Lance is headed for the finish line in terms of completing the transformation from his origin as a 2016 Kenworth T270 Horton Ambulance to our awemazing eXpedition Recreation Vehicle XRV aka “Lance”. He and I are now back up at our place on Saturna Island where I have a great woodworking workshop that I am thoroughly enjoying as I complete the last phase of the internal buildout of the original Horton 14 x 8 ft ambulance box. This is the only wood I’ve used so far as everything else is either extruded aluminium or XAL, Aluminium Composite Material ACM for the surfaces of the walls and ceiling and then LVT solid vinyl planks for the floor and solid surface acrylic for the countertops.
No surprise to those of you who have been following my adventures for any time, the lead up to this post is a great story and the wood itself has its own which I’ll outline first.
Mother Nature + Friends Converge
I have some dear friends, Rick & Sherry and we lived and worked together when Rick & I were teachers on the Canadian Armed Forces jet fighter base in Baden Baden Germany in the early 80’s. Hard to believe that is now more than 45 years ago! Rick and Sherry live in Vancouver and have had a lovely property I’ve been to many times over the years on Gambier Island off the coast of North Vancouver as you’re driving up to Whistler mountain. Their son Colin was just a young boy when we were all together in Baden and has grown a wee bit since then. On our way back from our “sea trials” with Lance last summer when we drove across the US to attend the wedding of my niece in Portland Maine and then back across Canada, we stopped in to see Rick, Sherry and Colin while they were at their place on Gambier Island. We stayed overnight swapping stories and catching up. In the course of our conversations they told me about a very large old Cherry tree, over 200 years old they think, that had come down in a big wind storm a few years ago. Colin lives on Gambier full time which is saying something as it is totally off grid and only accessible by private boat, so he grows all his own food and is very talented and self sufficient young man. Over the years, he and I have developed a growing friendship discussing some of our respective DIY projects and he has been following my progress in transforming Lance into an XRV. In telling the stories about the stories about this big old tree coming own, Colin told how he had salvaged as much as he could using a chain saw milling machine he had assembled and he was anxious to show me the planks from his handiwork. As we looked over these massive planks he had hewn that were about 75mm / 3” thick and 4m/12ft long I asked him what he planned to do with them and he said he didn’t have anything in mind just yet. Well, you know where this is going and so yes, Colin ever so generously insisted that it would make him very happy if I would take some and use them for the interior of Lance! Unfortunately I didn’t get any photos of the whole stack of Cherry planks but these are the ones we pulled out and loaded onto a cart to move down to the boat dock. Why the cart you ask? Well, as you may recall Gambier can only be accessed by private boat so we now needed to figure out a way to get these planks off the island and back over to the mainland where Lance was parked. After all his years on Gambier, Rick is used to this so he helped load up the planks and drive them from up on the property down to the boat dock, which as you can see is a looooooong way down. Rick and I carried them down the last way on the ramp and had them all ready to now load onto his boat. Easy peasy as we Canadians say and Rick put his boat into gear and we were off on the 10 minute ride over to the dock and then carried them up and loaded into Lance! Christine and I bid them all adieu and headed off on the final leg of our cross North America trip to get Lance back to our place on Saturna Island where I carried the planks on their next voyage into my workshop. You can see some of the planks now standing up on edge to the Left of the yellow table saw. A few weeks later my awemazing son Skyler came over for a few days to help me out and after a bit more wood wrestling and we had the first slab horizontally on the sawhorses ready for to be cut down to size. What we needed to do is cut some of these into strips about 20mm/ 3/4” square that would be glued to the edges of 13mm/ 1/2” Baltic Birch plywood and then to cut others into very thin sheets that would be glued on top of the edged plywood to create all the drawer fronts and cabinet doors patiently awaiting inside Lance’s Galley. Skyler is a very talented cabinetmaker and woodworker and he had brought over his Fein Track Saw with him which was just the right tool to cut the rough sawn slabs down to more usable size. Cherry is a lovely wood to work with and over the years I’ve used it to built quite a lot of furniture and cabinets with. These thick planks were a bit of a challenge but Skyler and his saw were up for it and along with the table saw we soon had these planks cut into about 150mm/6”wide boards for our next step. Which was to move them over to the bandsaw which had a sharp new 1” carbide toothed blade I had just bought and fitted. We made up the wooden fence you see here to guide the planks that were now up on their edge ready to be run through that blade a bit like a meat cutter blade shaves thin slices of ham. After a few test cuts we had the fence set just right to give us consistently thick slices. This yellow feather jig clamps to the slots in the bandsaw table and keeps the plank pressed tightly against the side of the fence. Each slice is about 3-4mm / 1/8” thick and will be the “veneer” that I glue onto all that edge banded plywood drawer fronts and doors. Net result was four of these stacks of the 6” wide Cherry veneer. For the solid Cherry edging we needed for the perimeter edges of each Baltic Birch plywood blank we ripped them to rough size using the table saw and then fed them through our thickness planer to take them down to be just a wee bit thicker than the 1/2” plywood so I can trim them down to be perfectly flush with the faces of the plywood. There are a LOT of drawers and doors each of which needs four solid Cherry edges so we set up a bit of a production run between the two of us using the table saw and the thickness planer and started putting them all into this plastic waste can. The past few weeks I’ve been busy cutting all the BB plywood pieces to size and then gluing these lengths of Cherry edging and getting them ready to laminate with my vacuum bagging press to create what I’m calling my “Cherry Burritos “ But I’m going to going to leave that whole process for the next update here which I will do my best to put together in the next week or two before we take off on our next adventure over to Europe for a few months!
Hope you will stay tuned for that and join us here again.
My sincere thanks again to Rick, Colin and Sherry for their kind generosity in donating this gorgeous Cherry to the cause here.
And thanks in advance for all your questions and comments that you can put in the “Join the Discussion” box below and thank you SO much for taking them time to follow along on these adventures in Wayne’s World.
I appreciate your patience as I continue to try to catch up with posting updates here on my progress with the transformation of Lance from his start as a 2016 Kenworth T270 Medium Duty ambulance from a fire department in Wisconsin to an eXtreme RV or XRV for us to continue our explorations via our Land Yacht. I’ve got a few more updates to do but I just about have you up to date on all the various projects within Lance and this one will take you through the completion of the Head & Shower area inside Lance’s Hab/Habitat/Happytat ambo box.
Last month, May 2026, while I was still at our place down in the very southern tip of Nevada which we call “Road Runner Ranch”, I was able to finish building out the Head and Shower area in Lance.
* FYI, Christine and I are still sailors at heart so the Bathroom will always be the Head and the Kitchen will always be the Galley for us.
I drove Lance up to our place on Saturna Island mid May and am now working up here at finishing off the interior while we are up here through end of August.
Here is what I was able to get done before that drive;
To help with your orientation, this screen shot from my Fusion 360 3D model shows where the Head & Shower are located in the front DS Driver Side of Lance’s Hab/Habitat/Box which is on the far Right of this view. The Settee & table are at the opposite back end on the far Left with the Galley counters spanning both sides in the middle.
Note: You can click on any photo to enlarge it.
Here is what it looked like IRL (In Real Life) from the inside when I got started. That’s the SS Fridge/Freezer on the far Right, Blue DS Galley countertop peeking through on the Left and that’s the DS Front corner of the Hab in the far middle of this photo. The toilet will sit on top of the raised floor section and I’m getting ready to put in the the shower pan on the lower section of the floor that the blue cargo spreaders are resting on.
The framed in area above the Head will be a storage cupboard on the larger Right side portion and then the smaller space created on the Left will be a service area for plumbing and electrical which I’ll cover later on in this post. I started prepping the interior by gluing 1/2” Baltic Birch plywood on the XAL eXtruded Aluminium framing of the two walls you see here on the Left and Rear. I use these adjustable Blue Cargo Spreaders (from Harbor Freight) all the time and here they are helping apply pressure to the freshly glued in BB plywood panels to keep them flat and straight.
The small box protruding into the Head area on the bottom Left is the front end of the large middle exterior compartment you saw me filling up with all the plumbing and heating systems in the previous post. For maximum adhesion of the rigid foam Shower Pan I removed all the LVT vinyl floor planking that covers all the floor area inside Lance’s Happytat. To help with tiling the shower pan and getting the slope to the center shower drain just right, I bought a Vevor shower pan kit that is specifically made for this purpose and adds even more insulation to the shower floor. It is covered with a thin gray felt that grabs the thinsulate/mortar bedding compound I’ll be using to bed in the electric grid for the heated floor and the ceramic tiles. Very nicely designed bit of kit and the floor foam is cut in half with the felt glued on top to act like a hinge and made it much easier to press fit the floor into place after cutting it to size. You can see here how the area for the flange of the PVC drain is already pre-cast into the foam and you’ll also note the large circular recess surrounding it for bedding the drain flange into the floor. After checking that it all fit just right, I removed the foam pan, applied a silicone based adhesive with my cordless caulking gun (that I’m enjoying more ever time I use!), spread it out evenly with a notched trowel and pressed the floor pan back into place using my trusty cargo spreaders and some aluminium and plywood cauls to press it even and flat. It was difficult to see in the photos above but I also used 1/2” BB plywood to cover the wall between the Shower and the Fridge/Freezer compartment. I caulked all seams and corners with construction adhesive for additional sealing of those.
Next I put in this small bit of XAL framing to extend that exterior cabinet “bump” all the way to the inner edge of the Head raised floor. This will also create a handy storage area.
The black lines you see on the White ACM Aluminium Composite Material of the Head Floor is from me laying out the spacing for the heated floor electric grid you’ll see a bit later below. Now it was time to completely waterproof every surface inside the Head & Shower to ensure that there are no leaks in the future. I used the ever popular RedGuard and brushed it on all the surfaces.
After the first thin coat of RedGuard was on I went around and used more RedGuard to bed in some reinforcing felt that I cut into strips and pressed into all the corners and seams with more RedGuard. The drain area received several more coats of RedGuard as this will get the most traffic and potential for seepage. The pink colour is from the still wet RedGuard which quickly changes to Red as it dries fully. Et Voila!!
A very Red and very waterproof Head & Shower area. A bit messy but my 11cm/ 4 1/4” hole saw did a nice job of cutting this hole through all the layers of insulation and aluminium in the floor for the PVC drain to set into and exit out the bottom where it will connect to PVC pipe and on to the Gray Water tank. You can also see the 2 inches of insulation that are below the shower floor. I had some of this Blue Solid Surface acrylic material left over from doing the Galley countertops so I used this to create a nicely contrasting and durable shelf top on that bump out in the Head. This solid acrylic material is heavy but is very nice to work with; cuts easily and cleanly with regular carbide saw blades and router bits and then sands/files nicely to create a polished surface. I wanted to get this shelf installed before I started putting in the PVC planking that I’m going to use to cover the walls.
TOASTIE TOOTSIES!
As I mentioned in the previous post about our diesel powered Oasis Zephyr boiler, the rest of the floors inside of Lance are heated via the hot glycol (anti-freeze) pumped out of that boiler and flowing through the loops of 1/2” PEX-A tubing embedded into the insulated foam below the LVT vinyl plank flooring. But I wanted to be able to control the heated floors in the Shower & Head separately as it is always nice to have warm shower floors even in warm weather.
So I opted for another Vevor product, this heated mesh flooring kit that runs on 220VAC and has its own thermostat. The kit comes with this Orange plastic mesh which the Black heating cable gets attached to.
Also came with this every nice digital thermostat for controlling and reporting on the heated floors. This is the transition piece where the cable changes from the 220VAC power cable to the heated wire. As it is a larger diameter I routed a groove into the ACM flooring so this thicker diameter would sit flush with the floor surface and be better protected. The heated cable is one continuous length and you can not cut this so it took me a bit of planning to get the spacing right but all fit in very nicely and will keep our tootsies warm both when showering and sitting on the Throne!
There is also a temperature sensor that gets embedded in the floor and provides this data to the thermostat so it can maintain whatever floor temp you set. I put this inside a length of protective tubing and that’s the L shaped length you see here which then exits out the side wall and goes up to the thermostat. I put this sensor in this larger diameter tubing so I could remove and replace the temp sensor if it should ever fail. With all the heated cable and mesh in place I mixed up the epoxy thinsulate/mortar and spread out about a 13mm / 1/2” thick layer with a steel trowel and smoothed it all out. Didn’t get a photo when it was done so this is part way through the process. Finally ready to start tiling!
TILE TIME:
We found this Blue & White Spiral pattern ceramic tile online and both really liked it so that’s what is going on the floors. Comes in these larger approximately one square foot sheets with individual tiles glued to a mesh on the back which makes handling and setting them much easier. Laying out this type of spiral pattern is a bit tricky and takes some planning to make sure all the corners and joints line up and maintain the pattern. If you look closely you’ll see that you can only get a straight line for butting up against corners or lining up sheets in one place along the larger square formed by each spiral.
I created a quick 3D model (of course!!) to help plan the layout to get all the corners and seams to match up. Where I needed to cut some of the tiles such as around the drain, my trusty Dremel tool with a diamond cutting wheel worked like a charm to get nice straight cuts and smooth edges and you can maybe see along the bottom edge for this sheet I’m trimming square here. It had been a Looooooooong time, think decades, since I last did any tiling so I started with the floor in the Head as it will largely be covered by our Joolca “Gotta Go” separating toilet to cover any learning errors, but it all turned out quite well I thought. Then I moved onto the Shower floor and started the dry layup there. You can see how I needed to trim the tiles a bit along the edges of the square SS drain which I did so that the outer edges of the regular square spiral patterns would match up with the outer edges. And it all slopes down from the edges to the drain. I thought it would look better to create a single upper edge surrounding the whole space so I put in some aluminium edging and tiled up to that along all the sides of the Shower and the Head floors and set them in place.
WALLS:
For the walls I wanted to find the best combination of waterproof, easy to clean and good looking so I ended up going with these White tongue and groove PVC planks that are about 18cm / 7” wide with grooves molded in to look like narrower planks, and started cutting them to size.
But I thought that all White walls and ceiling would be too bland so I decided to create a horizontal band to break up the walls that would wrap all the way round and fill this with some of the Blue & White spiral tiles I had left over from doing the floor. I picked up some aluminium edging meant to be used under tiles which you see propped up in the corner on the Right here and used that to make the transitions from tile to PVC planking. I taped off the top and bottom edges of the area for this band………….. ………. and installed the AL transitions edging all round. I had enough left over tile to cut these bands off the sheets and used that size to determine the width of the band. Worked out quite well and now time to put up all the PVC wall planks.
It was quite quick and easy to cut the 8ft long PVC planks to a nice fit between the top and bottom edges of the aluminium edging there the tiles start and stop. And now time to use my trusty Milwaukee cordless caulking gun you see on the Left of the floor to put a nice thin line of White silicone adhesive/sealant along each tongue and groove and back of each plank. The cargo spreaders and some square aluminium tube cauls helped to hold the PVC planks flat while the silicone adhesive cured overnight.
With the wall planks all done I could now grout all the tiles in this band and on the floors to finish the tiling. I did the ceiling with the same vinyl planking with a different pattern on it that I used for the ceilings in the rest of Lance. As with those other ceilings, I put in a strip of dimmable LED’s between each plank but more on that a bit later.
Et Voila! Lance finally has a not too bad looking Head and Shower.
LET THERE be LIGHT AND AIR!
We always like to have individual items do more than one thing and so we decided to install this 12V vent fan in the ceiling above the shower to provide both daylight and fresh air venting into the Shower & Head space. I’m not a big fan of the popular variations of the MaxFans that much of the RV and Van world seem to use and wanted to keep our overall vehicle height to a minimum and we’re at 2.9m / 9’ 5” right now with the solar panels and roof vent. So this Kohree vent unit seemed to check all our boxes.
This model also had a nice combination of both a manual override for raising and lowering the vent cover and a set of electric controls on the other corner of the fan as well as a hand held wireless remote.
It also has a temperature sensor to turn the fan on/off and a very quiet fan with 10 different speeds.
Other nice features are a built in rain sensor that automatically closes the vent though not much of a need when this is all inside that nice waterproof Shower. I had purposely left this space up on the roof in front of the four 450Watt solar panels and their Super Strut rails so now time to cut the only hole in our otherwise seamless one piece roof.
Yikes!!!! There are three thick aluminium plates in the roof of Lance, one for the top skin, the layer you can see here that forms the internal ceiling of the ambo box and then …… ……… the final layer of 5mm thick ACM that I installed for the ceiling surface below the additional layer of 20mm IPS foam insulation. The vent dropped in just right. I used this 2×2” square AL ceiling beam for a conduit for the wires to power and control the fan. I’m a BIG fan of these WAGO wire connectors and have used them throughout the build. They worked well to connect these 12VDC power wires to the fan and then tuck nicely into that square AL tube.
Checked everything for a good fit including this trim frame and then …. ………. bedded the vent into the roof with 3M 5200 sealant and some makeshift weights to let it cure overnight.
and MORE LIGHT!
As I mentioned earlier, I matched the ceiling in the Head & Shower to what I installed in the rest of Lance which are these planks of White solid vinyl with a nice grained texture and then put in strips of Black aluminium LED channel. I will then adhere dimmable COB LED strips inside these AL channels and snap on the diffuser cover.
All fully water immersion IP68 rated so no problems in this wet area. Worked out well to provide Goldilocks just right lighting both night and day. One last detail for those few times (so far) either of us needs to get up and use the Head in the middle of the night, I wanted also have some indirect low level lighting inside the Head & Shower area. So I installed some of these 45 degree angled aluminium extrusions in hidden areas such as under the door sill into the Shower you can make out below my hand and another under that little Blue shelf in the Head. To help keep our night vision and add a bit of “ambiance” I used these Blue LED strips which are also dimmable to whatever level of Blue light you’d like.
Testing out the LED strip tucked in below the door sill into the Shower.
DOORS!!!
After using Lance for over a year now with NO doors on the inside one member of the crew is eXtremely eXcited about having a DOOR on the Head!!! After some debate and research we decided to go with this retractable shower door that rolls up when OPEN like this ….. and then rolls out to seal and CLOSE like this. The flexible material rolls up on a spring loaded shaft hidden neatly inside this cassette that mounts to the left side of the door. The “door” slides on tracks concealed inside the AL extrusions top and bottom and I left a small gap at the top to help with air circulation.
FINISHING TOUCHES:
To keep things dry inside this storage cupboard above the head, I glued in some sliding door AL tracks and cut some clear 6mm / 1/4” acrylic for the sliding doors. And then mounted this mirrored Medicine Cabinet on the rear wall to finish things off.
SHOWER FAUCET:
You can’t have much of a shower with no water so along the way I installed this very nice adjustable hand held shower head that has a full shut off valve on the handle and …. …… connected it to a thermostatic controlled mixing valve faucet. These are great for maintaining a whatever water temperature you set it to coming out of the shower head. The button allows you to turn the water on and off as you wish to conserve water and have it off when you want to wash your hair, shave, etc. The SS cylindrical knob on the top end rotates to set the temperature and the one on the bottom controls the water flow volume.
To mount this I cut a sheet of 6mm / 1/4” thick aluminium diamond plate which fits just right into the slots of the 1” 1010 Series XAL framing. I drilled and threaded this plate to mount these two brass fittings for the thermostatic valve to attach to on the outside and push-connect fittings on the other side ………… …… for the Hot & Cold water 1/2” PEX-A lines to attach to. The Yellow handles are shut off ball valves on each PEX water line for servicing or winterizing.
The whole assembly then fits securely into the slots in the XAL framing.
CONTROL PANEL:
Finally, to enclose this service bay area I built this temporary panel and with many of our controls for the systems in Lance mounted on it. This is just a prototype I am trying out made out of scrap plywood with some of the switches, controllers and thermostats mounted in it. I cut this rabbet or tongue on the bottom edge that is a snug fit into the groove on the bottom length of XAL framing. The way it works is that you first put the bottom tongue into the groove and then …….. …………… tip the panel up into place. To hold this and likely all the panels in Lance securely in place, I’m trying out using these very strong round “donut” Neodymium magnets. This one is a 40 pounder, meaning it takes about 40 pounds of pull to remove. These magnets are available from less than one pound up to over one hundred. All the metal in Lance is aluminium which of course isn’t magnetic so cut a short 5cm/2” length of steel flat bar and drilled a 6mm hole in one end so I can bolt it to a T nut captured in the XAL slot on the back here. Worked out even better than I hoped and the panel snaps into place with a good “thud” and locks the whole panel tightly in place. But I only need to reach behind it and push hard with my fingers to pop the panel forward and out. Here is what the panel looks like so far. White thermostat for the heated floors in the Head & Shower in the bottom right (currently turned off) and the Victron Cerbo GX touch display above it and switches for things like water pump, Starlink power and the thermostatic controllers for the heated main cabin floors over to the Left.
I will likely change the layout a bit and add a few more switches and meters, but it all works for now and we’ll try it out on our travels in the next month and see what other changes we might want to make.
And th th th thaaaaats all for this update folks.
Hope it was entertaining and of interest to you and that you’ll be back for the next update in a few weeks.
We are going to be out in Lance eXploring more of Beautiful BC for the next few months till we head off to Europe at the end of August so I’ll do my best to get the last few updates posted for you. Next big project that I’m not starting on is to build all the Cherry veneered drawer fronts, doors and interior panels that will should pretty much finish Lance’s build.
Don’t forget to add your comments and questions in the “Join the discussion” box below and enjoy your summer wherever you are.
As we all head to the exit of 2025 I will continue to summarize the progress in various key systems and areas on Lance over the past few months.
This week I’ll bring you up to date on where the Galley is at so far.
Easily one of the most used and most important areas for our day to day live in Lance and our 10,000 + mile “maiden voyage” this past summer proved that our design worked well as we used it during that two month test drive. We prioritized large areas of open countertop, dual deep sink, induction cooktop and large fridge and freezer and you can see the basic layout from the 3D model screengrab here.
GALLEY COUNTERTOPS:
Here is what it looked like as of the beginning of June, just before we hit the road to the East Coast of the US. This is looking forward so Drivers Side DS on the Left and Passenger Side PS on the Right. Entry door into the Hab (Habitat/box) is on the upper Right with the large vertical door 10 cubic foot Fridge/Freezer on your Right as you enter.
Deep double sink being undermounted to the 25mm/1” solid surface acrylic countertop.
Lots of options for water at the sink; hot/cold adjustment at the base of the faucet with both a large flexible rinsing hose with its own nozzle & lever and then an independently controlled rotating spigot. To the Right of the main faucet is an ultra purified drinking water nozzle that has water that has been put through a full Acuva UV treatment to remove any possible remaining particles after ……….
……… it comes out of the main filtration which is handled by this triple set of progressive main filtration that all our potable water goes through.
We have eXcellent water pressure running about 65PSI thanks to this Kohree 7GPM pump. All the water system equipment is located in the externally accessed compartment that is midway along the DS.
On the PS of the Galley there is more countertop and our 2 burner induction cooktop that is eXtremely efficient and a joy to cook on. This cooktop fits snugly in the countertop cutout so it can be easily lifted out and plugged in outside when we want to cook out there.
The vertical extruded aluminium XAL on the Right here is the linear actuator for the PS Front corner of the Queen Bed lift system. Underneath both countertops it is all drawers as we find these much more efficient to use than cupboards and overall we have more than 20 drawers inside of Lance.
GALLEY DRAWERS:
I have always preferred dovetail joints for all drawers given their superior strength that stands up for decades of use and I think they look great too and so that’s what we went with for Lance. I was going to do this all myself but with almost a hundred dovetailed corners to do and SO many other jobs demanding my time and attention I decided to job this out. I found a fabulous company to work with called Barker Doors who offer a service using CNC (Computer Numeric Control) machines to custom cut all your drawers. I had all the drawers fully modeled in Fusion 360 so it was easy for me to send them these files with all the exact measurements I needed and they cut all the 5/8” Baltic Birch plywood to size for all the sides and the bottoms and then CNC cut all the dovetails. In the end this all worked out to cost less than I would have paid for just the Baltic Birch plywood and drawer slides so I was super happy with how this all worked out and I can recommend Barker Doors to anyone VERY strongly. They shipped all the pre-cut drawers to me as flatpacks like this so the whole shipment of all the drawers was not too large and they were all very well shrink wrapped and carefully boxed up so they arrived with no damage at all. They also offered a great prices on the the top quality Blum undermount ball bearing drawer slides I wanted so it all came as a single order which made my life easier.
Mounting more than 40 drawer slides to the XAL framework was very straightforward but time consuming to get them all exactly parallel and lined up. and some required a bit of Houdini moves to hold in place and tighten up. Next, I set up a little workbench on top of the PS Galley counter to assemble each drawer. Each set of dovetails only required a few drops of wood glue and they went together very well with two bar clamps and some taps with my little hammer to get the joints to fit together all the way. The dovetails were so precise that every drawer went together perfectly square and were solid as a rock. The Blum drawer slides required two slots in the bottom of each rear drawer side so I cut those out next and then I mounted to the Orange locking hardware to the bottom of the front corners. These are where the drawer slides clip into the drawer and make it very easy to lift out a drawer at any time. It’s a great system! Installing each drawer was now a simple process of pulling out each drawer slide………. ………… setting the pins in the rear of each drawer slide into the corresponding holes I had previously drilled and pushing them closed till they clicked in place. Et Voila! We’ve got drawers! Sad to say that I wasn’t able to get this done before we left on our big summer adventure so we REALLY appreciate having these now! I wanted all surfaces of these drawers to have a tough durable finish and decided to go with this two part Rubi Monocoat finish that you put on by hand with cloths rather than brush or spray. Hand rubbed finishes have always been my favorite and while this was a new one for me I was eXtremely pleased with the end result and the whole process of applying it. It was a bit laborious and a good workout but a very satisfying process for me. Difficult to see in photos but the Baltic Birch plywood came out with a glowing warm colour and a very tough finish that is also very easy to reapply in the future. To reduce the loss of usable space under the sinks I used these low profile P-traps which have turned out to work very well. and only required a small cut out on the rear of the two under sink drawers to clear nicely.
GALLEY CEILING & COB LED LIGHTING
Onwards and upwards I turned my attention to the ceiling of the Galley. It took a LOT of research to find the Goldilocks material for the ceiling but I finally found this White wood textured PVC trim molding material that checked all the boxes of light, easy to clean and attractive. It comes in 6” wide 8ft long planks and was very easy to work with. For lighting, I decided to use COB (Circuit on Board) LED strip lights which I set inside lengths of 20mm wide black aluminium U channel which I ran in between each of the White PVC ceiling planks. I like these newer COB strips for two reasons; they provide an uninterrupted line of light rather than individual points of light in the regular LED strips and they can be adjusted from about 2200K (very warm amber) up to 6500K (daylight white). In the past, SMD LED strips you have to chose a specific colour temp and they often have 60–120 LEDs per meter (≈1.5–3 LEDs per inch) whereas these COB lights have hundreds of micro‑LEDs tightly together, giving continuous light with no visible dots of light. Once I had the layout done and the strips of PVC and AL channel cut to length, the process went quite quickly. I could apply the construction adhesive to each plank and AL channel and press them up into place and then use my super handy cargo jacks and some scrap lengths of XAL to press these all up against the ceiling so they ended up flat and aligned. You can buy the COB LED lights in 20 meter rolls which you then cut to the lengths you want and solder three wires to the copper strips underlying the Yellow COB light strips. Takes a bit of practice to get these tight solder joints without any cross connections but all went pretty well after a few practice solders. Then I twist the wires to help reduce any electrical interference and slide a clear tube of heat shrink tubing over the joints and shrink them in place for a nice clean and protected connection.
Each of the LED strips have self adhesive on the back so you just peel off the protective wax layer and press these into the AL channel. I purchased the Black AL channel with frosted clip in covers so once I had the COB LED light strips glued in place and wired up ………… ……………. I could now press these clear covers in place. Here’s the result at about 6000k. These LED light strips are also fully dimmable so you can adjust both the colour temp from warm to cold white and from off to full almost daylight brightness.
We are very pleased with the end result.
Yet to come is the making of all the fronts to these drawers where I will get to use the fabulous 125 year old Cherry that my dear friends Colin, Rick and Sherry gifted us with but that probably won’t be until we get back here next year from our trip down to Baja so due stay tuned for all of THAT!
My sincere thanks for taking your valuable time to read these updates and join us on our adventures. Please leave your questions and comments in the Join the Discussion box below and hope to see you here again next week.
You might say that my world has gone to the dogs as Christine is back in Florida getting in some much needed Gramma time with our Grandson Liam, who somehow just turned TEN last week. Yikes! How did THAT happen?!?!?!? So here on Road Runner Ranch it is down to us Three Pupsketeers, Razz, Zoe and me, but we’re doing well and enjoying being surrounded by the beauty here in Southern Nevada.
Some of you may remember that the last post I did with updates on the work on Lance’s transformation was called “Mini-Split = Major Step Up: XRV Lance Update 4 May, 2025” May was a Looooooong time ago now so you may want to click on that link if you’d like a refresher.
Quite a lot of progress has happened with Lance’s transformation during the six months since that last post and I’ll do my best to cover as much as I can here in the coming weeks. To get started I’ll pick up where that update left off and catch you up on what happened between then and June 10 when we took left our place here in Nevada in Lance bound for Portland Maine for the June 21st wedding of my niece Julia to her beau Ben.
In the weeks to follow I will try to post once a week, usually on Sundays, providing updates on the work I’ve done on the different systems such as cabinetry, all the dovetail drawers, the Electrical Cabinet, rooftop solar panels and so on.
So grab a tasty beverage and a comfy seat and let’s get back to where we left off with that air conditioner/heater Mini-Split system you last saw in May.
Mini-Split is Fully Functional!
As per the title of that May 4th post, I had just finished quite literally shoehorning the exterior half of the Mini-Split unit up into the barely big enough space between Lance’s ambo box and the Kenworth frame.
And I’m very happy that I can start this week’s update with the news that I have since finished installing the Mini-Split and it is working even better than we had hoped. For those interested in the details, this is the make and model Mini-Split we decided on. It is a 9k BTU capacity “Pioneer Diamante Ultra” that is one of the most efficient models they make rated at 23.5 SEER for those who know that system. These type of two part aircon/heating systems are referred to as Mini-Splits because they consist of two parts; the outside condenser/compressor and the inside air handler evaporator. If you check out the basic features here this model provides both cooling in up to 131F/55C outside temps as well as heating when it gets down to from –13F/-25C. 9000 BTU is more than we need but the smallest model I could find so just means it won’t take much run time to keep the inside of the “Hab” as we have come to call the Habitat or Box or living quarters in Lance, just the right temperature in both hot and cold climates.
I will cover this in a later blog post but just FYI, in addition to the Mini-Split we will also have a diesel fired boiler that will heats the Glycol solution that flows through a network of PEX tubing in the floor as well as heat for two floor mounted air/glycol heat exchangers (mini radiators) so that when we head up to the Arctic, possibly this summer, we’ll stay nice and toasty. And this boiler also provides all our domestic hot water DHW for sinks and showers so stay tuned for that update in a few weeks. Back to the Mini-Split install, this is the wall mounted interior evaporator half of the system and I mounted this Air Handler above the entry door on the front passenger side of the Hab. Works out well as you can see being almost the same width as the door. There are moving louvers with one large one running across the bottom that you can see partially open here that distributes the cold/hot air up/down vertically and then inside are a set of other smaller louvers that move back and forth sideways and help move the air left and right. So this location works out very well for the heating/cooling of the interior air and yet keeps it from blowing directly on us when we are at the Settee or in bed. As you might have noticed in the earlier photos, I had to cut away part of the upper stair in the entry to fit this top right corner of the exterior half or condenser/compressor. Once I had this all solidly bolted in place to the frame of the Hab underneath (see that May post for details if you’re curious) I finished it off by building a little “cage” using extruded aluminium and some aluminium diamond plate that I had left over from cutting out some of the original ambulance cabinetry. Also added some insulation to keep the other heat/cold from getting into the Hab. The 6mm diamond plate slid nicely into the T-slot grooves of the extruded Aluminium or XAL as you can see here. All these interlocked plates and XAL turned this into somewhat of an Origami project as I needed to be able to slide some of those plates out to get inside to connect the wiring and refrigerant lines but I was quite pleased with the way it turned out in the end and still functioned well as our entry stairs. I chose the 240V model as it is a wee bit more efficient than the 120V versions and I designed our AC system that I’ll cover in more detail in a future post, to be a Split Phase system so it provides both 120 and 240 Volt power. I’m going to break the time sequence a bit here as I actually finished off this l the install of the Mini-Split when we got back from our summer marathon in Lance and was working on him at our place on Saturna Island. Next part of the install was to make up some custom copper line sets that connect the two parts and transfer the refrigerant between the exterior condenser and the interior evaporator. These copper tubes are well insulated to help with efficiency and that’s the white covering you see here.
I could do this because Lance’s ambulance box is 8 feet wide and allowed me to design both really deep drawers and countertops and still have lots of room for working in the Galley between the two countertops. I’m mentioning this because designing this space behind the drawers gives me the perfect place to run electrical cables, PEX water lines and now Mini-Split copper line sets all out of the way and hidden from view and yet easy to access for installing and maintenance. Looking inside the entry door, the drawers on both sides of the Galley are 24” deep but the countertops are 32” so there is a nice space behind the drawers when they are closed. I could do this because Lance’s ambulance box is 8 feet/243cm wide on the outside and the finished inside width is about 7 1/2 ft/2.3m which allowed me to design both really deep drawers and countertops and still have lots of room for working in the Galley between the two countertops. I’m mentioning this because designing this space behind the drawers gives me the perfect place to run electrical cables, PEX water lines and now Mini-Split copper line sets all out of the way and hidden from view and yet easy to access for installing and maintenance. This is the space behind the bottom drawer on the Left side of the stairs as you enter and I drilled a 2” hole through the vinyl flooring, insulation and aluminium floor of the box. The Pioneer unit came with the white PVC insert to protect the copper line set and the white cable is the 240VAC power and the black is the communication cable between the two halves of the Mini-Split. Up above I drilled two overlapping holes in the solid Acrylic countertop, which is fabulous stuff to work with BTW, and ran the electric cables and copper line sets through this. The copper lines in the interior evaporator unit come permanently fitted and they ended up just above the countertop height so I cut the new copper lines and installed new flare nuts that allowed me to connect them here and then run down into the compressor/condenser unit under the floor. The upper parts of the line sets gets covered with this black EPDM insulation and the corrugated clear hose is where the condensation produced by the evaporator drains out and down through the floor onto the road below. To protect and hide all these lines and cords I built a small vertical connector between the countertop and the overhead cabinet you can just see at the very top of this photo. The sides will soon be fitted with Cherry panels same as all the fronts of the doors and drawers that will be the topic of several other future posts. I will maybe guild some small shelves into this space to make it otherwise useful but for now it plays its primary role of protecting all these electrical cords and copper lines. Most importantly, Razz and Zoe use this new little upper step for their water bowl and so they give this new addition two paws up!
It’s been a bit cold the past few days with highs in the day around 10C/50F and brrrrrrrr as low as 4C/40F at night so we Three Pupsketeers have been really appreciating how well the heating function of the Mini-Split has kept us keeping us nice and comfy.
Well, that’s going to do it for this week but at least I’ve started to catch up with all those months of no updates on the progress with Lance and hope you enjoyed it.
Thanks for joining the journey here and don’t hesitate to leave your comments and questions in the Join the Discussion box below.
See you next week which will be Thanksgiving weekend for all my American friends and family.
We had a fabulous week in Portland Maine for my niece Julia’s wedding on June 21st and several days catching up with family and friends who were in attendance, which is where I left off in last week’s update which if you have not read yet is here; “Life is what happens while making other plans!”.
From there we started our trek back to our place on Saturna Island BC for the rest of the summer and then most recently back down to our place near Searchlight down in the southern tip of Nevada and that’s what I’m going to do my best to summarize in this week’s update. As you can see in this map of all our travels (click to enlarge any photo), that’s a LOT of miles or clicks 17,250 km/10,720 miles to be exact, so it will be a bit of a whirlwind marathon.
So Get comfy and here we go ………………………..
Here’s the map of our travels after we left Portland and made our way back to Saturna Island.
On June 24th, after saying goodbye to the bride and groom and all our friends and family gathered in Portland ME, the four of us (Christine, Zoe, Razz + I) got back on the road heading north up the coast of Maine and crossed into Canada and the province of New Brunswick. While Lance was far from finished and a bit “Spartan” for living in shall we say, he served us very well the whole trip and I continued to work on the eXtremely long To Do list as time allowed on our travels. In next week’s update I’ll get back to covering the work I’ve done over the past months on Lance so stay tuned for that. This photo is taken looking aft with the two Galley countertops in the lower left and right and the L shaped Settee behind. The Queen bed is up in the ceiling thanks to the four linear actuators on each corner that lifts it up there each morning with the push of a button. More on all of this to come in future posts.
Back to our travels after the wedding, as many of you might know, I’m a Canadian Army Brat as my Dad served over forty years as a chef in the Service Corps and we moved to a new posting every 2-3 years. We were posted to northern Germany from 1957-59 and returned from there to Camp Gagetown near Oromocto in New Brunswick where we lived in the house you see behind me here in the PMQ’s (Permanent Married Quarters) on the Base. Other than the new siding covering up the original red brick I was absolutely blown away to find that everything was exactly how I had remembered it when we left in 1961. Unless they close down, things on Canadian military bases don’t change much. So it was great fun to go back there for the first time in all those years since and be able to regale Christine in all the misadventures I had as a young boy. This was also the home that my brother Bruce had come home to when he was born so there were a lot of memories here. I had gone on to be a shop teacher at the High School on the Canadian jet fighter base in Baden Baden Germany from 1980-84 and I have retained very close friendships with many of the awemazing teachers who were there during these years. Christine had also done here share of traveling both growing up and in her adult years and as a result we both had a lot of friends all across the US and Canada, many of whom we visited on this latest trip and our routing was largely driven by all those the “mooch docking” we did as we drove Lance from one set of dear friends to the next. You’d have thought this would be high season and very busy but for most of our trip it often seemed like we were the only ones on the roads and places we camped out in Lance. Like the one you see on the left looking out the side door of Lance one on our way from Gagetown over to the province of Prince Edward Island or PEI.
I had been in touch with one set of dear friends from my days in Germany, Tony & Anna, and they had said that Tony was giving a talk at a Poet’s Conference at the University of Charlottetown on PEI, another spot I had not been back to since the 50’s. Since then they had put in the Confederation Bridge from the East end of New Brunswick over to PEI so that was a whole new experience for all of us driving over to PEI rather than on a ferry.
After meeting up with Anna and Tony at the University, we spent a few more days camping at the PEI National Park and exploring more of the island. One stop was here at Richards, a famous local spot for VERY fresh fish & chips. ……………….. and a beer with a view for my thirsty Bride while we waited for our fish & chips to arrive. For a change of pace and a different experience, we decided to take the ferry off of PEI and over to our next province on the itinerary; Nova Scotia.
More Moochdocking (parking in the driveways of your friends) with teaching friends from Germany, Blaine & Jill MacDonald, one of the three sets of friends we had in different spots in Nova Scotia. And you can’t be in Nova Scotia and not have a good lobster feed right? And BOY, did Mike and Cindy ever treat us to a feast with the lobster we picked up with them earlier that day. By now it was the July 1st Canada Day holiday which we were fortunate enough to have another great moochdocking spot with Christine’s sailing friends Dick & Deb who were both retired Canada Coast Guard Captains. On to yet another horribly crowed camp spot on our way back through the north side of New Brunswick as we made our way over to Quebec City. Along the way tried out lots of different ways of finding great spots to live out of Lance and one of these was by using Harvest Hosts. As their web site puts it “Harvest Hosts is a network of farms, wineries, breweries & distilleries, golf courses, community hosts and more that invite RVers to stay overnight, giving Members safe, convenient, and unique places to stay during their travels”. Having paid our $100 annual membership fee we were able to find spots like this little out of the way winery in Ontario. Harvest Host sites only allow one or two RVs per night and no facilities which is a Goldilocks combo for Christine and I.
At the other end of the spectrum, sometimes you do just need to be a tourist and how could we pass by Niagara Falls for a quick visit as we travelled westward across Ontario.
Christine had never been so it was even move special for the both of us and well worth the stop. Onward to the west side of Ontario in Kingsville on the north side of Lake Erie with Detroit just across the river to the west, where we stopped in for an extended stay with our longtime friends who are more like family, the Alonso Clan. I am honoured to be the godfather of their four children and Christine knows them eXtremely well too so it was a very special stop after not seeing several of them for some time. John’s Dad Juan is an eXtremely skilled craftsman of many trades with an eXtremely good selection of every tool and machine known to man which he kindly shared with me and helped me finally build this prototype table top for the settee in Lance. It was a much appreciated replacement to the temporary loose piece of plywood we had been using for a table up to that point and has its own electric pedestal so just like the bed it too goes up and down from dining table to coffee table height or all the way down to create a lower bed for infrequent guests. More on all this in upcoming posts so back on the road again for now…… We both love to live for eXperiences an this was our next one. After a quick dip down across the border to Valparaiso Indiana for a quick visit with Christine’s brother Steve & Susan, we decided to backtrack east a bit for an experience that Christine had found taking a ferry across the middle of Lake Michigan. Click to enlarge and read that this is not just any ole ferry, this is the last remaining coal fired steam driven public ferry in existence. And my oh my was it ever an experience. One part of which was that in the photo above that is NOT us driving Lance OFF the ferry, this is one of the ferry crew members BACKING Lance onto the ferry, which was their requirement for EVERY vehicle going on that ferry! I could go on with more stories about that ferry ride but we need to keep driving onward …………. Off the ferry we headed due North and crossed the border back into Canada at the very south western corner of Ontario and headed West across Manitoba, Saskatchewan and into Alberta.
Another one of our Harvest Hosts stops was in the back of this great little out of the way restaurant where we had a great meal and evening before moving on. There is no fee for your stays at a Harvest Host site and instead you are encouraged to partake of whatever that host is selling from meals to wine. A fabulous deal in our opinion and we thoroughly enjoyed them all. As we made our way across Alberta we wanted to see more of the HUGE Dinosaur National Park. Several years earlier on one of our many cross country drives, we had visited a part of this park further west near Drumheller that had the truly awemazing Royal Tyrell Museum which we would consider a must see for anyone any where near the area. This time we wanted to explore more of the wilderness side of this sprawling National Park. Truly an other worldly type of place as you can see.
Middle of July and so once again the campsite were eXtremely overcrowded!! Of course this might have kept a few people away, but we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves and will be back for more on another trip. Growing up I had spent many summers at my Uncle Roland’s farm just east of Calgary which my cousin Dale now runs and is always extremely generous with his time and knowledge every time we stop in on one of our trips. It is just SO fascinating having a modern day farmer take you on tours of his farm answering the litany of questions we always have for him and being in awe of the advanced tech that has become the norm for running a family farm these days.
Making our way across the Rockies through Banff and into BC, we dipped South a bit to take the ferry that is part of the Trans Canada Highway to Ainsworth. On one of our first cross country tours not long after we had met, we had been snowed in there for three days after a record snow fall. Much warmer weather this time and we also stopped in for a dip in the Ainsworth Hot Springs. However this was all easily upstaged by our overnight free camping spot just a few miles north of Ainsworth at Fletcher Creek Falls.
Just stunning to see.
Oh, and the falls weren’t bad either! We had several stops ahead to see friends in Vernon and Salmon Arm but the night before we stopped in at a brand new Harvest Host that was a working ranch. In spite of being very new and still a work in progress they treated us to an evening BBQ with their family. With these views out over the valley for our early morning coffee. And the leader of the pack and our new BFF donkey “Mitch”. Inching ever closer to our far western destination on Saturna Island, we were invited in for an overnight visit by our dear friends Rick, Sherry and son Colin at their family property on Gambier Island just north of Vancouver. How could we say no?!!! During our conversations Colin wanted to show me what he had done with a 125 year old Cherry tree that had fallen down in a big storm several years ago. Colin is an eXtremely talented and self sufficient young man and he had a fashioned his own mill and used it to cut this enormous Cherry tree into these 2+ inch thick slabs. Very impressive!
In ensuing conversations I had mentioned that I was on the hunt for some nice hardwood I could use as both solid edging and veneer on all the doors and drawer fronts in Lance and Colin thought, quite rightly, that this Cherry would be ideal for the job and that I just HAD to take it with me! Everyone pitched in and we managed to move these planks down to the dock and onto Rick’s boat as this is the only way on/off Gambier. Back over on the mainland Rick helped me load it into Lance and in some future posts I’ll take you through what has happened to this magnificent wood since. For now I just want to say THANK YOU! to Colin and Rick for their incredible generosity. The next day, August 2nd, we were back on the road, onto some more ferries and just like that, Lance (and us) were back where we had started months earlier at our little sanctuary “Ravens Ridge” on Saturna Island. While there, Christine had heard that a local couple had started up a business renting some very capable eBikes which they delivered to you wherever you wanted. So they dropped off these two in the morning and we spent the rest of the day exploring spots on Saturna such as this favorite at the top of Mount Warburton, one of the highest spots in all the Gulf Islands and literally in our back yard. After making the VERY steep climb up the mountain we wanted to push the bikes harder and see what they were capable of so we headed down and back up another even steeper set of climbs over to the Feral Goat Bistro at Sage Hayward Winery and enjoyed THIS delicious spread along with some flights of wine. We both love eggs Benedict and had many of them for breakfasts on this trip but still enjoyed making my own version once we were back home. Christine was happy to be reunited with one of the green frogs that seems to have adopted us. We were going to stay on Saturna to enjoy the warmer weather of summer there before heading back down to Nevada when things cooled down and so a few days after we got back I flew down to Vegas to go pick up “Totu” our 2006 Toyota Tundra truck and drive him back up to Saturna so that we had more than Lance for transportation for the next few months. I had a fabulous drive making my way over to Pacific Coast Highway on roads I’d not tried before and
1520 miles, 2446km later I was back on Saturna. This is already getting long so I’ll condense the rest of our travels since then and just say that we had a wonderful few months on Saturna.
Having friends ……… …….. and more friends ……
….. and family over and just enjoying this magical spot on the planet.
But soon enough it did start getting chillier and some members of the family had to break out their Canadiana winter weather clothes and it was time for us to pack up and start our migration south for the winter. We needed to get both vehicles down to Nevada so Christine drove Totu and I drove Lance and we found some more new ways to get from Saturna to Searchlight. This time we took the ferry out of Victoria over to Port Angeles, down the PCH and then west along the north or California on fabulous Hwy 36 that I had found on my drive up with Totu a few months previous. It was a truly wonderful Summer and Fall for all of us and we are now settling back into life here on our winter base at Road Runner Ranch, out in the BLM lands just north of Searchlight NV. Christine has just come back from a very eXciting writers conference in Las Vegas all this past week and she will soon be flying off to Ft. Lauderdale to enjoy American Thanksgiving getting in some much needed Gramma time with our Grandson Liam who just turned TEN a few days ago!!
Meanwhile, I’m busy working away at getting Lance’s transformation more and more complete and ready for our retreat to warmer weather down in Baja Mexico for the winter months in the new year. We’re delighted to be spending the Xmas week down in the LA area with equally fast growing Granddaughters Brynn and Blair and so I’ve got my work cut out for me to get Lance MUCH more completed and ready for our next “test drives”.
I’ll leave it at that for today and next week I’ll get back to covering the work I’ve done on Lance since the last of those kinds of updates back in May.
My sympathies and thanks to those of you who have endured and made it this far and please do add any questions or comments in the “Join the Discussion” box below.
Thanks and hope you’ll be back for more next week!
It has been one of the busiest months yet for both Christine and me as we put our noses to our respective grindstones and pedal to the metal for making maximum progress on our projects. Driving this in part is our decision to turn our attending our niece Julia’s wedding on June 21st in Portland Maine, into Lance’s maiden voyage. Just a quick test run so we will leave Road Runner Ranch here in Searchlight Nevada in the first week of June and drive over to Portland Main, perhaps along Route 66 to start and then after the wedding head up the East Coast and travel back across Canada to our serene getaway “Northern Home Base” aka “Ravens Ridge” on Saturna Island in BC for the remainder of the summer. Oh, and did I mention that never content with small goals, to spice it up a wee bit Christine also has a deadline to submit her newest book’s manuscript by the 5th of June. So wish us both luck !!
WAYNE WARNING: Given that it’s been more than a month since the last update and the amount of work on so many different aspects of XRV (eXtreme RV) Lance’s interior and systems, this is going to be a longer post so you’d be wise to get a comfy seat and a large portion of your favorite beverage before continuing. Don’t say you weren’t warned!
To help make this a bit more digestible and let you skip parts you may not be interested in, I’ll break this up into sections with a sub-title header for each of the projects I’ve tackled this past month within the larger project of transforming Lance from his roots as a 2017 Kenworth T270 Medium Duty Horton ambulance into an XRV.
I’ll wait till you get comfy and fill up your mug/glass ………………………………………………
Finishing XAL Cabinetry Framing:
I have now pretty much finished all the framing using eXtruded Aluminium T-slot extrusions, often referred to as “80/20”, by framing the upper cabinets above both Galley countertops, Passenger PS and Driver Side.
This is the one above the Passenger Side PS Galley countertop. and this is the overhead cabinet above the DS Galley countertop.
with the ever present Fusion 360 3D model on my laptop. You can see a bit of the detail of the way I am connecting all the various lengths of XAL which are all 1 inch square with either 2, 3 or 4 T slots. You can also see some additional XAL framing above the Entry Door into Lance’s “Happy tat” which I’ll explain a bit more in a few minutes. Peering into the Fusion 360 3D model of the Happytat might help to give you some perspective of the overall layout. L-shaped Settee in the Rear (far left) with the Queen Bed (not shown) raised up into the ceiling and the two Galley countertops on the PS and DS in the middle and then the Fridge/Freezer PS front with the shower in between that and the Head/Bathroom on the DS front (upper Right here)
The last bit of XAL framing when pretty quick and easy to put the last piece of the L-shaped Settee into place for the seat that goes across the back in front of the two rear doors of the Happytat “box”. Not to get too far ahead of ourselves but thankfully my Beautiful Bride has been taking some time away from her writing to create these drawings for the Settee cushions with the help from some AI of course to create these sketches a bit faster. She is now working with a local upholstery guy up in Vegas as we simply don’t have the time to sew these ourselves. This is a sample swatch of the upholstery fabric that Christine has found and we both really love.
For those curious, this is “Outdura Raindrop Lapis” which is eXtremely tough, easy to clean, long wearing fabric. ….. and this is the beautiful (we think) glass and stone tile that she found and should be here in a few days.
More updates in the next installment once these start to go into Lance so do stay tuned for that.
GALLEY COUNTERTOPS:
With the Galley XAL framing all in place it was time to switch gears and get on with installing the countertops themselves.
After several months of research, phone calls and Emails to find full uncut lengths of the countertop material and colour we wanted and which we could get delivered to us, this bundle of joy finally arrived at the FedEx Freight Terminal in S. Las Vegas. We found this Blue Lagoon pure acrylic at Solid Surface.com (where else?!?) and got a great price at $639 for this 1/2 inch thick 144 inch x 30 inch slab. They did a great job of packaging it all up and it arrived in perfect condition. Would have been a bit of a challenge to bring this 12 foot slab the 75 miles back to RoadRunner Ranch but I needed two pieces that were just under 6ft each so I brought my handy cordless circular saw with me and cut it in half and loaded it into Totu our 2006 Toyota Tundra, and we were off. Well, I did make a quick stop while I was up in Henderson (south part of Vegas) at our favorite Home Depot to pick up four sheets of 1/4” and 1/2 thick Baltic Birch plywood and these two other boxes which you’ll just have to wait for a bit to discover what’s inside them. This 1/2” solid acrylic material was very nice to work with using my regular carbide tipped saw blades and router bits and after some careful “measure twice, cut once” checks between the model and the actual interior I quick had the larger DS Galley countertop cut out. With the cutouts to go around the intersecting XAL parts and the bed lift linear actuators on the far Left here, it was a nice close fit.
You’ll note that I now also have the combo mesh/blackout screens for the MasterCraft double pane glass windows now installed and secured to the walls. Repeating the same process and the PS Galley countertop went into place.
We like the look of thicker exposed edges around all the countertops so my next step was to cut 1” and 2” strips of the acrylic sheet and glue them along all the edges and overtop of where the countertop attaches to all of the XAL framing underneath. Pretty simple process using a purpose made epoxy glue and matching gun you can see in the middle Right and then clamping the two mating surfaces together. Now for the FUN part! Cleaning up all the now 1” thick edges where the two pieces had been glued together. The clamp on strait edge was a bit help to quickly have a straight guiding surface for me to hold the base of the router to and shave off the edges.
Just like on our boats we don’t want any sharp corners to bump into so I quickly put together this little jig using some scraps of XAL to guide the router around the corners. A short length of the 1” radius external corner XAL was the Goldilocks size for nice safe corners so this worked out great to guide my smaller cordless 1/4” router.
and you can see how the glue joint pretty much disappears when these edges are routed nice and flush. Final polishing of all the countertop surfaces will make this pretty much vanish and I’m very happy with these early results.
Using a 3/8” radius carbide round over router bit I put a nice smooth radius on the top edges……. …….. and then switched to a 1/4” radius bit for the bottom edge as we thought this combination looked and felt the best.
What do you think? T’was a wee bit messy I suppose but otherwise worked out very well and …….. …… provided Christine with some chuckles and entertainment courtesy of her very own Frosty the Snowman. Now on to the details starting with the cutout for the nice big and deep SS sink. Once I had the large opening cut out with the circular saw I cleaned up the inside edges same as I did with the outer edges using the router and a 1/2” radius round over bit to provide what we thought was the best look and feel for the undermount sink. Gee, actually starting to see a Galley in here! With the sink test fitted and approved, next detail was to use this flush bottom router bit to cut a shallow recess in the XAL where the edges of the SS sink would sit down flush with the rest of the XAL surfaces. This was necessary so that the countertop would sit perfectly flush on top of all the XAL and sink edges. The final result was well worth the eXtra effort to get this clean fit between the undermount sink and the countertop material. One more job checked off the list! Moving over to the PS Galley, next job was to fit this lovely 2 burner induction cooktop into the countertop using the same process as the sink…… ………. layout the opening with masking tape and pen, cut out the opening with the circular saw and Japanese flush cut hand saw……. ….. a little bit of filing to put in some small grooves for the screws in the side edges of the cooktop and it slid into place just right.
I will install an 120V outlet underneath to plug this into and won’t fasten this down permanently so it can be easily lifted out and put atop our outside table when we want to cook out there. If you peer through the mess you just might be able to see quite a large and lovely two sided Galley?! Final bit of kit to finish off the Galley for now was to install this marvelous dual kitchen faucet that we can’t wait to try out. Quick and simple install, just drill the 1 1/4” hole in the countertop, assemble the braided SS Hot & Cold hoses into the base of the faucet and insert through the hole. A brass nut then slides up from below and threads onto the base of the faucet with washers sealing both sides and it is ready to be connected to the hot and cold PEX hoses when they go in on the upcoming plumbing phase of Lance’s transformation. All the potable water we put into the two 170L/45 USG water tanks will go through a set of three filters but to clean it up to the next level I installed this Acuva UV water filter with its own faucet.
I can taste that fresh clean water already!
Water Fill Up @ RoadRunner Ranch!
Speaking of tasty fresh water, for those of you wondering, here is how we provide plenty of fresh water for our current totally Off Grid home here on RoadRunner Ranch.
First I load this empty 1270L/335 USG IBC Tote (International Bulk Container) into the back of Totu. Then make the 2 mile drive into the booming metropolis of Searchlight (pop 245) to this “secret” water tap carefully tucked away on this abandoned lot courtesy of one of our neighbors “Amber”. This is fresh out of the ground from the large wellhead that provides all the “city water” to the homes of residents of Searchlight and has incredible pressure and volume so only takes me less than 20 minutes to completely fill the IBC Tote. Then drive back home to RoadRunner Ranch, connect the hose to the large valve on the bottom of the IBC Tote which leads into ……. …… here and use an electric pump to transfer the water into our four IBC Totes stacked up inside the end of one of our two 40ft shipping containers.
BTW; All of this equipment and the containers came with the property!
With all four IBC Totes filled up, this provides us with over 5,000L / 1340 USG of sparkling fresh potable water which is more than a year’s worth for us.
Each tote takes me about 3 hours round trip so not bad for free fresh water!
OK, now back to Lance …….
Mini Split is Major!
Remember those two boxes you saw when I picked up the plywood and the solid surface countertop material in Henderson/Vegas?
Well, here’s what those were. Yup! This awemazing 9000 BTU Pioneer mini split ductless inverter heat pump.
While our primary source of heat in colder weather will be our heated floor which is provided by the Oasis diesel boiler heating up the Glycol flowing through the PEX lines embedded in the floor and through the two “cozy” heat exchangers for hot air, this mini split air conditioner uses a heat pump which we can run in “reverse” to rapidly heat up the Happytat in situations when we have left Lance sitting for several hours or days in extreme cold such as the Norther Territories of Canada, Alaska and the Arctic which we are already eXcited about eXploring in Lance. Of course the primary purpose and use for this Mini-Split will be at the opposite end of the temperature spectrum when we are in hot humid conditions on our upcoming travels throughout North and Central America. I’ve been quite blown away by how much these units have increased their efficiency in cooling/heating/dehumidifying and even more so with their power efficiency.
At full crank this unit will only use about 700 Watts so we will be able pretty much use this as much as we want when fully off grid and unplugged powering it from our 15.36kWh lithium house battery bank. (much more on that in the next update posts)
Do you recall me pointing out the additional XAL framing I installed above the Entry Door into Lance’s Happytat? Well here is what that was for. I put in two vertical XAL supports in the framing above the door and so all I needed to do was bolt in the mounting plate that Pioneer includes with all their Mini-Splits and then you simply lower the unit onto this plate and click it in place! One of the benefits of doing a custom build is that you get to make everything a Goldilocks (just right) fit and this is a good example.
Next steps for this installation will be to remove this once I have it property fitted and connect the control and 240AC power cords and the two copper lines for the refrigerant. Looks may be a bit deceiving here in terms of the headroom when going up/down the entry way stairs but we had calculated this all out and even our taller friends well over 6ft won’t have to duck or have any limitations getting in or out.
I waited till I had this inside unit of the Mini-Split installed to finalize the height of the fridge/freezer and I’ve now lowered it about 50mm/2inches so that there is a bit of clearance between the Fridge door when it is opened and the rotating louver on the bottom of the Mini-Split when it is in operation. Well that was pretty quick and easy but not so fast Wayne!!
Just where and how are you going to mount THIS piece of the puzzle; the exterior half of the Mini-Split??!!
Don’t want to put it on the aft bumper as it looks atrocious and you give up using one of the two rear doors and also blocks tail/brake lights.
Room underneath is very limited for such a large item that measures LxWxH at 73cm x 56cm x 30cm / 29” x 22”x 12”
Hmmmmmm, what to do, what to do ?????????? I spent a LOT of time under Lance measuring every bit of available space, trying out every orientation I could come up with and for awhile I thought the best solution was going to be to dismantle the unit cut out the compressor and all the copper refrigerant lines and compressor so that I could mount the fan and conder unit horizontally. The compressor MUST remain in the “normal” upright/vertical orientation or else it won’t work but the condenser/fan unit works fine at any angle. So for a good while that was my plan; cut the compressor/condenser unit in the photo above into two separate pieces, mount the compressor unit in its required vertical position in a space underneath and then mount the condenser/fan unit sideways or horizonal underneath. It was still going to be a close fit to clear everything and not reduce ground clearance but I was pretty confident it would work and found one person on YouTube who had done something similar and it had been working well for him for several years already.
However, in one of those “Wait, what if …….???” moments in the middle of the night, I wondered if I just might be able to leave this condenser/compressor unit as is and mount the whole thing vertically underneath?? I did a LOT more measuring back and forth between the space under and behind the stairs into Lance and the Pioneer unit itself and convinced myself that while it would be a VERY close and tight fit, it WOULD/COULD work. The original Horton ambulance box had its own AirCon unit and its condenser/compressor was mounted under the steps but it was a special short and long unit made for this purpose and my Pioneer Mini-Split was MUCH larger.
I disconnected, unbolted and removed that original Horton unit which I needed to do in any case, and did more measuring and plotting with lots of consultations with my partner in life, and here’s what we came up with …….. I made a this plywood mock up that might give you a clue as to the plan?
Yup, turns out that with literally 1mm / .03inch clearance I could just squeeze this into the space between the first step and the rear wheel well.
I laid out the lines, measured a few more times, got out my trusty mini circular saw, took a deep breath and started to cut out part of the aluminium diamond plate on the rear of the steps. Whatta ya think?Is it going to fit? Well I did say this was going to be a shoe horn fit, and for a change this was NOT hyperbole as you can see! With a little help from my friends; Misters Crowbar, floor jack and ……….. ……… tie down ratchet strap, guess what?
It fit!!!!!
For those concerned and in spite of appearances in these photos to the contrary, this was all done very “gently” and the unit does fit without bending or damaging anything. Part of the challenge with this solution was with the orientation of the unit because I could not block or impede the flow of air in/out of this unit and had to also have the location of where the copper refrigerant lines hooked up. Amazingly, it all worked out in the end. Once I knew for sure it would actually fit, however closely, my next challenge was how to hold this 24kg/52lb unit solidly in place?
My pack rat tendencies came to the rescue yet again and I was able to repurpose some of these rectangular extruded aluminium channels and bolt them into the AL frame of the Horton box in the just right locations for the compressor/condenser unit to fit snuggly into.
It was going to require that I install two of these AFTER Christine and I wrestled the unit into position on the ground underneath Lance, but it would work. Here is how it was looking underneath around this time. See that spot at the rear between the Pioneer unit and that black leaf spring holder on the frame of the Kenworth chassis?
There is 2mm of clearance there, BUT it clears and nothing rubs!! In the end, this actually had MORE ground clearance than the original Horton compressor/condenser unit but I wanted to improve on it a wee bit more so I fabricated this “skid plate” out of AL diamond plate that I had cut out of the Horton box when modifying it for the transformation. I bolted two horizontal lengths of that same rectangular AL channel I used for the vertical mounts and then threaded up through the bottom of the diamond plate into these to securely attach this all together. Should be able to protect the unit from any rocks or debris that might fly up and hit it. OK, so it was now all mounted and bolted very solidly in place, now I needed to fabricate a new stair riser to replace what I’d cut out and cover this corner of the Mini-Split. I built a frame out of some of the 10 Series 1” XAL left over from the cabinetry framing and bolted that to the AL diamond plate of the steps to create a solid frame that could be stood on. Added 2” of PolyIso rigid foam insulation for acoustic and thermal isolation and then started to fabricate rectangles of AL diamond plate that slid just perfectly into the slots in the XAL framing. This simple little new step turned out to be quite the challenge of its own as I always consider future access for maintenance and repair into my designs and knew what I’d need to be able to access the forward side of the Pioneer unit for connecting the electrical cables and copper lines for this initial install and any future work that might be required. I used to love making little wooden puzzle boxes that had a specific pattern of sliding intricate pieces to open it up and this experience came in eXtremely handy here as this step box turned into an origami puzzle of its own. That side facing plate you see above slides down, then the top frame and its encapsulated plate slide out ……… …….. and now you can slide the front facing plate up and out…….. …. to reach the end goal of accessing the electrical panel. I fabricated this new cover plate and glued the wiring diagram from the original cover to the inside. Connected the 240VAC power in wires ….. ….. and screwed the new cover plate in place. Lastly I reversed the puzzle box “secret” sequence est Voila! The new step was done and the new Pioneer Mini-Split
was fully mounted and ready for installing the copper line set and control wiring. When I am all done, I will be sliding lengths of this rubber channel into the exposed slots of the XAL for a nice finishing touch and a bit of aesthetics.
Oh, and just one more thing ……..
One of the more eXciting things to happen this past week was that my Captain Christine brought back these three boxes and these two boxes, back home from one of her most recent drives up to Henderson for her fitness workouts and shopping’ Holy 3Dimensions Batwoman, boys and girls,
Wayne finally has his own 3D printer!!!!
Not that I am going to have much time to unbox and start learning how to use this Bamboo P1S 3D printer with the “combo” option of the four spool AMS Automatic Material System on top, but BOY is this going to be fun, eXtremely eXciting AND very useful for printing up so many new tools, fixtures, containers and whatever else I can design and model in Fusion 360. Even Christine shares much of my eXcitment with things she has already got in mind for me to print. Stay tuned for much more once I get some time to start using this awemazing new bit of kit.
In closing (FINALLY WAYNE!!) I’d be remis if I didn’t include kudos to our intrepid helpers who are ALWAYS on the job and without whom none of this would be possible!
A BIG congratulations if you’ve made it this far in this marathon monster mashup and please do be encouraged with any remaining strength and perseverance to put your comments and questions in the “join the Discussion“ box below. We are back at it in the morning and will do my best to get out another update before we start on our newest adventure heading to the East Coast and back.
Unfortunately I didn’t get any photos of the whole stack of Cherry planks but these are the ones we pulled out and loaded onto a cart to move down to the boat dock. Why the cart you ask? 
Well, as you may recall Gambier can only be accessed by private boat so we now needed to figure out a way to get these planks off the island and back over to the mainland where Lance was parked. 
After all his years on Gambier, Rick is used to this so he helped load up the planks and drive them from up on the property down to the boat dock, which as you can see is a looooooong way down. 
Rick and I carried them down the last way on the ramp and had them all ready to now load onto his boat. 
Easy peasy as we Canadians say and Rick put his boat into gear and we were off on the 10 minute ride over to the dock and then carried them up and loaded into Lance! 
Christine and I bid them all adieu and headed off on the final leg of our cross North America trip to get Lance back to our place on Saturna Island where I carried the planks on their next voyage into my workshop. You can see some of the planks now standing up on edge to the Left of the yellow table saw. 
A few weeks later my awemazing son Skyler came over for a few days to help me out and after a bit more wood wrestling and we had the first slab horizontally on the sawhorses ready for to be cut down to size. What we needed to do is cut some of these into strips about 20mm/ 3/4” square that would be glued to the edges of 13mm/ 1/2” Baltic Birch plywood and then to cut others into very thin sheets that would be glued on top of the edged plywood to create all the drawer fronts and cabinet doors patiently awaiting inside Lance’s Galley. 
Skyler is a very talented cabinetmaker and woodworker and he had brought over his Fein Track Saw with him which was just the right tool to cut the rough sawn slabs down to more usable size. 
Cherry is a lovely wood to work with and over the years I’ve used it to built quite a lot of furniture and cabinets with. 
These thick planks were a bit of a challenge but Skyler and his saw were up for it 
and along with the table saw we soon had these planks cut into about 150mm/6”wide boards for our next step. 
Which was to move them over to the bandsaw which had a sharp new 1” carbide toothed blade I had just bought and fitted. We made up the wooden fence you see here to guide the planks that were now up on their edge ready to be run through that blade a bit like a meat cutter blade shaves thin slices of ham. 
After a few test cuts we had the fence set just right to give us consistently thick slices. 
This yellow feather jig clamps to the slots in the bandsaw table and keeps the plank pressed tightly against the side of the fence. 
Each slice is about 3-4mm / 1/8” thick and will be the “veneer” that I glue onto all that edge banded plywood drawer fronts and doors. 
Net result was four of these stacks of the 6” wide Cherry veneer. 
For the solid Cherry edging we needed for the perimeter edges of each Baltic Birch plywood blank we ripped them to rough size using the table saw and then fed them through our thickness planer to take them down to be just a wee bit thicker than the 1/2” plywood so I can trim them down to be perfectly flush with the faces of the plywood. 
There are a LOT of drawers and doors each of which needs four solid Cherry edges so we set up a bit of a production run between the two of us using the table saw and the thickness planer and started putting them all into this plastic waste can. 
To help with your orientation, this screen shot from my Fusion 360 3D model shows where the Head & Shower are located in the front DS Driver Side of Lance’s Hab/Habitat/Box which is on the far Right of this view. 
Here is what it looked like IRL (In Real Life) from the inside when I got started. That’s the SS Fridge/Freezer on the far Right, Blue DS Galley countertop peeking through on the Left and that’s the DS Front corner of the Hab in the far middle of this photo. The toilet will sit on top of the raised floor section and I’m getting ready to put in the the shower pan on the lower section of the floor that the blue cargo spreaders are resting on.
For maximum adhesion of the rigid foam Shower Pan I removed all the LVT vinyl floor planking that covers all the floor area inside Lance’s Happytat. 
To help with tiling the shower pan and getting the slope to the center shower drain just right, I bought a Vevor shower pan kit that is specifically made for this purpose and adds even more insulation to the shower floor. 
You can see here how the area for the flange of the PVC drain is already pre-cast into the foam and you’ll also note the large circular recess surrounding it for bedding the drain flange into the floor. 
After checking that it all fit just right, I removed the foam pan, applied a silicone based adhesive with my cordless caulking gun (that I’m enjoying more ever time I use!), spread it out evenly with a notched trowel and pressed the floor pan back into place using my trusty cargo spreaders and some aluminium and plywood cauls to press it even and flat. 
It was difficult to see in the photos above but I also used 1/2” BB plywood to cover the wall between the Shower and the Fridge/Freezer compartment. I caulked all seams and corners with construction adhesive for additional sealing of those.
Next I put in this small bit of XAL framing to extend that exterior cabinet “bump” all the way to the inner edge of the Head raised floor. This will also create a handy storage area. 
After the first thin coat of RedGuard was on I went around and used more RedGuard to bed in some reinforcing felt that I cut into strips and pressed into all the corners and seams with more RedGuard. 
The drain area received several more coats of RedGuard as this will get the most traffic and potential for seepage. The pink colour is from the still wet RedGuard which quickly changes to Red as it dries fully. 
Et Voila!! 
A bit messy but my 11cm/ 4 1/4” hole saw did a nice job of cutting this hole through all the layers of insulation and aluminium in the floor for the PVC drain to set into and exit out the bottom where it will connect to PVC pipe and on to the Gray Water tank. You can also see the 2 inches of insulation that are below the shower floor. 
I had some of this Blue Solid Surface acrylic material left over from doing the Galley countertops so I used this to create a nicely contrasting and durable shelf top on that bump out in the Head. 
I wanted to get this shelf installed before I started putting in the PVC planking that I’m going to use to cover the walls. 
The kit comes with this Orange plastic mesh which the Black heating cable gets attached to.
This is the transition piece where the cable changes from the 220VAC power cable to the heated wire. As it is a larger diameter I routed a groove into the ACM flooring so this thicker diameter would sit flush with the floor surface and be better protected. 
The heated cable is one continuous length and you can not cut this so it took me a bit of planning to get the spacing right but all fit in very nicely and will keep our tootsies warm both when showering and sitting on the Throne! 
With all the heated cable and mesh in place I mixed up the epoxy thinsulate/mortar and spread out about a 13mm / 1/2” thick layer with a steel trowel and smoothed it all out. 
Laying out this type of spiral pattern is a bit tricky and takes some planning to make sure all the corners and joints line up and maintain the pattern. If you look closely you’ll see that you can only get a straight line for butting up against corners or lining up sheets in one place along the larger square formed by each spiral.
I
Then I moved onto the Shower floor and started the dry layup there. 
You can see how I needed to trim the tiles a bit along the edges of the square SS drain which I did so that the outer edges of the regular square spiral patterns would match up with the outer edges. 
And it all slopes down from the edges to the drain. 
I thought it would look better to create a single upper edge surrounding the whole space so I put in some aluminium edging and tiled up to that along all the sides of the Shower and the Head floors and set them in place. 
………. and installed the AL transitions edging all round. 
I had enough left over tile to cut these bands off the sheets and used that size to determine the width of the band. 
Worked out quite well and now time to put up all the PVC wall planks.
It was quite quick and easy to cut the 8ft long PVC planks to a nice fit between the top and bottom edges of the aluminium edging there the tiles start and stop. 
The cargo spreaders and some square aluminium tube cauls helped to hold the PVC planks flat while the silicone adhesive cured overnight.
With the wall planks all done I could now grout all the tiles in this band and on the floors to finish the tiling. 
I did the ceiling with the same vinyl planking with a different pattern on it that I used for the ceilings in the rest of Lance. As with those other ceilings, I put in a strip of dimmable LED’s between each plank but more on that a bit later.
I’m not a big fan of the popular variations of the MaxFans that much of the RV and Van world seem to use and wanted to keep our overall vehicle height to a minimum and we’re at 2.9m / 9’ 5” right now with the solar panels and roof vent. So this Kohree vent unit seemed to check all our boxes.
There are three thick aluminium plates in the roof of Lance, one for the top skin, the layer you can see here that forms the internal ceiling of the ambo box and then …… 
……… the final layer of 5mm thick ACM that I installed for the ceiling surface below the additional layer of 20mm IPS foam insulation. 
The vent dropped in just right. 
I used this 2×2” square AL ceiling beam for a conduit for the wires to power and control the fan. 
I’m a BIG fan of these WAGO wire connectors and have used them throughout the build. They worked well to connect these 12VDC power wires to the fan and then tuck nicely into that square AL tube. 
………. bedded the vent into the roof with 3M 5200 sealant and some makeshift weights to let it cure overnight.
Worked out well to provide Goldilocks just right lighting both night and day. 
One last detail for those few times (so far) either of us needs to get up and use the Head in the middle of the night, I wanted also have some indirect low level lighting inside the Head & Shower area. So I installed some of these 45 degree angled aluminium extrusions in hidden areas such as under the door sill into the Shower you can make out below my hand and another under that little Blue shelf in the Head. 
To help keep our night vision and add a bit of “ambiance” I used these Blue LED strips which are also dimmable to whatever level of Blue light you’d like.
Testing out the LED strip tucked in below the door sill into the Shower. 
After some debate and research we decided to go with this retractable shower door that rolls up when OPEN like this 
….. and then rolls out to seal and CLOSE like this. 
The flexible material rolls up on a spring loaded shaft hidden neatly inside this cassette that mounts to the left side of the door. 
The “door” slides on tracks concealed inside the AL extrusions top and bottom and I left a small gap at the top to help with air circulation. 
And then mounted this mirrored Medicine Cabinet on the rear wall to finish things off. 
…… connected it to a thermostatic controlled mixing valve faucet. These are great for maintaining a whatever water temperature you set it to coming out of the shower head. The button allows you to turn the water on and off as you wish to conserve water and have it off when you want to wash your hair, shave, etc. 
The SS cylindrical knob on the top end rotates to set the temperature and the one on the bottom controls the water flow volume.
I drilled and threaded this plate to mount these two brass fittings for the thermostatic valve to attach to on the outside and push-connect fittings on the other side ………… 
The whole assembly then fits securely into the slots in the XAL framing. 
I cut this rabbet or tongue on the bottom edge that is a snug fit into the groove on the bottom length of XAL framing. 
The way it works is that you first put the bottom tongue into the groove and then …….. 
…………… tip the panel up into place. 
To hold this and likely all the panels in Lance securely in place, I’m trying out using these very strong round “donut” Neodymium magnets. This one is a 40 pounder, meaning it takes about 40 pounds of pull to remove. These magnets are available from less than one pound up to over one hundred. 
All the metal in Lance is aluminium which of course isn’t magnetic so cut a short 5cm/2” length of steel flat bar and drilled a 6mm hole in one end so I can bolt it to a T nut captured in the XAL slot on the back here. Worked out even better than I hoped and the panel snaps into place with a good “thud” and locks the whole panel tightly in place. 
Here is what the panel looks like so far. White thermostat for the heated floors in the Head & Shower in the bottom right (currently turned off) and the Victron Cerbo GX touch display above it and switches for things like water pump, Starlink power and the thermostatic controllers for the heated main cabin floors over to the Left. 
Easily one of the most used and most important areas for our day to day live in Lance and our 10,000 + mile “maiden voyage” this past summer proved that our design worked well as we used it during that two month test drive. We prioritized large areas of open countertop, dual deep sink, induction cooktop and large fridge and freezer and you can see the basic layout from the 3D model screengrab here. 
Underneath both countertops it is all drawers as we find these much more efficient to use than cupboards and overall we have more than 20 drawers inside of Lance. 
I have always preferred dovetail joints for all drawers given their superior strength that stands up for decades of use and I think they look great too and so that’s what we went with for Lance. I was going to do this all myself but with almost a hundred dovetailed corners to do and SO many other jobs demanding my time and attention I decided to job this out. I found a fabulous company to work with called 
They shipped all the pre-cut drawers to me as flatpacks like this so the whole shipment of all the drawers was not too large and they were all very well shrink wrapped and carefully boxed up so they arrived with no damage at all. 
They also offered a great prices on the the top quality Blum undermount ball bearing drawer slides I wanted so it all came as a single order which made my life easier.
Mounting more than 40 drawer slides to the XAL framework was very straightforward but time consuming to get them all exactly parallel and lined up. 
and some required a bit of Houdini moves to hold in place and tighten up. 
Next, I set up a little workbench on top of the PS Galley counter to assemble each drawer. 
Each set of dovetails only required a few drops of wood glue and they went together very well with two bar clamps and some taps with my little hammer to get the joints to fit together all the way. The dovetails were so precise that every drawer went together perfectly square and were solid as a rock. 
The Blum drawer slides required two slots in the bottom of each rear drawer side so I cut those out next and then I mounted to the Orange locking hardware to the bottom of the front corners. These are where the drawer slides clip into the drawer and make it very easy to lift out a drawer at any time. It’s a great system! 
Installing each drawer was now a simple process of pulling out each drawer slide………. 
………… setting the pins in the rear of each drawer slide into the corresponding holes I had previously drilled and pushing them closed till they clicked in place. 
Et Voila! We’ve got drawers! Sad to say that I wasn’t able to get this done before we left on our big summer adventure so we REALLY appreciate having these now! 
I wanted all surfaces of these drawers to have a tough durable finish and decided to go with this two part Rubi Monocoat finish that you put on by hand with cloths rather than brush or spray. Hand rubbed finishes have always been my favorite and while this was a new one for me I was eXtremely pleased with the end result and the whole process of applying it. 
It was a bit laborious and a good workout but a very satisfying process for me. 
Difficult to see in photos but the Baltic Birch plywood came out with a glowing warm colour and a very tough finish that is also very easy to reapply in the future. 
To reduce the loss of usable space under the sinks I used these low profile P-traps which have turned out to work very well. 
and only required a small cut out on the rear of the two under sink drawers to clear nicely. 
For lighting, I decided to use COB (Circuit on Board) LED strip lights which I set inside lengths of 20mm wide black aluminium U channel which I ran in between each of the White PVC ceiling planks. I like these newer COB strips for two reasons; they provide an uninterrupted line of light rather than individual points of light in the regular LED strips and they can be adjusted from about 2200K (very warm amber) up to 6500K (daylight white). 
Once I had the layout done and the strips of PVC and AL channel cut to length, the process went quite quickly. I could apply the construction adhesive to each plank and AL channel and press them up into place and then use my super handy cargo jacks and some scrap lengths of XAL to press these all up against the ceiling so they ended up flat and aligned. 
You can buy the COB LED lights in 20 meter rolls which you then cut to the lengths you want and solder three wires to the copper strips underlying the Yellow COB light strips. Takes a bit of practice to get these tight solder joints without any cross connections but all went pretty well after a few practice solders. 
Then I twist the wires to help reduce any electrical interference and slide a clear tube of heat shrink tubing over the joints and shrink them in place for a nice clean and protected connection.
……………. I could now press these clear covers in place. 
Here’s the result at about 6000k. These LED light strips are also fully dimmable so you can adjust both the colour temp from warm to cold white and from off to full almost daylight brightness.
For those interested in the details, this is the make and model Mini-Split we decided on. It is a 9k BTU capacity “Pioneer Diamante Ultra” that is one of the most efficient models they make rated at 23.5 SEER for those who know that system. These type of two part aircon/heating systems are referred to as Mini-Splits because they consist of two parts; the outside condenser/compressor and the inside air handler evaporator. 
Back to the Mini-Split install, this is the wall mounted interior evaporator half of the system and I mounted this Air Handler above the entry door on the front passenger side of the Hab. Works out well as you can see being almost the same width as the door. There are moving louvers with one large one running across the bottom that you can see partially open here that distributes the cold/hot air up/down vertically and then inside are a set of other smaller louvers that move back and forth sideways and help move the air left and right. So this location works out very well for the heating/cooling of the interior air and yet keeps it from blowing directly on us when we are at the Settee or in bed. 
As you might have noticed in the earlier photos, I had to cut away part of the upper stair in the entry to fit this top right corner of the exterior half or condenser/compressor. Once I had this all solidly bolted in place to the frame of the Hab underneath (see that May post for details if you’re curious) I finished it off by building a little “cage” using extruded aluminium and some aluminium diamond plate that I had left over from cutting out some of the original ambulance cabinetry. Also added some insulation to keep the other heat/cold from getting into the Hab. 
The 6mm diamond plate slid nicely into the T-slot grooves of the extruded Aluminium or XAL as you can see here. 
All these interlocked plates and XAL turned this into somewhat of an Origami project as I needed to be able to slide some of those plates out to get inside to connect the wiring and refrigerant lines but I was quite pleased with the way it turned out in the end and still functioned well as our entry stairs. 
I chose the 240V model as it is a wee bit more efficient than the 120V versions and I designed our AC system that I’ll cover in more detail in a future post, to be a Split Phase system so it provides both 120 and 240 Volt power. 
Looking inside the entry door, the drawers on both sides of the Galley are 24” deep but the countertops are 32” so there is a nice space behind the drawers when they are closed. 
This is the space behind the bottom drawer on the Left side of the stairs as you enter and I drilled a 2” hole through the vinyl flooring, insulation and aluminium floor of the box. The Pioneer unit came with the white PVC insert to protect the copper line set and the white cable is the 240VAC power and the black is the communication cable between the two halves of the Mini-Split. 
Up above I drilled two overlapping holes in the solid Acrylic countertop, which is fabulous stuff to work with BTW, and ran the electric cables and copper line sets through this. The copper lines in the interior evaporator unit come permanently fitted and they ended up just above the countertop height so I cut the new copper lines and installed new flare nuts that allowed me to connect them here and then run down into the compressor/condenser unit under the floor. 
The upper parts of the line sets gets covered with this black EPDM insulation and the corrugated clear hose is where the condensation produced by the evaporator drains out and down through the floor onto the road below. 
To protect and hide all these lines and cords I built a small vertical connector between the countertop and the overhead cabinet you can just see at the very top of this photo. The sides will soon be fitted with Cherry panels same as all the fronts of the doors and drawers that will be the topic of several other future posts. 
I
Most importantly, Razz and Zoe use this new little upper step for their water bowl and so they give this new addition two paws up!
Click to enlarge and read that this is not just any ole ferry, this is the last remaining coal fired steam driven public ferry in existence. And my oh my was it ever an experience. One part of which was that in the photo above that is NOT us driving Lance OFF the ferry, this is one of the ferry crew members BACKING Lance onto the ferry, which was their requirement for EVERY vehicle going on that ferry! I could go on with more stories about that ferry ride but we need to keep driving onward …………. 
However this was all easily upstaged by our overnight free camping spot just a few miles north of Ainsworth at Fletcher Creek Falls.
After making the VERY steep climb up the mountain we wanted to push the bikes harder and see what they were capable of so we headed down and back up another even steeper set of climbs over to the Feral Goat Bistro at Sage Hayward Winery and enjoyed THIS delicious spread along with some flights of wine. 
We both love eggs Benedict and had many of them for breakfasts on this trip but still enjoyed making my own version once we were back home. 
I had a fabulous drive making my way over to Pacific Coast Highway on roads I’d not tried before and
This is already getting long so I’ll condense the rest of our travels since then and just say that we had a wonderful few months on Saturna. 
We needed to get both vehicles down to Nevada so Christine drove Totu and I drove Lance and we found some more new ways to get from Saturna to Searchlight. This time we took the ferry out of Victoria over to Port Angeles, down the PCH and then west along the north or California on fabulous Hwy 36 that I had found on my drive up with Totu a few months previous. 
It was a truly wonderful Summer and Fall for all of us and we are now settling back into life here on our winter base at Road Runner Ranch, out in the BLM lands just north of Searchlight NV. 
and this is the overhead cabinet above the DS Galley countertop.
You can see a bit of the detail of the way I am connecting all the various lengths of XAL which are all 1 inch square with either 2, 3 or 4 T slots. 
You can also see some additional XAL framing above the Entry Door into Lance’s “Happy tat” which I’ll explain a bit more in a few minutes. 
Peering into the Fusion 360 3D model of the Happytat might help to give you some perspective of the overall layout. L-shaped Settee in the Rear (far left) with the Queen Bed (not shown) raised up into the ceiling and the two Galley countertops on the PS and DS in the middle and then the Fridge/Freezer PS front with the shower in between that and the Head/Bathroom on the DS front (upper Right here) 
The last bit of XAL framing when pretty quick and easy to put the last piece of the L-shaped Settee into place for the seat that goes across the back in front of the two rear doors of the Happytat “box”. 
Not to get too far ahead of ourselves but thankfully my Beautiful Bride has been taking some time away from her writing to create these drawings for the Settee cushions with the help from some AI of course to create these sketches a bit faster. She is now working with a local upholstery guy up in Vegas as we simply don’t have the time to sew these ourselves. 
This is a sample swatch of the upholstery fabric that Christine has found and we both really love. 
….. and this is the beautiful (we think) glass and stone tile that she found and should be here in a few days. 
We found this Blue Lagoon pure acrylic at Solid Surface.com (where else?!?) and got a great price at $639 for this 1/2 inch thick 144 inch x 30 inch slab. They did a great job of packaging it all up and it arrived in perfect condition. 
Would have been a bit of a challenge to bring this 12 foot slab the 75 miles back to RoadRunner Ranch but I needed two pieces that were just under 6ft each so I brought my handy cordless circular saw with me and cut it in half and loaded it into Totu our 2006 Toyota Tundra, and we were off. 
Well, I did make a quick stop while I was up in Henderson (south part of Vegas) at our favorite Home Depot to pick up four sheets of 1/4” and 1/2 thick Baltic Birch plywood and these two other boxes which you’ll just have to wait for a bit to discover what’s inside them. 
This 1/2” solid acrylic material was very nice to work with using my regular carbide tipped saw blades and router bits and after some careful “measure twice, cut once” checks between the model and the actual interior I quick had the larger DS Galley countertop cut out. 
With the cutouts to go around the intersecting XAL parts and the bed lift linear actuators on the far Left here, it was a nice close fit.
We like the look of thicker exposed edges around all the countertops so my next step was to cut 1” and 2” strips of the acrylic sheet and glue them along all the edges and overtop of where the countertop attaches to all of the XAL framing underneath. Pretty simple process using a purpose made epoxy glue and matching gun you can see in the middle Right and then clamping the two mating surfaces together. 
Now for the FUN part! Cleaning up all the now 1” thick edges where the two pieces had been glued together. The clamp on strait edge was a bit help to quickly have a straight guiding surface for me to hold the base of the router to and shave off the edges.
…….. and then switched to a 1/4” radius bit for the bottom edge as we thought this combination looked and felt the best.
…… provided Christine with some chuckles and entertainment courtesy of her very own Frosty the Snowman. 
Now on to the details starting with the cutout for the nice big and deep SS sink. 
Once I had the large opening cut out with the circular saw I cleaned up the inside edges same as I did with the outer edges using the router and a 1/2” radius round over bit to provide what we thought was the best look and feel for the undermount sink. 
Gee, actually starting to see a Galley in here! 
With the sink test fitted and approved, next detail was to use this flush bottom router bit to cut a shallow recess in the XAL where the edges of the SS sink would sit down flush with the rest of the XAL surfaces. 
This was necessary so that the countertop would sit perfectly flush on top of all the XAL and sink edges. 
The final result was well worth the eXtra effort to get this clean fit between the undermount sink and the countertop material. 
One more job checked off the list! 
Moving over to the PS Galley, next job was to fit this lovely 2 burner induction cooktop into the countertop using the same process as the sink…… 
………. layout the opening with masking tape and pen, cut out the opening with the circular saw and Japanese flush cut hand saw……. 
….. a little bit of filing to put in some small grooves for the screws in the side edges of the cooktop and it slid into place just right.
If you peer through the mess you just might be able to see quite a large and lovely two sided Galley?! 
Final bit of kit to finish off the Galley for now was to install this marvelous dual kitchen faucet that we can’t wait to try out. 
Quick and simple install, just drill the 1 1/4” hole in the countertop, assemble the braided SS Hot & Cold hoses into the base of the faucet and insert through the hole. A brass nut then slides up from below and threads onto the base of the faucet with washers sealing both sides and it is ready to be connected to the hot and cold PEX hoses when they go in on the upcoming plumbing phase of Lance’s transformation. 
All the potable water we put into the two 170L/45 USG water tanks will go through a set of three filters but to clean it up to the next level I installed this Acuva UV water filter with its own faucet. 
Then make the 2 mile drive into the booming metropolis of Searchlight (pop 245) to this “secret” water tap carefully tucked away on this abandoned lot courtesy of one of our neighbors “Amber”. This is fresh out of the ground from the large wellhead that provides all the “city water” to the homes of residents of Searchlight and has incredible pressure and volume so only takes me less than 20 minutes to completely fill the IBC Tote. 
Then drive back home to RoadRunner Ranch, connect the hose to the large valve on the bottom of the IBC Tote which leads into ……. 
…… here and use an electric pump to transfer the water into our four IBC Totes stacked up inside the end of one of our two 40ft shipping containers.
Yup! This awemazing 9000 BTU Pioneer mini split ductless inverter heat pump.
I’ve been quite blown away by how much these units have increased their efficiency in cooling/heating/dehumidifying and even more so with their power efficiency. 
Do you recall me pointing out the additional XAL framing I installed above the Entry Door into Lance’s Happytat? Well here is what that was for. I put in two vertical XAL supports in the framing above the door and so all I needed to do was bolt in the mounting plate that Pioneer includes with all their Mini-Splits and then you simply lower the unit onto this plate and click it in place! 
One of the benefits of doing a custom build is that you get to make everything a Goldilocks (just right) fit and this is a good example.
Looks may be a bit deceiving here in terms of the headroom when going up/down the entry way stairs but we had calculated this all out and even our taller friends well over 6ft won’t have to duck or have any limitations getting in or out. 
Whatta ya think?Is it going to fit? 
Well I did say this was going to be a shoe horn fit, and for a change this was NOT hyperbole as you can see! 
With a little help from my friends; Misters Crowbar, floor jack and ……….. 
……… tie down ratchet strap, guess what? 
Once I knew for sure it would actually fit, however closely, my next challenge was how to hold this 24kg/52lb unit solidly in place? 
Here is how it was looking underneath around this time. 
See that spot at the rear between the Pioneer unit and that black leaf spring holder on the frame of the Kenworth chassis?
In
Added 2” of PolyIso rigid foam insulation for acoustic and thermal isolation and then started to fabricate rectangles of AL diamond plate that slid just perfectly into the slots in the XAL framing. 
This simple little new step turned out to be quite the challenge of its own as I always consider future access for maintenance and repair into my designs and knew what I’d need to be able to access the forward side of the Pioneer unit for connecting the electrical cables and copper lines for this initial install and any future work that might be required. 
I used to love making little wooden puzzle boxes that had a specific pattern of sliding intricate pieces to open it up and this experience came in eXtremely handy here as this step box turned into an origami puzzle of its own. That side facing plate you see above slides down, then the top frame and its encapsulated plate slide out ……… 
…….. and now you can slide the front facing plate up and out…….. 
…. to reach the end goal of accessing the electrical panel. 
I fabricated this new cover plate and glued the wiring diagram from the original cover to the inside. 
Connected the 240VAC power in wires ….. 
….. and screwed the new cover plate in place. 
Lastly I reversed the puzzle box “secret” sequence est Voila! The new step was done and the new Pioneer Mini-Split
When I am all done, I will be sliding lengths of this rubber channel into the exposed slots of the XAL for a nice finishing touch and a bit of aesthetics.
these two boxes, back home from one of her most recent drives up to Henderson for her fitness workouts and shopping’ 
Holy 3Dimensions Batwoman, boys and girls,
Recent Comments