The story of a newbie and a blue bird

[Marslo]

Hello, just like to say that i very much enjoyed strolling trough your web site. It offered much inspiration.

I moved to Tofino,Canada not long ago to spend the summer there with my girlfriend. At first we found are selfs a nice little room near the sea for about 650$ per month. Then i started working at a campground and spotted this little blue bird bus sitting at the back of the campground. I inquired about it, to find out that i could live in it for the summer, free of charge.

I have absolutely no experience with renovations, especially for a school bus. But i figured that i'm better off getting a tent and spending that 650$, ill be paying for rent, on something real. For now i'm just planning on redoing the inside to make it livable, but if times allows it, i would love to raise the roof.

Now, i was wondering if anyone would have some suggestions on where to start looking for help on how to tackle this task.

Thank you

p.s. excuse my english and the spelling, for its not my first language.

[Sharkey]

Hi Marslo, welcome to the forum. No problems on the language difference, if you hadn't mentioned it, I would have never known.

I was all prepared to send you over to The Blackman Family Bus web page, but it looks like it's been mostly disabled. There used to be a very complete description of raising a bus roof, complete with photos. About the best I could offer right now is to suggest that you read the series of posts here on the forum titled More Photos of Grace - Part 1, The Early Years, the second photo shows some roof construction. I've also posted some construction photos of the Crown project: Early Crown Pics : Volume Three and Early Crown Pics : Volume Four which have some photos of interest.

Of course, all of these involve building a new roof rather than raising an existing roof. Roger Beck's book Some Turtles Have Nice Shells has a large section detailing the raising of the roof of Sam's White bus. Every bus is different in construction and your ideas of the end result may vary from those of anyone else, so giving an accurate description of "how to do it" is difficult. Do it the way everyone else does it, plan the best you can, get a saw and start cutting! We'll be here to give you encouragement and advice as you go along.

Good luck with the project, it's a great way to keep busy!

[Marslo]

Thank you very much, your suport is very much appreciated.