Three HUGE changes to the bus.
The outside is BLUE!!!! The inside is white. The bathtub crane and hoist are installed.
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| Rolling Joy bus with new paint. Bus top is bright white and the body is marine blue. A black band caps the bottom edge. |
She looks great! I love the color.
When you paint a school bus you have 2 choices - tractor paint or rust-prevention paint. Tractor paint lasts longer and was designed for metal. But the choices are very limited. It's colors like Caterpillar Yellow and John Deere green.
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| 18 tractor paint colors |
Luckily they make one blue paint - Ford Blue (aka New Ford/Holland Blue) which is now covering Rolling Joy. I love being in or near water. So riding around in a blue bus really suits me.
I want to preserve the school bus history of Rolling Joy so I left a tiny area on the front original.
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| Front of the bus shows a rectangle of the original school bus yellow color with the words "Blue Bird" in silver surrounded by blue paint. |
I painted the inside of the bus a bright white but left the ceiling the original tawny metal. I will be adding decorations - particularly on the outside of the tub. Here's a first look at the new interior colors amid the mess of ongoing renovations.
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| View of the bus from the front looking to the back. The wood is all painted white and gleams off the off-white metal ceiling. |
The amazing Samantha the Welder took on the complicated project of modifying an existing crane. She had to find pipe that is not made in the U.S. and then create a taller crane. She added holes for locking the crane so it doesn't spin around. She replaced the hand-crank hoist with an electric one - and built a new base for the hoist and a new roller end to thread the cable. You can find her on Instagram.
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| The vertical column of the crane is bolted to the floor between the tub and kitchen counter. The horizontal arm is topped by an electric hoist with a steel cable and closing clip. |
Just have to get it all hooked up to the electrical system so we can test it. I can't wait to have my first bath in over a decade. It's getting closer.
