[Ran D. St. Clair]

Now I have everything including the kitchen sink….

It has taken about 6 weeks, but the kitchen sink bay is now completed. As always, pictures are available under keyword “Stealth”.

It all went pretty much as planned, though everything always takes longer than I would like. The kitchen sink bay is the most complex bay in the truck. I made my life more difficult by designing it with an angled shape to maximize counter space. That required making drawers with angled front faces and some angled surfaces on the shelves and cabinets. It all went together fine, but getting everything to fit properly was a bit more difficult.

I did my own custom counter top out of ¾” plywood and Formica laminate. My original intent was to look into Corian or a similar material, but the home improvement stores refused to make it to my required dimensions unless they installed it themselves, and they refused to install it in an RV, so I had no choice. They probably saved me a bunch of money and I am happy with how the Formica came out, so it’s their loss.

The sink is a standard stainless steel model, 12” x 17” x 8” deep. It’s rather large for an RV, but I don’t consider the stealth camper an RV so much as a small home on wheels. It’s big enough to stick my whole head in to wash up and deep enough to keep the splash to a minimum. It had two holes for mounting the faucet, but I have no faucet in the conventional sense, so I installed two pump dispensers. One is for soap and the other will be filled with rubbing alcohol. The Fresh water “faucet” is actually a garden hose type “spray gun” with a spring loaded trigger handle. It feeds through 3/8” clear vinyl tubing and siphons water from the 5 gallon fresh water bucket mounted on a shelf near the ceiling. The pressure is low and the flow rate modest, but that is in keeping with using water very frugally. There is a 2nd 5 gallon bucket on the shelf right next to it so my total fresh water supply is 10 gallons. Both buckets have tight fitting lids and the one providing water to the “faucet” has an air inlet through a short length of 1/4” vinyl hose. All the connections are via plastic barbed T fittings through tight fitting holes in the lid. I used the T fittings to make a sharp 90 degree bend and plugged one side of the T with Goop. Hopefully water loss due to splashing in transit will be kept to a minimum.

My original intent was to have the sink drain directly into a 5 gallon bucket. I ended up using a combination of standard sink drain fittings and standard garden hose fittings to drain the water into an internal 5 gallon bucket, or dump it straight overboard near the right rear wheel. I realize that dumping water overboard might be unacceptable in some situations, but it is really no different than the grey water that is dumped on the ground when you wash your car. I used a standard garden hose screw on Y fitting with two ¼ turn ball valves to direct the flow. There is no need for a P trap as there is no sewer to make foul odors that have to be blocked from backing up the drain. There is also no need for a ceiling vent since there is no P-trap to gurgle while drawing air as the water runs out. The idea is to let everything drain clean and dry, that way it can’t smell. It’s all very short, simple, cheap, instantly repairable and replaceable using standard hardware store fittings, and all plastic so it can’t even rust. It was a bit interesting adapting standard drain pipe to standard hose fittings but I found some pieces that happened to fit pretty well and a generous bead of Goop did the rest. The short length of 5/8” hose to dump the water overboard drains very quickly with less restriction than the plumbing in my home.

All the various buckets are held firmly in place, in one way or another. The fresh water buckets are held firmly on lipped shelves with cradles and a clamping board across the front. The waste water bucket is trapped on three sides by the lower cabinet, and blocked in the front by the trash bucket, which is further blocked by the base board. It is also held loosely at the top by the garden hose that enters through a tight fitting hole in the lid. The waste water bucket also has a short length of 1/4” vinyl tubing to act as an air vent and prevent unwanted splashing.

The microwave is bolted to the shelf from below with 3 #10 sheet metal screws through the chassis. I opened it up to make sure the screws were no where near any vital components or live circuits. The anti-tamper screws they used are only a slight annoyance to a man with vice grips. Mounting the microwave under the water buckets wasn’t my favorite idea, but it solved many other problems including making a lot more counter space available.

I mounted my cheap little 12V florescent task light under the kitchen cabinet where it can provide additional light over the kitchen counter. It only draws about ½ amp and probably provides about 25W of light (florescent bulb equivalent). I also added a small towel bar, and of course every kitchen has to have a paper towel dispenser.

My drawers are a very simple design. Just lap joints with glue and panel nails, which have rings for extra holding power. The drawer pockets are 5/8” plywood which is ridiculously strong and heavy, but provides more thickness for maximum gluing surface. I have found that I can screw thin sheet rock screws into the edges of the plywood without splitting which makes extra strong joints. I do pre-drill whatever I am screwing through, but there is no need to drill the receiving piece. The drawers are also 5/8” plywood front back and sides with ¼” plywood bottoms. Rather than mill the front faces, I made them with an additional ½” plywood outer face that is glued and screwed to the 5/8” plywood front, which is glued and screwed to the side rails. They are a bit heavy, but very strong. They do not ride on rollers or rails. Instead I used some of the clear plastic L extrusion, that is normally used for sheet rock corner protection, on the bottom corners. They slide on the plastic easily enough but with some friction to help keep them closed. I also used dual magnetic catches at the back of the drawers to help keep them closed.

The cabinet doors are my standard “tailgate” design with self closing hinges and magnetic catches on both edges. The doors on the 2 lower shelves are rather long so I used 3 hinges instead of just 2. There is a ton of shelf space under the sink and it is all accessible, though some of it is way back there. The stuff in the back had better not be needed too often. The floor is also a shelf with the toe kick providing a large lip to keep everything in place. In some places I cut the toe kick lip down to 2” because it doesn’t make much sense to block half of an 8” opening with a 4” lip.

My trash can is a 5 gallon bucket that sits in front of the waste water bucket. There is no cabinet door in front of it. I have never liked the idea of hiding the trash. It seems I am always opening the cabinet door with dirty hands to throw something away. I would much rather have the trash bucket be wide open for easy access. It may not be pretty but that’s how I like it.

I could easily install the toilet and finish the right side of the truck but the plan is to install the computer bay on the left side next. The reason being, I really want to install the range but I need to finish the computer bay before blocking access by installing the range. The computer bay should be pretty simple by comparison to the kitchen. It has a Formica table top and shelves, but they are all of a simple rectangular design. I just need to make sure that all the various equipment will fit as intended. That includes the computer, monitor, printer, scanner, DVD player, etc.

The bay for the stove (range) is my main concern. The stove itself has already been mounted and removed, so the design is set. I still have to work out the details for the filtered fan, overhead light, and range hood. Once the range, toilet, and heater (under the computer desk) are installed, I will be 98% done, and more than meet the requirements for a “California House Car” I am looking forward with hope and some trepidation to re-registering this thing as an RV. With a little luck, and enough free time, the basic build out will be complete sometime between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Then I can begin the “moving in” phase including installing and in some cases buying the electronics including the computer related equipment and the entertainment stuff including 2 TV’s the PS3. The flow of cash has to slow to a trickle eventually, or at least that’s the theory…

To be continued…