Everyone needs an elevator, right?

[MsChrissi]

Thanks! How are you liking Florida after living in the NE?

 

We'll definitely do Hutch when it is all done =) There is still much to do and I suspect it will take at least a couple more years to fit in. We are going to do the cut through to the cab next. The flange is already on the front of the RV for the rubber bellows. The material for the flange on the cab is waiting patiently. We'll make up the whole flange, cleco it in place and mark the cab, remove flange and make the big cut, reroute a few wires and reconfigure the dinette. In the end there will still be the two seats of the dinette but they will go all the way aft to the bulkhead without the bridge part in the way, effectively making the dinette in the cab more comfortable. A new table with two sockets in the floor and two removable stanchions will replace the existing one, it will have a piano hinge down the middle with the passenger side folded down for passage. The whole thing comes out to make a bed using a separate piece of ply stored under the upper bunk mattress. Lots of work there but retains a nice getaway workstation up front when camping, an upper bunk and a lower one in a pinch.

 

What we have found is our vision is clear in our heads and on paper but not so much to others. So like the safety rail issues etc, until the whole picture is complete you have a lot of people thinking ahead and not seeing the big picture. I'd rather not go to a show and keep interrupting "Yeah but...." When it is done it will all become apparent as it did with the deck and elevator. The deck section has not even begun to show itself, much more to come. The downside to all this fun is it does take some setup and takedown but when we travel we park for a couple of weeks at a time, one week to chill, one week for the show.

 

Some things were a huge disappointment like the siding. We got the very best siding, thick stuff with gellcoat and being total newbs did not apply it to large panels of wood. Sikaflexed straight to the framework. It expands and contracts with temp changes, looks good first thing in the morning with a few wrinkles but stay away in the heat of the day, looks like a sharpei dog. Prints through the whole structure. It's a done deal, no fix for it now.

 

Would love to do a seminar on high quality dirt cheap video monitoring. I'm talking $16/camera X3 plus a $20 three channel video switcher and a $180 7" monitor/HDTV. Just got a bare 3" display, literally a piece of glass and a circuit board that I need to print a housing for. This will become the monitor by the RV entry door but can also access the backup ad driver's side camera's.

[phoenix2013]

Every month in Florida increases my liking the stay here and conversely increases my disliking of NE. We've gone back few times to see the kids and grandchildren, love the kids can't wait to get the hell out of there to get back to Florida. And it's not just the weather, it's the general offering of things to experience, things to do, the general friendliness and easy going of the people and 5-6 months each year of "useful" weather and environment to accomplish things. Wish we made the move couple of decades ago.

We started by "bribing" the kids and grandchildren with free airplane tickets and heated pool in the middle of the winter, I think they are beginning to see the light and slowly the house is becoming Florida Central.

I was planning to try to make Sun and Fun and see you guys, but a need for dual knee replacement screwed up bunch of plans in the last few months, still working with doctors to come up with the "replacement schedule".

I can relate to folks seeing only a sliver and not the whole picture and trying to "help", but I don't mind that because occasionally a "gem" appears from an unexpected corner.

I can also relate to picking the wrong product or wrong application. I have gone through 4 different paint systems on the ETs before I understood, what really works over time in its environment. And that included some magnificent BS from the likes of Dupont. Their paint does not work with some of their primers, even though their brochures say that it does. Their regional sales manager swore that I was doing something wrong, until I talked to a local industrial paint shop who told me that the brochure is BS, the sales guy is full of BS and that (expensive) paint will not bond that (expensive) primer. They must have printed too many brochures and "can't throw these away".

[MsChrissi]

I know your paint /primer pain... several friends got suckered into painting their composite planes with a new "system", not too many years later said system is coming off all by itself. The maker will reluctantly refund the purchase price of the paint but not a penny more.

Don't know if I could take the warmer months of the summer down there, would become my hibernation months like up here in the winter I reserve them for design and writing code for control applications like the elevator controller.

[phoenix2013]

Summers in southern Florida require some "adjustment" but I still build hitches and do many other projects which would be halted for several months each year up north in the winter. Northern New Hampshire is pits in the winter, unless you have a facility that is sealed and heated and when oil hovered at $4-5 bucks and hour it's was also significant expense. Survival training is very useful in that climate. Some people can't take the heat of down here, I found it totally OK same as many hot an humid days up north, except steady in the summer. It becomes easier with time, initially the "natives" used to tell that your blood need to thin to tolerate it, I thought it was BS, or old wife's tale. After three years I know it's a fact.

I never liked the deep cold, snow shoveling, wood splitting, wood stoves, etc., etc. It was dispiriting and anti-motivating. Yeah, I could do other things, while I "hibernated" but not the ones I wanted to do.

Once we started to winter down here for longer and longer periods of time, the stupidity and the hassle of the other existence became very clear, hence our decision to move. The real estate crash was another motivator, the properties down here were available at give away prices. That's gone now and our house appreciated 30-40% from the pre-crash days. The cost of living here is also lower compared to the liberal NE. People here are friendlier, more helpful an less stressed.

Perhaps these give you a bit more insight into our "attitude adjustment".

[MsChrissi]

We're just fine with 2 weeks I mid-Florida a year. Me I like it, Randi thinks all forms of sand are dirt... the white sands of Pensacola Beach? D I R T... if you track it in it is dirt. The heat and humidity means things grow, including mold, mildew, fungus so of course she points out that the #1 business down there must be pressure washers. And the hurricanes which you cannot argue against because we took a direct hit from a tornado at our camp site in Lakeland several years ago. So I love two weeks of it, she likes to get away as long as I am navigating but she would never live down there.

We have a friend who lives in his hanger and builds aircraft in central Florida. In the summer when we call him he says it is over 120 deg in his hanger, his home is a substructure within the hanger, lots of insulation and a big air conditioner. Good for curing epoxy though =)

You part of New England was too cold for me, I lived on Cape Cod on and off for years and summers but the winters were too much for me, Houston was too hot to function during the summer, the Bay Area northern California was perfect though once I moved off the yacht it was not affordable, things had inflated a bit.

I think the middle western north part of Florida would be tolerable If I had an air conditioned building to work in. I generally like the area, the storms would not be horrific up there. My only complaint is you would think that you could buy decent sea food but once you get away from the beach all you can find is a McFish at McDonalds? I miss coastal living; SFO and Cape Cod we had real seafood in the supermarkets. Helped to have a fiance' who was a salmon fisherman =)

[phoenix2013]

My wife would agree with you on the seafood. I would too. Very disappointed in the frequency of lousy seafood dishes we were served, particularly clams. Nothing beats new England lobster, clams and corn combination. However, in Port St. Lucie, we have New England Fish Market, restaurant on one side and commercial fish market on the other, the commercial side supplies 900 restaurants in the area and also sell to the public. Their cost for New England catch is higher but the quality is just as good and they also carry lots of quality southern catch.

Wife was always fond of coastal living having spend several years in Santa Monica and Santa Barbara in CA. And after half a century in the interior hinterlands she's back to coastal living. We are only six miles from the ocean, any closer and the insurance rises exponentially on account of the hurricanes, The city just built brand new boat ramp in our section https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0LjNPM5SrC8 which is only 10 minutes from the open ocean, now thinking about a boat. What I find refreshing about political leaders here vs. the liberals up north, the don't sweat the small stuff. They had a plan to build it so they found two million dollars and did it. Yea they had environmentalists trying to muck things up, but they dealt with them too.

Since moving to Port St. Lucie we got involved with this organization http://www.jazzsociety.org/ I get to sit in and play with outstanding jazz musicians who live here locally and scores who come down and "winter" here every year from all over the country. Wife and I started a G-cleff gourmet supper club and we host gatherings with the group several times a year. I got into gourmet cooking few years back and this gives me additional opportunity to practice my new hobby.

When we deliver hitches to shipping terminals we drive by the St. Lucie airport and by the sign for the local chapter of the EAA. I've been thinking to drop in out of curiosity to check things out. Probably would not recognize much compared to the days when I ran a local chapter in New England.

 

 

A sign we sported at Oskosh sometimes in the 80's

[RickW]

 

We have a friend who lives in his hanger and builds aircraft in central Florida. In the summer when we call him he says it is over 120 deg in his hanger, his home is a substructure within the hanger, lots of insulation and a big air conditioner. Good for curing epoxy though =)

 

Simple solution ..... insulate the whole hanger/shop. When I built my shop last year we insulated the entire shop, R30. As the insulation was being installed I grabbed the inferred thermometer and could immediately see the difference where there was and was not insulation. The other thing I did was since we have predominately southern winds in the summer (Dallas area) I installed doors on both the south and north ends of the building. The south door is really only for ventilation. Everything goes in/out via the North doors. This past summer with the doors open and well over 100* outside it was always about 10* cooler inside the shop (high ceilings also help a lot).

 

My office space in the building is insulated the same as any residential structure and the A/C or Furnace cycle with no problems and are not over worked. We did not have a cold winter but we did drop below freezing and it was much warmer in the shop with out a heater. Never near freezing. When I would putter around in the shop I would fire up a portable 30k BTU heater and within 20 minutes even my sweat jacket was too warm.

[jkennell]

I helped install a power house at a school over in equatorial Africa. 90 deg all day every day, with tin roofs on the buildings it could get REALLY hot inside. For the power house, we put R40 worth of insulation on a wire mesh flat ceiling, with the the pitched tin roof above that. With the Gensets moving air thru the room, it stayed about 80 inside....by far the most confortable place on the school! and since the "ceiling" was just fiberglass insulation, it absorbed so much sound you could actually talk in a normal voice right beside the running genset. We joked we were gonna bring the beds down and sleep there....

[hdonlybob]

You two continue to amaze me with your foresight and innovative thoughts and skills...

While I am no longer traveling or camping I would love to see your rig in person..

Do you ever come the the Oshkosh Fly In in Wisconsin ??

Again, awesome rig

Cheers,

Bob

[MsChrissi]

Bob, yes for the last 16 years, we usually arrive on the Monday a week before the show starts, go past the Fly-in theater on N. Doolittle, over the creek and we should be about 500 ft up on one side or the other. We tell folks to look for the little red truck =)

Please stop by but don't look for a camping space up there as everybody is a regular and any newbee means a part of the "family" won't have a space, sounds like you might be a regular Osh goer so you know how it goes.

 

As it is we have volunteer "neighbor" who is trying to crowd us out of there by roping off spaces for her friends and family who don't show up or not until the last weekend of the show. Doesn't like our little party; if you come by Tuesday evening 5ish we put on a spaghetti dinner for all the canard builders and some friends, usually around 150-200. Let us know when time gets closer and we'll add you to the list.

[JPL]

MsChrissi Love your rig and all of the ideas you have put to reality. We would love to see your rig so if you are ever in Va around the beach let me know. Also I've got paint that matches yours,our 610 is bright red. We painted my bottom fairing and some other fairing parts in the back yard. Looked great! At least I thought so and nobody said any different at the ECR but they probably wouldn't have said anything anyway. So if you get in the area I'll paint that split set bottom fairing. Off in morning. Prep. Paint. On the next day. Sound like a bribe? I think so. Only price can I run the elevator up and down? Where do you all base out of? Be safe. Pat

 

 

The Old Sailor

[MsChrissi]

Pat, yes those fairings are ugly, we are going to form new fairings up out of nice shiny aluminum diamond plate.. no paint. We do want to paint the box to match the cab, then some striping.

We're near St Louis. Been ages since I was in Va Beach area.

 

We were making the cab side of the flange for the rubber bellows for the passageway today. The MH side was done a long time ago and a plywood blank fills the hole in the MH side. We have half the flange done for the cab side of it. Going to be so strange once there is an opening.

[JPL]

MsChrissi, Just let me know when & if you get to the beach maybe I can help. Istill want to run that elevator up and down! Pat

 

 

The Old Sailor