Finally finished our homebuilt RV!

[Fermion]

Quote:

Originally Posted by stepford I'm curious about that CNC mill. It looks like it has a large work envelope, but is somewhat lightly built. Can you cut metal on it or does machining time effectively limit it to softer plastics. We had a similarly light CNC machine at (former!) work. Accurate as heck, but its limitations on hard materials often caused my colleagues to call upon the Bridgeport in my home.

Yes, it has a pretty large work area but as you say, it is lightly built (hey, this is an RV!). It has a calculated stiffness of around 25,000 pounds/inch which is toward the lower end for cutting aluminum.

My Shizuoka B-3V cnc mill that we used to make a lot of the RV parts during construction could cut anything, including stainless steel, but it was over 7000 pounds.

But this garage pod mill does use NSK ground ballscrews and dual linear square rails. With the 300 watt brushless servo motors it can rapid at over 2000IPM.

[dixonge]

so if it's raining, you don't go anywhere unless you unhook everything?

[stepford]

I'm not sure which impresses me more, the 7000 pound machine tool you had in your garage (and what a garage it must have been) or the fact that you bought a separate CNC mill just to travel with.

[NW-Bound]

The hardest part with becoming a hobo on wheels is to find a way to accommodate one's hobby(ies). For a man/woman without hobby is a dull Jack/Jill. And not all hobbies are amenable to a vagabond's life.

[Retch The Grate]

Very cool, and I'm also impressed that you are traveling with your own mill.

[Fermion]

House is sold, money in the bank, and we are free camping on BLM land in eastern Washington state this Memorial Day weekend. Really just relaxing although I unloaded the garage pod to reorganize a bit and maybe go for a motorcycle ride. It is sunny and 70 degrees and just finished up 2nd coffee.

[Ronstar]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fermion House is sold, money in the bank, and we are free camping on BLM land in eastern Washington state this Memorial Day weekend. Really just relaxing although I unloaded the garage pod to reorganize a bit and maybe go for a motorcycle ride. It is sunny and 70 degrees and just finished up 2nd coffee.

Congrats! You have the perfect life - especially with a garage pod, mill, etc.

[Sunset]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fermion House is sold, money in the bank, and we are free camping on BLM land in eastern Washington state this Memorial Day weekend. Really just relaxing although I unloaded the garage pod to reorganize a bit and maybe go for a motorcycle ride. It is sunny and 70 degrees and just finished up 2nd coffee.

That looks wonderful.
Recently as I was driving on a few thousand mile trip looking at the various trucks and rv's , I did wonder back to your message on the side of the door about not for hire. Some weird legal necessity I suppose?

when are you going to take orders ?

[GravitySucks]

Looks like an awesome rig you've put together! Enjoy the journey.

[Fermion]

Found a really nice spot in Idaho to unwind. I have not paddled my kayak in a few years and am sore now. Really pretty area though, and free to camp.

Only downside was no internet. I survived (barely).

[Fermion]

We have now been full time on the road for just over one month and have made it as far as South Dakota (currently near Deadwood). We just finished up a couple of nights camping under the shadow of Devil's Tower (pic below) which is VERY cool.

We also made it through a Brexit, where I had to ride my motorcycle 15 miles to get a couple bars of cell reception in the Bighorn mountains of Wyoming so I could buy 500 shares of SPY with some of our house sale money at $199 and change during the special one day sale. Thank you Great Britain!

Currently loving the life. We have sailed Pend Oreille in Idaho, Flathead Lake in Montana, (nothing in Wyoming), and plan to put the sailboat on the Missouri river in South Dakota soon. Spending about an average of $10 to $15 a night for lodging (most nights free, some nights in RV park or hotel). No electric bill (1100 watts of solar), maybe $15 a month for propane, no water bill, no house payment, no property tax. Montana even had no sales tax so we bought some RV/boat things there during that opportunity.

[JDARNELL]

Nice. You have a website or a blog about your adventures?

JDARNELL

[eytonxav]

Beautiful pics, keep them coming!

[dvalley]

Fermion, we need more updates so I can live vicariously! We've crossed paths on a couple of posts such as this thread I started http://www.early-retirement.org/foru...s-71322-2.html - I have similar plans as you with similar NW goals. I love the idea of offroading/BLM camping etc. I too have a garage full of tools that I consider my prized possessions.

I'm curious where you stored your 7k milling machine? I know you sold your house but do you have a landing pad that you can come back to or are you planning to stay on the move for the foreseeable future?

What about 10-15-20yrs from now? will you buy a house in a lower cost of living area? how do you stay connected on the road? do you have a POBOX for other mail/amazon dilveries etc?

[Fermion]

dvalley: We sadly sold the cnc mill as I did not want to pay storage for it for 5 years or more. I have no idea how long we will travel but I want to go to the Florida Keys and sail quite a bit, also go up to Alaska and do some prospecting. I do not know if we will settle down again in a house, although we might build a remote Alaska cabin just for the hell of it if I can find some cheap land. We still plan to buy a big sailboat and sail around the world eventually.

The past week has been quite the adventure. Coming from a eight day stay at an awesome FREE Army Corp campground at Douglas Creek on Lake Sakakawea (see first pic) our truck starting throwing some codes. P0500 which was not real concerning, but P0302 which is a misfire on cylinder 2. I was like, oh no, I should have replaced injectors 2 and 3 when I had 1 and 4 done .

We managed to drive to a remote North Dakota city park in Hannaford where they had electric, water, sewer, showers for $12 a night ($200 a month if you wanted!). The only downside was only verizon worked, not AT&T. There was plenty of room to de-pod (tm) so we unloaded both pods from the truck, loaded the motorcycles on the truck flatbed (or what is left of the flatbed) and drove the truck to Fargo to get serviced. We rode the motorcycles back and stayed in our pods for about 6 days while they fixed the truck (runs great now with the two new injectors and a 2nd inline fuel filter). This was our first experience with our game plan for if we ever have a breakdown and it worked out so well (although I do not want another breakdown please..injectors not cheap!). It was quite relaxing camping in the pods while off the truck and the garage/workshop pod is so nice to work in while it is all the way on the ground. We did end up playing a lot of Minecraft on Xbox One though because North Dakota seems to get every thunderstorm that always missed Seattle.

Off to Minnesota next I guess....although with the heat and stupid mosquitoes I have been scanning the map to see if there was some HyperLoop to Maine or somewhere cooler.

[eytonxav]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fermion Off to Minnesota next I guess....although with the heat and stupid mosquitoes I have been scanning the map to see if there was some HyperLoop to Maine or somewhere cooler.

At least probably no Zika mosquitos that far north.

[NW-Bound]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fermion ...We managed to drive to a remote North Dakota city park in Hannaford where they had electric, water, sewer, showers for $12 a night ($200 a month if you wanted!)...

Some cities have amazing RV facilities for dirt cheap, though I have not passed by one to make use of it.

Had to look up Hannaford to see where it is. It is surrounded by lots of farmland. Come to think of it, I have been to South Dakota, but not North Dakota.

[Sittingduck]

Thank you for sharing. I have found this absolutely fascinating. Please keep posting your adventures as internet connections allow. You really had a very detailed and unique plan on what you wanted to do and executed it perfectly. Congrats!

[Fermion]

Yes, lots of farmland and windmills. It was actually fun riding our dual sport motorcycles past all of the corn, sunflowers, wheat. North Dakota seems to produce a large amount of the food we eat in the USA. They also produce a lot of mosquitoes.

[NW-Bound]

Facts about ND that I just looked up: 90% of the state is farmland, and 25% of the workers are involved in farming.

By the way, the Black Hills area in SD is worth visiting, if you have not been there. We visited in July 2011. Do not remember being bothered by mosquitoes.