Building The Atma Travelear Teardrop

[aggie79]

Very nice Dave (as usual from you)!

The t-molding is very soft aluminum. What I did to eliminate the "curl" was to use a large piece of 3/4" MDF - about 4-5 times the area of the radius - and overlay it on the radius and surrouding area. Then very lightly tap the MDF with a dead blow hammer until the "curl" becomes the same plane as the t-molding on the straight portions of the door.

Take care,
Tom

[DMcCam]

Wow, Thanks Tom!!! So you're making a radius to cover the inside of the 'T' from the center to the inner edge overlaying the door face? Then you 'message' it with the dead blow hammer. I assume you'd tape the door face under the MDF too?

Thanks again Sir,

Dave

[aggie79]

Wow, Thanks Tom!!! So you're making a radius to cover the inside of the 'T' from the center to the inner edge overlaying the door face? Then you 'message' it with the dead blow hammer. I assume you'd tape the door face under the MDF too?

Thanks again Sir,

Dave

Hi Dave,

I'm a big fan of blue tape! On a serious note, it does keep the aluminum from scratching. The radius I was talking about was at top of my door. Although it is no where as tight a radius as on your doors, the aluminum t-molding did curl. I used the MDF block and hammer technique on it. If you go a little too far on the bend, it is easy to straighten it out on the back side with a wood block.

Take care,
Tom

[PubUltraStar]

I did a test run on printing your logo on vinyl tonight, and ran into a small issue. Based upon your original software, it looks like the Adobe Illustrator import did not 'weld' the entire image together, so the cutter made a number vertical cuts where we don't want them. Basically, any vertical path you have on the image is being taken by the cutter as a valid path.

Here is the sample file in Illustrator showing the vertical lines in red.


It also cut most of the letters with a vertical line through them too.


You'll notive that when removing the excess vinyl, due to the additional vertical cuts, iI accidentally removed a piece by the head. You can barely see the cuts in the final product, but you definitely want one continuous piece of vinyl.


Here is one of the side logos as an example. At this point I need to see if there is an easy way in Illustrator to group all these vectors and create a solid path without the verticals for the cutter to follow. If you have any ideas, let me know. I just wanted to make sure you knew that I didn't forget about you.

[TRP]

Hello Pub,

Ping me off thread, I'll see if I can get you set up. Which version of IL are you using? Mac? PC? (You mention a vinyl cutter, so I assume PC.)

Ted

[DMcCam]

Hi PubUltraStar, The graphics are looking awesome in vinyl!!! This is a common issue with Illustrator from CorelDraw original files. Illustrator wants to make a whole lot out of very little. After seeing what is happening, I think I have a simple solution. I sent the files to you directly exported from Corel to Illustrator. You can see that the issues are with areas that have holes like the letter 'R'. This works most of the time but when it doesn't, it usually can be corrected by converting all the paths to layers in Corel, then exporting. I'll send you a new file tomorrow. Sorry about the problems. It should be an easy fix from my end.

All the Best,

Dave

[S. Heisley]

You're almost finished! ...Love the logo!

[PubUltraStar]

Vinyl is cut. The updates you sent to the Illustrator files were perfect. I will roll them up and have them sent sometime next week. If you've never applied vinyl, please contact me first. If you don't use application fluid, it's sort of a one time shot. If you use the fluid, you can move the vinyl around a bit until it's positioned just right. I'm still negotiating to get my trailer started, but need to put up a shed to get the crap out of the garage, to have a work space for the build. I'll get there eventually.



Also, thanks to the others who offered to help with the files. Very generous.

[CliffinGA]

Wow I absolutely love the graphics and they are going to look gorgeous on the tear Dave!!! PubUltraStar you did a greatjob!!

Cliff

[S. Heisley]

Wow I absolutely love the graphics and they are going to look gorgeous on the tear Dave!!! PubUltraStar you did a greatjob!!

Cliff

...Beautiful!

[DMcCam]

Thank you so much Mike, the graphics are going to be the icing on the cake!!! Please let me know if I can be of any help with your build sir!

Thank you both Cliff and Sharron for your continued support of my little project too.

We didn't make it to Twain and Tears but we did work on the trailer a bit more over the weekend. The tongue box and hatch are ready for final trim and assembly.


The aluminum went on very easily then we made a ton of aluminum 'sawdust'.


While routing the passenger side, the platform slipped enough for the bit to camphor the edge a little. Thank God for molding huh?


Now on to the hinge and trim.


We finally got around to skinning the hatch with the .063 aluminum. Here it is with the vinyl contact cement in place. It takes two coats.




You can see the vinyl cement on the unfinished ply.


We worked from the bottom edge to the hinge side placing clamps and bars where needed. Here I am checking the tightness of the clamps.


I had to take one of my best pal Mark doing the same.


This is how the whole thing got clamped up.


The underside of the set up showing how we used cripples to hold up the bottom edge.


My brother's always using the table and bits of plywood for make shift clamps.


Another view.




The hatch is ready to finish.

All the best,

Dave

[TRP]

Man, that's inspirational. Just looking at your hatch makes me want to redo mine.

I love what you're doing. I can't wait to start to skin mine.

Keep the updates coming,
Ted

[DMcCam]

Man, that's inspirational. Just looking at your hatch makes me want to redo mine. I love what you're doing. I can't wait to start to skin mine. Keep the updates coming,
Ted

Hi Ted, Thank you for kind compliments sir. I hope you're using .040 aluminum instead of the 0.063 I had to use. The heavier stock was a real bear to bend and work with. I think it will turn out alright but dang, what a battle! All I can say is get the bend very close and rehearse the whole process before you actually put the cement on, this includes installing the plywood. We did it that way and found that several of our ideas couldn't work in real time. Take your time and have fun.

We got a couple of things done yesterday, mostly gluing with a little routing. The tongue box lid and the hatch received their under seal lip aluminum strips. The tongue box lid was flush routed for the lower edge. We also permanently installed the aft lower 'pan'.




Here's the tongue box sitting roughly in place; the wiring is holding it away from the body.


Here you can see the under seal lip aluminum cemented in place.


We are very close to installing the hatch now!

All the best,

Dave

[jdp8402]

This is an amazing build. I've been stuck reading and rereading for a couple of days now. I love the profile. I've been trying to make something just like this on SketchUp for awhile but I just can't get the radiuses right. Great job!

[Oldragbaggers]

This build is so good it makes me want to throw mine away and start over.

You've got some mad skills!!!