Tom & Shelly's build

[bdosborn]

A little off topic but when I made the sliding bed for my trailer, the slats were hard to pull and notchy feeling. I rubbed beeswax on the slides and it made a huge difference, now they pull out smoothly. You might try beeswax on your sliding cabinet doors to smooth up the action. It was a tip in the teardrop manual I used from Kuffle Creek.

Bruce

[Graniterich]

I had the same problem, redrilled holes, but was disappointing. How are yours closing? The last ones I got you have to lean your shoulder into to close all the way, barely doable from the inside. Had to remove striker plate. Any issues on your end?

Sent from my KFKAWI using Tapatalk

I had the same problem. I took the strike plates off and flattened them getting rid of the small offsets. Now they shut so nice. I used a vice with smoothie face jaws to squeeze them flat.

Thank you Ricky. Shelly wasn't entirely happy with the way the doors shut, so we may try that.

Tom

So I have ordered some more doors and mentioned our concerns about closing issues and drip rail screw alignment. The sales guy forwarded it to manufacturing and they called me to discuss. Very impressive. We had a good long talk and came up with a couple of things they are going to do. Great customer service, they want to practice continuous improvement, think Dr Deming!

Sent from my KFKAWI using Tapatalk

[Tom&Shelly]

I had the same problem, redrilled holes, but was disappointing. How are yours closing? The last ones I got you have to lean your shoulder into to close all the way, barely doable from the inside. Had to remove striker plate. Any issues on your end?

Sent from my KFKAWI using Tapatalk

I had the same problem. I took the strike plates off and flattened them getting rid of the small offsets. Now they shut so nice. I used a vice with smoothie face jaws to squeeze them flat.

Thank you Ricky. Shelly wasn't entirely happy with the way the doors shut, so we may try that.

Tom

So I have ordered some more doors and mentioned our concerns about closing issues and drip rail screw alignment. The sales guy forwarded it to manufacturing and they called me to discuss. Very impressive. We had a good long talk and came up with a couple of things they are going to do. Great customer service, they want to practice continuous improvement, think Dr Deming!

Sent from my KFKAWI using Tapatalk

Good deal! Thank you for passing on our issues.

Tom

[Tom&Shelly]

Shelly bought these teardrop-door-holder-openers, and I installed them this morning



I was nervous about drilling yet more screw holes in the outside of Cabin Fever but used some bits of butyl tape and I'm pretty sure there won't be water problems.

They seem to work, though we haven't had them out in the wind yet. Shelly also plans to look for some sort of door bumpers that we can glue to the doors.

Tom

[lfhoward]

The door holders look good. I like how they fold flat against the side when not in use.

[tony.latham]

Looking good as usual.

Shelly also plans to look for some sort of door bumpers that we can glue to the doors.

Take a look at those bumpers I mention in my book ––the chapter on doors.

I have bolted those same Jeep bumpers to factory doors and they work great.

Tony

[Tom&Shelly]

A little off topic but when I made the sliding bed for my trailer, the slats were hard to pull and notchy feeling. I rubbed beeswax on the slides and it made a huge difference, now they pull out smoothly. You might try beeswax on your sliding cabinet doors to smooth up the action. It was a tip in the teardrop manual I used from Kuffle Creek.

Bruce

Thanks Bruce. I am thinking of doing that, but want to finish the (bare wood) slats first. I wanted to get to Office Depot and have some maps printed out, to laminate on the slats, but Albuquerque is a Covid hot spot right now, and Shelly wants me to wait. So that project comes after the galley.

Tom

[Tom&Shelly]

Looking good as usual.

Shelly also plans to look for some sort of door bumpers that we can glue to the doors.

Take a look at those bumpers I mention in my book ––the chapter on doors.

I have bolted those same Jeep bumpers to factory doors and they work great.

Tony

Thank you Tony! I'd hate to drill into the doors, but that may work out best. The cargo doors make it tricky, but we might be able to mount bumpers like those into a solid part of the teardrop sides.

Shelly was thinking about adhesive door bumpers, but I'm not sure the adhesive they use (for bumpers intended for indoor use) will last on an exterior (sometimes moving at 60+ mph).

Tom

[Tom&Shelly]

Made some trim for the hatch and hatch access panel yesterday. Oak wouldn't have bent around the curve, so I used scraps of 1/8 inch Baltic birch, with the grain running cross-wise to accommodate the bend



I thought maybe painting them black to match the gussets, but Shelly thinks varnishing them to match the rest of the hatch interior is the thing, so I'm doing that now. When that's done, I'll glue them to the hatch and access panel.

The screws allow reasonably convenient access. They are about the only exposed screws on the teardrop (outside of the doors), and I think brass will be appropriate. Unfortunately, Amazon seems to have lost our order of brass screws, so stainless steel are substituting temporarily.

Working with thin strips of 1/8 inch plywood turned out to be a challenge. I discovered (the hard way) there is a gap at the bottom of the fence on our table saw that the wood can get wedged in, so that tool was out. I could rout a straight edge on material as thin as one inch wide, but at 3/4 inch it would bend enough to make that truly difficult.

So the first few pieces I ripped by eye with a bandsaw, sanding to bring it straight. Then I remembered Shelly has a few tools for making doll house parts: a mini-table saw, and a mini-chop saw



The table saw worked for several strips, but then began binding. At that point I had enough material that I didn't investigate further. I'm not crazy about the chop saw, only because you can't see what you're doing with that fat top blocking the view. Interesting tools though. If I ever get a project requiring enough small parts, I'll explore them further.

Tom

[KCStudly]

I made an add on fence for my table saw. Basically a piece of ply clamped onto the fence. That lets me control the clearance at the bottom and can also be used as a consumable to bury the blade into for edging (trimming thickness less than blade thickness). By adding a short extra piece along the bottom you can also rip smaller thinner pieces of trim while still using a push stick that is wider than the piece you are ripping.

[Tom&Shelly]

I made an add on fence for my table saw. Basically a piece of ply clamped onto the fence. That lets me control the clearance at the bottom and can also be used as a consumable to bury the blade into for edging (trimming thickness less than blade thickness). By adding a short extra piece along the bottom you can also rip smaller thinner pieces of trim while still using a push stick that is wider than the piece you are ripping.

That's probably the better idea. I actually did make an add on fence for the Craftsman table saw a friend gave us. The original fence is bent sheet metal, and has a concave surface! Not sure how you wouldn't have dangerous kickback with that as it was. I added a piece of HDF and use the three screws to adjust the surface for flatness. Problem is, I concentrated on solving that problem, and didn't worry about the 1/8th inch or so I'd left as a gap in the bottom.

Tried Shelly's small table saw again today and found I was binding the blade, so I don't think its fence is right either. Not like a standard table saw fence, so I'm not sure of the solution. (Low priority now.)

Tom

[Tom&Shelly]

Started to glue the trim on today, and also added the rubber D-ring seal



I dunno, that D ring looks like it sticks out an awful lot. Tony, I vaguely remember we compared notes on that back when you were building yours, and I later noted in your book you switched from 1/2 x 1/2 inch D-ring to some that was only 3/8 inch tall? (Edit--just found it: p 171. You used 7/16" tall and 3/8" wide. Just a shade under 1/2" tall.) Wondering if Shelly and I will have problems when we re-mount this over the galley?

The spec sheet for the D-ring says they use a 3M adhesive tape and it won't reach full cure for about three days, so we won't try re-installing the hatch until then.

When we do, I plan to use butyl tape on the teardrop side of the hinge. Is there any reason not to use it on the hatch side, at least on the top? Seems folks don't all do that, but it seems like a good idea to keep water from getting to the wood from around the hinge screws.

As always, thanks everyone for any advice and comments!

Tom

[pchast]

Tom,

I started with an old craftsman. After a while I needed to measure the
rip fence to the blade at a tooth in the front and the same tooth at the
back of a fully raised blade. It worked well and is still in use out in the
garage to break down stock on occasion.

[noseoil]

I used butyl tape under my hinge & did have one issue. Before the final assembly, I set the latch rods into bronze bushings (epoxied into the galley edge) with the hatch screwed in place, but without the butyl tape under the hinge. While this may not seem like it makes a difference, it did with the way I did my build & created a problem later on.





Once the final assembly was done with tape under the hinge, there was a difference in how the hatch fit, which was enough to cause a little bit of binding in the latch rods. I didn't allow much "slop" where the rods engaged the bushings so the added height of the tape under the hinge (less than 1/16") was enough to cause some binding on a hot day, if the trailer was parked in the sun all afternoon. It made closing the latch almost impossible in the heat (Tucson) when the hatch was dropped. I was afraid I would twist the handle off, I should have set the bushings in place with the tape under the hinge when I did the bushing installation. 20-20 hindsight on this one, so I had to bevel the rods a bit on the ends, to make the rod engagement easier & give them a ramp to slide into the bushings. It works very well in cold temperatures, but is still a bit stiff in 100+ temperatures when traveling. All's well that ends well, not too many 100 degree days here in Raton, fortunately.

[tony.latham]

Tony, I vaguely remember we compared notes...

You may recall my hatch detail:



I think I cut my spacer 1-3/8" wide. After a long haul on a dusty road, we were getting dust in the galley. After some head-scratching, I pulled my D-seal and added a strip of 1/8" neoprene behind it. The galley lip just wasn't making contact. The 1/8" neoprene fixed that issue.

Your's does seem a bit "proud." I don't recall how you worked yours out.

Tony