More photo's!

[muddog16]

After working on my son's Tahoe for 3 weeks taking his lift kit and 38 tires off to get better mileage, then a series of storms, the well pump on the geothermal went out this is the 4th one in 22 years, motors never go bad, but the nylon impellers strip out......then of all times the pump won't come out of the 6" cased well....it takes 2 days, a 3 ton chain fall and lots of luck to get it out.......but it finally does......i had to put two scaffold bucks up and a 6"x 6" beam overhead....not to mention it was 95 out and the humidity was awful!  But the price of a new cased well @ 3k was incentive enough to keep trying!  (New bus tires and shocks)  I'm almost completely enclosed some work on one more panel and the caps this won't be to bad..........did I really say that?...........Oh well!   click on the link at the bottom for the new progress!

[prevost82]

Looks great Pat ... almost a bus again 

Ron

[Sojourner]

Looking great!

Pat....what are you using to control & keep a thin layer of Sika adhesive from being too thin while clamping?

Thanks for sharing all your wonderful works.

Sojourn for Christ, Jerry

[Dreamscape]

Good Job Pat,

How are you installing the camera pod? Are you molding into the cap or?

I will be interested on how you repair those small cracks in the cap. Some detail would be nice when you have the time.

Keep going, it's looking pretty darn good!

Paul

[muddog16]

Thanks Ron and yes it is........finally! Jerry I'm using those small 1/8" tile spacers that you use to space floor tiles  Sika actually recomments them! Paul the camera pod came glassed in, I'm pretty sure that a good gel coating should fix it......like gumpy mentioned a long time ago.........R&M's products aren't perfect!  I'm going to have to rework the bottom corners to fit my radius corners but I think that by taking some of the thickness off will remedy that!   I'll find out!

[Jeremy]

Two quick comments on the 'fixing the cracks by re-gelcoating' issue - firstly, there is really no such thing as re-gelcoating. Gelcoat is only intended to be used in moulds, and is 'air inhibited', which means that if you paint gelcoat onto the outside surface of anything it will never properly cure and will always remain tacky. It is possible to add wax to the gelcoat, which has the effect of reducing the 'air inhibited' quality, but the more satisfactory solution is to use one of the various two-pack paints on the market for this type of job. Some of these may even be sold by the supplier for the purpose of 're-gelcoating', which is technically nonsense, but easier than re-educating the customer. At least one of popular paints for this job actually has 'Gel' in it's name.

Secondly, neither paint or gelcoat, will fix the cracks, it will only cover them up. However, you will probably be ok as the flexing that caused the cracks in the first place should not re-occur once the cap has been attached to the bus. The reason the cracks are there is because the GRP laminate is fairly thin, and could bend more than the gelcoat could cope with - this bending probably happened when the cap was being removed from it's mould. The only way to properly 'fix' the cracks is to grind off the cracked gelcoat, then reinforce the laminate on both sides with new glass to the point where is becomes sufficiently stiff that it cannot bend in the first place.

Jeremy

[kysteve]

Pat,

    Sure is looking good.  I can imagine the feeling of having the tarp off and no worry of rain getting in. 

    You guys have been pounded up there this spring with the rain.   Hows about a shot of the inside.  I aint seen nothing but tarp for a couple of years now too.  Keep up the good work and well talk at you soon.   


.............Kentucky Steve .....................