Skylight Covers for our Bus Conversion – S04E08

It is Spring.  The flowers are beginning to bloom and we are preparing our bus for the extreme heat and humidity of Summer by installing air conditioning and creating skylight covers to help keep the heat out.  BUT this week the temperature dropped below freezing again and it snowed!  Nevertheless, we must keep moving on with our plans as Summer will eventually arrive.

We made our skylight covers out of plexiglass and added an adhesive Window Tint that blocks out 99% of the UV Rays and 50 % of the heat, with the option of also adding reflectix inside the covers to completely block out the light.

The tint is designed to go on glass not plexiglass, but using glass in the covers did not seem like a good idea. So instead we used a little bit of superglue around the perimeter to ensure the tint would stay secure.

We used 1 x 2’s to create a wooden frame and with the help of the table saw we made a groove in the center of the frame to slip the tinted plexiglass inside. We glued and stapled the corners of the wood frame together and made little notches in the wood (on the back of the covers) to sink the magnets into the wood.  The magnets hold the covers onto the metal trim work around our skylights.

Putting the tint on is similar to putting that protective liner on the front of your smart phone. You use a squeegee or credit card to smooth out the bubbles.  Because the tint is not made for plexiglass, it didn’t adhere perfectly.  There are tiny little bubbles that we could not get out, but they don’t bother us too much.  

We are thrilled with having the option to let less light and heat in without completely blocking all the light however we did get some superglue on the front of them and the 1x2’s don’t bend into the curve of the ceiling.  They aren’t perfect but will definitely do the job of keeping some heat out this summer.  We decided to live with them for a little while and we may remake them at a later point and refine our method.

We also returned to Don’s desk area this week and added in some shelving a metal Tool Chest/Cabinet which will act as a storage and a charging dock for cameras, lights, drone, batteries and more.  We bolted the cabinet into the shelf and it has a lock on it.  This gives us peace of mind that it will be secure as we drive and that should someone break in our gear will not be easy to grab and run.  We will be installing a security system too.

Inside the Cabinet we used Pluck Foam to cushion our gear. This foam is great as you just pull out little sections of it and can create a perfectly sized hole for each individual item so everything has its own space. 

This shelving area is complex with all the devices for Don’s music studio, charging station and more. We spent a lot of time modifying for wires to run up and through and down and around, but all will be neatly hidden.  We still have more shelving and devices to come above the tool cabinet for wifi and boosters etc.  We will come back to that at a later point though, as next up we focus on turning our bus into Mela’s dream home.

Up Next
We build Mela’s Mini Pilates Studio inside the bus.

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