state of the hobby?

[boxcarOkie]

Calling it a hobby is the only way to justify spending more money than you would have spent on an already converted or store bought RV.

Aw, it's only money Jon, and like my wife is fond of saying, "It keeps him outta the Honky Tonks."  (as if I am going to actually get involved or hurt someone?)

BCO

[wayne]

I bought mine in 2002 and started disassembling, restoring and building  There are times that money prevents me from going forward and other times I'm just tired. Since I have been doing this project I've seen all kinds of variables from fuel going up/down, economy going up/down/up/down/down and the buses values drop and not come back up. The cost of materials and supplies has skyrocketed so trying to take on something like this doesn't make sense.
  I have friends that have gone and purchased American Eagles with slides and even though they're not built like a bus they are pretty nice. The banks give loans easily on them and insurance companies insure them without issue yet the payments are what I spend in supplies every month  When I buy abrasives alone I can't believe the cost $10 for a disc for my 12" disc sander, $8 for a 4.5" flap disc. Hardware, rags, paint, glues, steel, etc.
I work on mine at night and some weekends which is why I'm 14 years into it. My friends have been useing theirs all along. I can't say I would do this knowing what I know now but I'm way past the point of no return. I love the way it has turned out and can't wait to hit the road with it (hopefully this december) but I will never do another one.

[Iceni John]

When I was a little 'un I had my Meccano set (the all-metal constructor set beloved by so many) and Lego, lots of it.   It was absolutely normal for me to invent and make things from Meccano and Lego, learning why some things didn't work and why certain rules had to be followed.   I even made a simple 4WD truck from Meccano with a self-changing 2-speed gearbox when I was twelve years old or so.   I never paid any attention to the 'suggested" designs, but always preferred to make my own creations.   My Lego was used not to make boring little houses, but to make real boy stuff like model planes, and not just any old planes but reasonably accurate models of Tupolev 95 Bears and Huey choppers and suchlike, quite a challenge when devising a way to prevent wings from drooping or falling off altogether!   In other words, inventing and making things has always been part of my life.   In adulthood I got into bicycles, even doing simple frame-building and making parts from scratch if I couldn't buy what I wanted, but unfortunately I no longer have the opportunity to mess about with bikes much more.   This is one of several reasons that I now have a bus.   It's essentially just a big Meccano set  - everything's bolted together, at least everything I would want to mess with, so I can still reinvent and reconstruct things to my heart's content, this time getting extra greasy in the process.

I sometimes think that I'm maybe of the last generation, or one of the last generations, to actually make stuff by hand *.   So many young folk these days are only interested in merely using things, whether they be cellphones or whatever the latest electronic fad is  - actually making something from scratch is completely beyond most of them.   An entire generation of 'users' is growing up not knowing how to work with simple hand tools, let alone anything more complex.   I was shocked to see what Lego has become these days  - it is now only a set of standard parts to make one single item according to the provided instructions, and there's little if any opportunity to exercise one's imagination or experiment with different designs like in days of old.   So many other toys are similar:  they simply don't promote or encourage out-the-box thinking and rational problem-solving, but require one to slavishly follow instructions to arrive at a pre-determined result.   How dull and uninvolving is that?   What a scary portent for the future.

Bus conversion, at least not the open-checkbook approach used by some, is still a very hands-on activity.   You will get greasy and filthy, you will get banged up and scratched and cut and physically exhausted at times, you will have moments of absolute frustration and anger when things don't work out as you want, you will doubt your own sanity when struggling to do something that a ready-made RV would not need at all, and it never ever will be cost-effective or a reasonable use of one's time (I've spent literally thousands of hours so far on my bus).   But all this makes it worthwhile, at least for me.   I don't want some marketing expert's idea of what will work for me:  I want to make it myself.   If it doesn't look as swish and glitzy as some fancy RV, so be it, but at least it will truly reflect who I am and what I think is important.   I'm converting my bus only for me and for my satisfaction.   Obviously there is only a very small proportion of the RV/bus community that wants to be hands-own to our extent, but I fear that this proportion will shrink in years to come as the just-push-a-button-but-don't-care-how-it-works generation gets into RVing and expects everything to be ready-made for them.

So, this is a long-winded way of saying that maybe we are the last of the DIY generation of bus tinkerers, maybe?   There will always be some future folk who'll also get into what we like doing, but they may become a dying breed as the button-pushers take over.

Just my thoughts on the subject.

John

* Bruce Gordon, a refreshingly individualist and ascerbic bicycle frame-builder in Petaluma CA, used to award a toilet seat every year to others in the industry who merely put their names on products made elsewhere.   He called his group of cohorts SOPWAMTOS  -  the Society Of People Who Actually Make Their Own $hit.   Maybe we are the SOPWAMTOS of the bus and RV world?    

[Busn-Gramps]

We are members of the Midwest Bus Nuts and went to the FMCA MAC rally in Amana,IA in July 2016. Three from our club went. Two of us with buses and one with a motor home. Out of over 250 coaches there we had the only buses there.

[somewhereinusa]

John, you're not alone.

I sometimes think that I'm maybe of the last generation, or one of the last generations, to actually make stuff by hand *.   So many young folk these days are only interested in merely using things, whether they be cellphones or whatever the latest electronic fad is  - actually making something from scratch is completely beyond most of them.   An entire generation of 'users' is growing up not knowing how to work with simple hand tools, let alone anything more complex.   I was shocked to see what Lego has become these days  - it is now only a set of standard parts to make one single item according to the provided instructions, and there's little if any opportunity to exercise one's imagination or experiment with different designs like in days of old.   So many other toys are similar:  they simply don't promote or encourage out-the-box thinking and rational problem-solving, but require one to slavishly follow instructions to arrive at a pre-determined result.   How dull and uninvolving is that?   What a scary portent for the future.

I've often thought the same thing. I belong to some other forums and the lack of knowledge about how things work amazes me. Many don't even know how to ask the right questions. Maybe it's from growing up on the edge of a very small midwestern town away from the city. My father was the kind of guy that pretty much made the things he needed.

Bus conversion, at least not the open-checkbook approach used by some, is still a very hands-on activity.   You will get greasy and filthy, you will get banged up and scratched and cut and physically exhausted at times, you will have moments of absolute frustration and anger when things don't work out as you want, you will doubt your own sanity when struggling to do something that a ready-made RV would not need at all, and it will never ever be cost-effective or a reasonable use of one's time (I've spent literally thousands of hours so far on my bus).   But all this makes it worthwhile, at least for me.   I don't want some marketing expert's idea of what will work for me:  I want to make it myself.   If it doesn't look as swish and glitzy as some fancy RV, so be it, but at least it will truly reflect who I am and what I think is important.   I'm converting my bus only for me and for my satisfaction.   Obviously there is only a very small proportion of the RV/bus community that wants to be hands-own to our extent, but I fear that this proportion will shrink in years to come as the just-push-a-button-but-don't-care-how-it-works generation gets into RVing and expects everything to be ready-made for them.

This pretty well sums up the way I feel. Really makes you feel good when giving a "tour" and someone says. "Wow, look at that" or "How did you do that". It really is nice to be able to say "I did it all myself" My bus is far from the conventional "RV" way of doing things.

I too like gadgets but, usually they are out of reach financially to me, so I find ways of doing it myself. All of my interior light switches are remote control. I build all of my own led light fixtures. Last fall my son sent me a link to a blue tooth remote control that he wanted to use as a basis for his door lock on his bus. It was just the control, it was in China, needed a power supply and programming. I built the whole thing with power supply, and programming for 1/3 of what the original unit. While I was at it I built one for myself.

Dick

[lostagain]

Not all younger people are just "users". One of my sons, a mechanical and aerospace engineering student, is strictly academic. He is happy spending the whole day at a desk designing stuff and doing calculations, and reading books and studying. In spite of me trying all his growing years, I don't think he knows what a screwdriver or wrench looks like. He is not interested.

My other son, also an engineer (petroleum), always has been a hands on, mechanically minded doer. He would rebuild his dirt bike engine at 12 years old. Now in his mid 20s, he prefers a used car or truck for the pleasure of fixing it. There is no time in his life now for a bus, but he would enjoy one like we do.

Recently, we had a visit for a couple of days from a nephew and his 2 friends in their mid 20s. The are on an extended mountain climbing trip through Canada and the US. They bought an old Dodge camper van. They are very much into fixing it, maintaining it, and improving it themselves. We spent a day building an extra bunk in it, and fixing some house battery charging issues.

I see quite a few mechanical type kids, especially in the rural areas.

JC

[dvrasor]

The average age in this country for skilled trade
is over 55 years old!

Dave Rasor

[lvmci]

hi All, just like JC, my two sons, both had my fixing stuff throughout their lifes. both took shop in school, both inherited my Jeep that I bought new, one likes to fix stuff and one would rather pay someone to fix it, interestingly enough same thing with my older brother and my self, and my best friend and I, when we were young, fixed girlfriends cars together, now doesn't want to fix his cars at all, and only wants new cars, lvmci...

[RJ]

My son, who's 34 and career USAF, has been buying, fixing and selling 3-Series BMWs ever since he was 16 years old and bought his first one with cash earned from delivering newspapers.

While stationed in Germany, he earned an extra $15K - $20K per year scrounging thru German auto boneyards during his off time to pull and sell European-spec BMW parts to members of the USA's BMW Owner's Group.  (While also squeezing in over 325 laps of the Nurburgring!)

I'm pretty proud of his mechanical skills (and his parenting skills with his two boys, for that matter), but am amused by his comments about how he has to work with these 18-22 year olds who have a spoiled sense of entitlement and virtually no work ethic. 

Seems I used to hear the same thing from my dad XX-years ago when I was a teen-ager!

As for our busnut hobby, I think some of the things that's affecting what's happening is both the aging demographics and the electronic complexity of the newer equipment.  The KISS days of the 4104s are long gone compared to the multiplexed MCI/Prevosts of today.

FWIW & HTH. . .

[luvrbus]

Times have changed,back in 70's,80's and up till 2000 you could convert a bus and make money when you sold.
Then in 2000 all the older factory conversions started hitting the market prices started to drop on the home conversions then 2006 it was over for us self converters you could hardly sell one for what you paid for shell.
If I was younger I would go a different route, they all want a toy hauler now LOL even ACE has gone that route,some of the new RV's are nice and built a little better from the years past