Not a lot to report. . .

We took a break from working on the truck to work on building up our company, getting a few projects up and running and taking on a few clients. We hope to get back on this project soon. We are ready and anxious to get on the road.

Update

Ok, so I have not been the best poster here... I just work on it. So I'm going to fill you in now on what I've been working on.

As you know we started out ripping it apart. We bought it under the assumption that we were going to be able to use some of what was already there and build off from it. The more research I did, and the more I understood what I wanted the more of it we ripped out. As you can see we finally took it all out and started from ground zero.

THE RECONSTRUCTION

Ok, so the goal here is to be as light weight and as efficient as possible while saving as much space as we can. Starting with the walls, I did a ton of research and found this paint additive that is based off the technology the space shuttle uses to insulate itself so it doesn't burn up when coming back into the atmosphere. Its pretty cool, roll on insulation! After getting all that on the inside I decided that was just not going to do, mainly because of noise factor. It does well against temperature, but not much for the noise factor.

To combat this I decided to get 15/16 plywood and screw it to the walls, but then went the extra mile and layered 1/2 inch foam insulation between the walls and the wood. Now because I know we would not be unhappy going even farther on this, I put another coat of insulation paint on the inside of the wood. So now we have 1 thick layer paint, 1/2 inch foam isolation, 1 really thick layer of paint, and 15/16 plywood! I think we have a good efficient insulating factor here!!!

TECHY STUFF

Our next task here is to figure out how to power the whole office while driving. This is harder than it sounds. We have to power 3 not so energy efficient computers, duel monitors on each one, router, external hard drive, AC unit, heater, lights, Stereo, phone/ipod etc chargers, possible microwave, fridge, oven, assorted kitchen stuff, and well I could go on and on. SO... I know we had to get it right the first time so I went out and found a BRAND NEW 5000 Watt Diesel generator. I also purchased a 2500 watt 12v power inverter and 2 12v deep cycle batteries. The goal here is to have 2 different power sources to work from so we don't overload either one of them. So we will have a total of 7500 watts to work with. I think we should be good. There is a hurtle though... WIRING THIS ALL UP...

We have not done this yet but I have a good theory as to how I will do this. We have to develop 3 different circuits that go through the truck. 1 being the generator, 1 being the inverter, and one being the line we plug into when we are docked. This can become quite confusing. I also want to keep it nice and clean, so there is not all these wires hanging around and tons of plugs to keep track of what is what. I will have pics later to show what I did to combat this problem.

Wish me luck,
Dave

We got a lot done this week

It's been a couple days since I've written, so there is a lot to catch up on. First, Dave and Gary took off the back bumper and welded on a new extended bumper which will hold the generator:

We finished painting the walls and the floor with the insulating paint:


We got the wood and insulation to line the floor and ceiling:


We got the whole floor installed:

It's hard to see in the picture, but i painted a smily face on Dave's back. Now he has a tan line from it. :)

Oh, and we couldn't have made it through the day with out a couple injuries:

Friends of the Crusher

Hey, we've set up a myspace so everyone add us :)

http://www.myspace.com/geekcrusher

Paint

We've spent the last 2 days painting the interior walls. It's sort of a grayish/whitish/yellowish color. It looks like a space ship. OK, not really, but we did mixed in this fancy insulating powder that NASA developed. We still have a coat or two to go on the walls and we're going to paint the floor as well. Since it's for insulating purposes, rather than aesthetic, the color doesn't matter at this point and most of this won't be showing anyway. After we are done painting we'll be covering the walls with plywood and thin insulation then covering the whole thing with sheet metal to give it a high-tech feel.

Week 3

Dave's been getting a lot of the technical aspects figured out for the truck/mobile office. I'll have to have him explain those in a little better detail since most of it is still a little over my head. We've got most everything we need as far as power is concerned: 7000 watt generator, batteries, inverter, etc, etc. Over the past few days Dave got the rest of the framing and the floor out of the truck and we started painting the walls with the insulating paint. To provide further insulation, as well as sound protection, we've also got plywood and some thin insulation. We will only lose about an inch on either side with this method, as opposed to the original framing and insulation which took almost a full 4 inches off either side.

Happy Friday

It is Friday, isn't it? I don't really keep track of the days anymore. We work everyday, so there isn't really much need to keep track.

Dave's made some progress tearing out the walls. We dropped the truck off to have it serviced so we haven't been able to get much done the last couple of days. We're also waiting for the insulating paint to come. It's supposed to be here today. Once we get the whole thing painted then we can really start to get the whole thing put back together again.

Making progress

Dave's been making a lot of progress getting everything taken out of the (still nameless) truck. Now that most everything is out we have a lot more space to work with. We're in the process of rounding up supplies and trying to figure out the most efficient way to set everything up. We found this insulating paint we are going to use to save space rather than using regular insulation.

I guess I'll just keep this short and just post the pictures.

Naming the beast

It needs a name. It's way too cool to just refer to it as "the truck" or the "mobile office."

Nothing brilliant has come to mind yet.

A few suggestions that have been motioned so far:

Mo: Sort of an acronym for 'mobile office'. I'm usually anti-acronym, but since it is pronounced "Moe" rather than spelled out M-O, I think I could handle it.

Geek Crusher: Dave's brother suggested this one. I liked it enough to use it as the blog title. Maybe we could just call it "The Crusher" for short or something.

Archie: Short for our original business name,
Archetype Development - we are merging with another company and creating a new company with a new name, so it would sort of be a reminder of where we started.

Nothing is really sticking yet. We are looking for suggestions. What have you got, huh? Name the beast.

Demolition part one

I'll let the pictures tell most of the story on this one, but basically Dave is tearing apart the beast. We (when i say "we" I really mean "Dave") are pretty much gutting it (which is sad, because it was pretty damn cool to begin with, just not exactly fitting to our needs) so we can completely remodel it. Here is how day 1 of the demolition has been going:

First things first

I'm not much for writing. I never know quite how to start. I'd start at the beginning, but that was almost a year ago and I tend to get myself too concerned with the tiny details, so if I just started at the beginning this would go on way too long. I guess I'll just sum up the basic concept of who we are and what we are doing.

First of all, my name is Andrea. Dave is my business partner. We shared one common dream: freedom. Our goal was to create a situation where we could be free from the confines of a regular 9-5 office job. We wanted to be able to enjoy our young years traveling the country, snowboarding, sightseeing and adventuring without having to pinch pennies, save up vacation time, catch up on missed work or wait until retirement to enjoy our freedom. Our solution? Take work with us on our journey. We started our own company a little over a year ago - I'll get into the details of that later. Being young and unfunded (I'm 25 and Dave is 22) we didn't have a lot of money to work with. We put everything we had into building up the company and finally as of last week we had gathered enough money to make the first purchase that would make this dream of freedom a reality: an old Praxair truck.
Now this may not look like much to be excited about to you, but for us, this was the ticket to freedom. It had already been converted into a motorhome. It had shelving, a sink, fridge, etc. We scored the thing for $3095. Our ultimate plans for it involve super space-optimized work stations, bathroom, and sleeping areas, so we have a lot of work to do.

This blog is a place for us to document our progress and our adventures.





LS Blogs