Bus Build - Part 5
Update on the Blue Sparrow bus from September 7-11, 2018. This week I got some systems installed, polished some of the outside of the bus, installed a wall, and placed most of the equipment. This week was also a little slower because it was Luk'e’s birthday, and I had to be on the truck serving a few nights.
So everything finally arrived to mount the water tanks and the propane tanks below the main part of the bus. The propane tanks are going to need to be easily accessible and easily removed for filling up. These straps I found from a company called Global Links and I think they are going to work nicely. These straps provide a secure mount for traveling and have a convenient metal clasp for releasing and refilling. They are located at the edge of the storage bin and can be grabbed without crawling inside.
The water tanks I was able to secure with some angle iron and leftover parts of the diamond plate flooring. This material was strong enough and flexible enough to wrap tightly around the fresh water tank. These tanks are going to be hooked up by our friend Kevin in the next week or so. I am excited to see all of these systems in action when we start serving food.
The bus is being parked in the north hills of Pittsburgh while we are working on it, I am not going to say the location now just because, but it is at my dad’s work. They were kind enough to loan us the back park of their parking lot to give us space to work and room to practice driving. One benefit of being here is my dad will come out and check in on me while I am working. Most of the work is being done by me alone and sweaty in this this bus. Luke wants to come out more but he is still running the other food truck, and my dad is on location and offers help when needed. Below you will see a griddle on a shelf, that griddle weighs roughly 350 lbs. I have to give a shout out to my dad for coming out and helping me more that behemoth around on the bus. It took Luke and I a long time to figure out how to get it on the bus, and it is nice to see it in its final location.
Building a kitchen in a bus came with a few obstacles because it is a bus… and there typically aren’t kitchens on them. This was the time in the build where we had to get creative and find structurally sound ways to attach all of the cooking equipment. After some brainstorming Luke and I figured out how to we wanted to mount everything and I began making the supports. We used 4x4s to anchor directly into the bus frame and floor. These will be the main mounting for our heaviest pieces of equipment.
I then built a low shelf to place our griddle and 2 burner range on. The shelf sat at 21 inches high so when the equipment was in place it would be a comfortable working height of 34/35 inches. Definitely happy with how this turned out, we still need to install some stainless steel to the top surface for the shelf, but this is what it currently looks like.
Seeing things come together is one of my favorite things which is why there are so many videos and pictures in this post. The one video shows my wife Liz sitting in the drivers seat honking the horn, I didn’t realize how loud the horn actually was when you are outside and in front of the bus.
The service sign which is located near the front door found an upgrade to its previous sign. This is a digital sign that I had left over from my parent’s company that were formerly used to to sell gutters and insulation at the home and garden show. It will now be our weekly schedule on the outside of the bus. Again, this was not a plan, it just happened to fit and work, super pumped about that.
Last is a walk through of what the bus looks like right now. It was at the end of the day and I had just cleaned it up and wanted to see how it looked.
Thank you again for reading up on this project. I am excited, Luke is excited, and We are excited to get it on the road soon. Until next time!