It’s a nice, gray, blustery day out there in Portland this morning. I’m still planning to get out and glue down the pennies to the floor, and also to start working on attaching the tow-hitch receiver to the rear chassis.

Thinking about the subfloor, I’m a little concerned that the rustoleum spray paint isn’t going to give me the coverage I’m hoping for. Most of the floor isn’t covered in rust, so I’m not sure I need to cover the floor with this convertor paint. I’m thinking that if I maybe just use the convertor on areas where there’s clear rust to deal with, and then go over the whole floor with a good coat of a more basic rustoleum primer, that should give me the protection I need against any future rust. This will also allow the convertor paint I already have to go farther than if I try to use it as a base coat for the entire floor.

So I think I’ll do that. I found a good deal on marketplace for a few quarts of rusto up in Vancouver, I’ll go ahead and pursue that. It adds another step to the subfloor process, but I’m okay with that.

Also, I watched a bunch of videos of skoole subfloor construction again last night as a refresher, to help me map out my strategy, so here goes.

I’m going to frame out the floor with the 2x2s, first outlining along the walls and around the wheel wells. I had thought about doing a ‘floating floor’ – using just glue or friction to wedge everything in place – but the foam panels I have are quite brittle, so the wood is going to need to do more to actually hold everything securely. So, wood-to-metal screws will be used to attach the 2x2s. I’ll Tetris the foam panels into place with 2×2 between them before screwing it all down, and then screwing the OSB down to the wood from above.

I’ll measure to make sure there’s 2×2 joist at each edge of the OSB sheets, otherwise stepping on a seam will cause the foam below to crush, causing the floor to warp and creak like nuts. Ideally I should probably also have wood below any future walls, but I guess I’m hoping that the OSB will help distribute any weight on top of it, and that there’ll be enough 2×2 underneath to support it. Fingers crossed. The only real walls in my floorplan are around the bathroom, and I’m not dealing with that part of the bus yet anyway, so I’ll keep it in mind when I get there.

Also, do I want to put the shower pan down into the subfloor? Would keep me from having to drill a drain hole down through the foam. Hm. Things to think about.