Scooter's randomness- The Blob...er, Blog

[scooter]

As mentioned last week, I've been working on my office.  Which had a rather nasty and stained tealish blue carpet that was original to the house.  Well, it's been pulled up along with the padding and bamboo tongue and groove flooring going in.





No carpet monster here to gobble up small bits

[McColm]

Hi Scooter,
Put up five pictures on my FaceBook page; three of the Avro Carlton AEW & C and two of the Proteus.
Search under: Steven James McColm

[scooter]

And then there were three ...


With 4 ceiling panels and oodles of fibreglass to pull down, before pulling up the floor and tearing out the interior walls

[scooter]

Bus update.  Went out the other day to grind out the last 3 seats, and realized the cut-off wheel was ground down to bare usability.  Went to find the wrench for the angle grinder...took until today to find it.  But the last 4 ceiling panels and pneumatic ram arm for the door are down, the seats will probably be coming out this week...along with the rest of the fibreglass.  Pics up later

And had a little fun today knocking together a Thompson-based phaser SMG with Gunbucket parts, and based off my updated Tommy gun:

[scooter]

And all the seats are finally out...save the Captain's





And here's what a rear heater looks like...with 11 years worth of crud-

Tasty, innit?

[kerick]

Park it on a hill so the water runs out the door and break out the pressure washer.....
Find some swivel chairs seats from a conversion van for passengers.
How is the engine and drive train?

[scooter]

Park it on a hill so the water runs out the door and break out the pressure washer.....
Find some swivel chairs seats from a conversion van for passengers.
How is the engine and drive train?

I've definitive plans to clean it out, including flipping it around, since it's already on an incline.  The power plant's a Navistar (International) T444E V-8, governed around 200 hp, attached to an Allison AT545.  Both have handled sitting well, as well as the drive home from Maine last May.  Biggest problem with finding stuff on Craigslist is that the New Jersey Craigslists absolutely sucks when it comes to RVs and Conversion van parts, and most of the Pick & Pull demo yards don't have any either.  So, it's off to build most of the furnishings, and buy everything else, including tanks and electrical.  I'm planning to change out the solid pedestal seat with this heavy duty air-ride seat.  Driver's fatigue is important when driving a 40' missile.


Pulled more of the forward side windows today, but the humidity was overwhelming- an hour in, I was drenched.  This afternoon will probably see the tarp put in place for the winter.

As for plastic, I've been doing small work on the updated KT, mated the track suspension to the lower hull.

[Captain Canada]

Excellent. With the weather finally cooling you might as well keep plugging away until you wrap her up for the winter ?

[scooter]

I've gotten her wrapped already, Cap'n, because I've pulled windows and left them out.  It did manage to hold up in some of the storms we had last month, although I did have to get ratchet straps since the stakes pulled out of the sand in the wind. 

I've also been slowly working on pulling the interior wall panels. Nothing like an hour's work swinging a hammer against a cold chisel breaking tack welds and grinding off stubborn screw heads.

I've also been in something of a planning mode for next season, while waiting for winter to set into attack the Asphalteum™ (If it's as bad as NWS and Farmers' Almanac are predicting, the cold will definitely help). Once the floor's up, I've been thinking would it be worth it to run 4 longitudinal beams of double-stacked 1/2" ply ripped into 4" widths, 1" rigid insulation between them, then more double-stacked 1/2" laterally with 7' spacing and more 1" rigid filling the voids.

The inboard beams would be bolted through the existing mounting with elevator bolts, the outboard screwed in place with wood to metal screws through the floor or angle bracketed to the ribs through the chair rail. This would all be sitting on a layer of acoustical barrier.

Asphalteum is what Amtran/International/Navistar used to seal the roof panels and attach the fiberglass batting insulation.  Really nasty stuff to remove.

[scooter]

As winter sets in with the end of the Fall Semester, and other than minor interior demo still ongoing with The Bus, I'm already beginning the planning stages of my next project- a 1/24 interior scale model of The Bus, mainly for planning purposes so I have a visual representation of what's going where and what isn't going to work.

[scooter]

As the holiday season, Mrs Scooter Mk.II and I would like to wish you and yours-

[DogfighterZen]

The same wishes back to all of you from Portugal! 

[NARSES2]

Have a good one mate

[scooter]

Whilst I should be working on the Tomcat F.1, my plastic muse seems to have long since fled, I think screaming into the night.   But my muse for prose seems to have returned, and a bit of a plot from something I've started working, which Daz3d has helped fleshout.  A chapter (probably the first) from The Dragon and The Slave

[scooter]

Yesterday, SWMBO and I decided to head down to Cape May for the day, to enjoy the sites before the Summer infestation of tourist season kicks off this weekend.  One of the notable sites, on the western shore of the county, is the remains of the SS Atlantus, of which really just her stern is visible most of the time.




There's also one of the few remaining fire control observation towers for Fort Miles, which is only open on weekends, so no chance to climb up to the top.