat into soap. Early recipies involved boiling meat trimmings in water with wood ash. Due to the imprecise nature of this process, early soaps were sometimes heavy or light on the lye, which could make the soap irritating or even prone to rancidity.

The Romans preferred to clean their bodies by rubbing down with oil and then scraping the oil off using a metal implement. In the first century A.D., the Romans began using soap for cleaning tasks, but it was not generally used for bathing, most likely because of the imprecision of the recipe that could often result in a lye heavy soap that was irritating to the skin.

Between the 5th and 15th centuries A.D., a period often referred to as the Middle Ages, the use of soap for bathing was extremely rare. In fact, personal hygiene was essentially non-existent during this period of 1000 years. This lack of hygiene is often cited as the primary reason that there were so many plagues and diseases that prevented humans from progressing.

It was common practice to have open sewers running through the streets, and people would often pour human waste into them from a window above. Clearly, sanitation and hygiene weren't a big concern.

It wasn't until the late 1700s that soapmaking began to evolve significantly. Between the 1790s and the 1820s, the French discovered the precise relationship between fats and alkali in soap, which brought soapmaking into the modern era. In the mid 1800s, soap diverged into separate products for bathing and laundry.

Since the bathing soaps were no longer as caustic as they once were, personal hygiene took great leaps forward. I find it really funny, however, that the French made these discoveries, and they still smell bad to this day.

In the 1930s, the development of synthetic detergents sounded the death knell for fat/lye soaps. Synthetic detergents could be made more cheaply, and in some cases could outperform fat/lye soaps of the time. Since then, almost all commercial personal and laundry cleaning products available in the U.S. have been made from these synthetic detergents.

We have been trained by the commercial interests that fat/lye soap is "bad." They often refer to the caustic nature of fat/lye soaps. That's true, but only if you're using a recipe from 1776. What they fail to tell us is that applying a little modern chemistry and by using accurate measurement devices, modern fat/lye soap is often superior to many of the synthetic soaps.

They don't want us to make our own; they want us to buy, buy, buy from them.

Why Make Soap?

I want to be more self-sufficient. I want to learn how to make things that I need in an everyday situation so that I am not dependent on the infrastructure of our country. I know this is a bunch of "doomsday prepper" talk, but I'd rather have the knowledge and not need it, than to need it and not have the knowledge.

Linda and I got a great deal on some pork roasts recently. I trimmed all the fat off and cut out the bone. we gave the bone to the dogs. I ran the meat through our meat grinder and froze the lean ground pork. At that point, I decided to render the fat and try to make soap with it.

After doing some research, I found a wonderful resource at soapcalc.net. On this web site is a tool that helps you calculate the proper amount of lye and water to safely make soap.

So, I obtained some lye and made soap. It was wonderful! It felt great! It cleans amazingly well! It didn't lather very well, but that was because it was made from 100% lard.

At that point, I was bitten. I was really excited about having been able to make use of 100% of those pork roasts. In the past, we always threw out the fat since we had no use for it. Now, I can make a useful product out of waste material!

Eww! Lard? Yuck!

Many people who have gotten into homemade soapmaking have decided that the use of animal oils is "yucky." Instead, they go out and purchase vegetable oils that can sometimes be very expensive so that they can claim that their soaps have these exotic ingredients. Shea butter, cocoa butter, coconut oil, and palm oils are some of the more common. I've looked in the store at these products, and the only one I'm willing to buy is coconut oil, since its price is more reasonable. It greatly contributes to the lathering capability when mixed 1:1 with tallow or lard.

Since I intend to use these products on my skin, I think that the use of an animal oil is more compatible with my biochemistry than that of a vegetable oil. I make soap from cows and pigs. Those are both mammals. I'm a mammal. I have a whole lot more in common biochemically with pigs and cows than I do a palm tree. So I choose to use animal oils. They make a wonderful soap that cleans well and conditions the skin.

I can get my raw materials for free; the butcher shop will give me their meat trimmings that they would have otherwise thrown into the garbage. So, not only am I making a soap that is more compatible with human physiology, I am making use of what would have otherwise gone to a landfill. That's a far more sustainable process than importing exotic oils from all over the world. I get mine about a mile from my house.

Stay Tuned!

In Part Two of this series, I will show how I render butcher shop waste into tallow, beef stock and dog food.

Aspiration and Inspiration

2012-08-22T14:26:00.001-04:00

Couple quick things I want to talk about today:

There's an off-gridder named Keith "Skeeter" Thompson who lives in the high desert of New Mexico. Check out this video that features him:

This guy is living the life that I want to live to such a level of accuracy, it's spooky. The only real differences are that he's in New Mexico and we'll be in Texas, and he drilled a well, and we will fetch water from a community well. I want to build a water tower to provide pressure. I want to have a battery bank that is solar and wind powered. I want to have a simple structure for a home and live quietly with my wife.

I aspire to be just like Skeeter. I wish I could find some contact information for him. He's featured all over the internet on off-grid blogs, but it's just this same video reposted and not much info.

Hey, Skeeter, if you're out there, hit me up! I'd love to pick your brain!

Additionally, Linda found a really good idea for our off-grid solar project that just makes good sense to me. Check out this guy's post about a home-built solar trailer. You can take your power generation with you! This has inspired me to start thinking again about how I will build our off-grid lifestyle. I like the idea of portable power. It means that we can just "go somewhere else" if we need to. Very convenient.

I'm Gonna Wash that Cost Right Outta my Budget!

2012-07-22T15:26:00.000-04:00

Home Made Laundry Detergent

One of the things that Linda and I must do in order to survive out in the desert is to keep our expenses to a minimum. One of the ways we can accomplish this is to find ways to make things for less expense and less effort than purchasing the completed product.

Our latest adventure is in home made detergents. We recently found several recipes on the Internet for making your own liquid laundry detergent. The basic components of these recipes were all the same:

Borax
Washing Soda (Sodium Carbonate)
Baking Soda (Sodium Bicarbonate)
Laundry soap (usually in bar form)
Water

These ingredients were combined in various ways and in different amounts to yield different volumes of detergents at different strengths. If you omit the water, you can make a powdered version, as well.

Linda prefers liquid detergent. I was wanting to make the powdered version because it's much more compact without all that water, and weighs less. To me, that's a step toward "living small" and frugality. However, since Linda is the one who handles the laundry chores in our marriage, she gets to pick the tools she works with. The liquid detergent will dissolve easily in cold water, which is another way to reduce cost.

Additionally, we have to use "free and clear" detergents since the regular ones irritate Linda's skin. The recipe we use doesn't add any artificial dyes or perfumes, so it's naturally "free and clear."

The recipe we wound up using only makes 2.5 gallons of detergent, but it is ULTRA-, MEGA-, ÜBER-concentrated. The recipe says to use 1/3 cup in each washload, but we've already reduced that to 1/4 cup and we're using 1/3 cup only when we're washing my grungy, garage "play clothes." Yeah, it's THAT concentrated. The super concentrated quality of this recipe satisfied my desire to do more in less space, so I'm cool with it.

Assembling the Ingredients and Tools

It seems that the availability of these raw ingredients varies from area to area and even store to store. My recipe uses the following components:

1 bar of Fels-Naptha laundry soap (or any other laundry bar, such as Zote)
1 16-oz box baking soda
1 c borax
1 c washing soda
9 quarts of water

Here are some links to Amazon.com if you just want to order online:

I was able to find these at my local Wal-Mart store for substantially less than what Amazon is selling it for. However, if your local stores don't carry these, you can get them. If you do order online, please use the links above since we get credit for the sales.

In addition to the ingredients above, you'll need:

an 8-quart (or larger) pot
a 3-gallon (or larger) bucket with a tight sealing lid
Plastic cooking spoon for stirring. Wooden spoons can absorb the detergent.
Cuisinart with grating attachment, box grater or sharp knife

Putting it all Together

1.	Grate the laundry soap. The finer the grate, the faster it will dissolve during the next step. If you don't have access to a box grater or a Cuisinart with a grater attachment, you can shave the soap with a sharp knife. It will look a little like shredded Cheddar cheese.
2.	In the large pot, add the grated soap and 1 gallon (4 quarts) of water. Dissolve the soap over medium heat. It is very important that you stir it with the spoon slowly. You don't want to create suds. Do not allow the mixture to boil at any time.
3.	Combine all the dry ingredients into one container. This will make it easier to add it in increments in the next step.
4.	Once the soap has fully dissolved, begin adding the other ingredients 1/2 c at a time, making sure they fully dissolve before adding the next component. Continue to stir slowly. Repeat until all the dry ingredients have been incorporated.
5.	Continue slowly stirring to be sure that all the dry ingredients have dissolved. Skim off any foam that that forms.
6.	Slowly pour the hot mixture into the bucket. Again, you want to avoid agitating it. You want to keep from creating suds if possible. Unfortunately, I was not successful and made suds.
7.	Slowly add the remaining water (5 qt) to the bucket, stirring slowly.
8.	Cover the bucket tightly with its lid and allow to cool overnight. The mixture will thicken to a gel-like consistency.
9.	If you have foam that settles to the top of your soap, you can mix it in several times while it cools. This will melt some of the foam into the detergent. Once it has cooled overnight, if there is still foam left, you can either mix it in and shake your detergent before you measure it, or skim off the foam for a nice, translucent-yellow detergent.

After it cooled, we transferred it from the bucket into old detergent bottles that we give a shake just before we measure it out. You can fit most of it into three of the 100-ounce Tide bottles.

The Cost Breakdown

Assuming a standard measure of 1/4c per load, this recipe will yield about 160 loads. At 1/3c for heavily soiled loads, it will yield about 120 loads.

Here's the breakdown of cost:

Item Name	Vol per Container	Cost per Container	Batches per Item	Vol per Batch	Cost per Batch
Borax	76 oz	$3.50	11.18	6.8 oz	$0.313
Washing Soda	55 oz	$4.25	4.91	11.2 oz	$0.865
Baking Soda	16 oz	$1.00	1	16 oz	$1.000
Fels-Naptha	5.5 oz	$1.00	1	5.5 oz	$1.000
Water	9 qt	$0.00	1	9 qt	$0.000

Added together, this comes to $3.178 per batch. If we divide by 160 loads, we come to an astonishing

1.9 CENTS PER LOAD!

Wow. Now, let's look at your average bottle of Tide.

On WalMart.com's web site, they sell a 100-oz bottle of Tide (64 loads) for $11.97. That comes out to

18.7 CENTS PER LOAD

So, by making your own you can

save 16.8 CENTS PER LOAD over Tide!

Yeah, it's cheaper, but how does it clean?

In our testing, this stuff cleans exceedingly well. We did a test wash of a load of whites. Our whites don't get really grungy. They're just underwear and undershirts. We were really surprised when the water turned gray/brown. It was far darker than when we use regular detergents. I would say that it cleans at least as well as Tide, if not better. When washing my "play clothes," it easily performs better than the other detergents. It not only cleans, but does a good job at removing the grease, too!

Conclusion

By making our own detergent, we can save quite a bit of money, and we have the peace of mind in knowing that there are no dyes or strong perfumes in it. Since there are many other uses for the raw materials, we can keep them on hand for other projects and take one more step toward being off the grid and being independent from "the system."

The Zombies are Coming

2012-07-20T15:14:00.000-04:00

I'm sure I'm not the only one who will blog about this today.

This morning, at a midnight showing of "The Dark Knight Rises," this nut job pulls a gun and starts shooting the crowd. As of this writing, 12 are confirmed dead, and many more injured.

When captured by the police, he claimed that his car and apartment were booby trapped with explosives. It seems that he just made it look that way to make the police waste their time.

What happened to this guy to make him completely lose his mind?

Recently, a man in Florida chewed off half of a homeless man's face, and didn't stop even after being shot several times by the police. He apparently was high on some drug.

We have children and college students taking guns to school and going on shooting sprees, because they are depressed or are social outcasts.

What is this world coming to? I don't know, but this seems to be signs of the coming collapse of our society. I blame it on our government. We coddle our children. We allow aberrant behavior. We seem to value the "feelings" of the perpetrator more than those of the victim.

What do we do to fix it? I think the only way to fix this is revolution. I'm not talking about guns and armies and death, but simply the fact that we need to just junk the entire government and start over. Of course, this is a great threat to those who currently hold power, and they will certainly fight against that.

In the eloquent words of Thomas Jefferson:

"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is it’s natural manure."

I'd rather find a way to replace our faulty government peacefully. Unfortunately, history teaches us that revolutions like that are exceedingly rare. So, if guns and armies and death are what is required to fix it, so be it.

We need stronger and more "final" penalties. The media keeps referring to this guy as a "suspect" and "alleged shooter." For cripes sake! There are hundreds of eye-witnesses. There is absolutely 0.000000000000% chance that this guy is innocent. Honestly, I think for things like this, we need to bring back public hanging. "Cruel and unusual," you say? Well, I bet if we had more public hangings, people would think twice about doing this stuff if they were guaranteed to swing rather than guaranteed three squares and a college education that, since they are locked up for life, will be completely useless.

I don't have much else to say about this - I'm just saddened that our great country has declined this far, and am scared at the possibility that the end of our great nation could occur in my lifetime. So, it's time to get serious about learning to be self-sufficient and frugal, since it seems that those skills will be in demand in the coming years.

My heart goes out to all those who have lost friends and family to these......

ZOMBIES.