Teardrops n Tiny Travel Trailers

I am new to this forum and starting restoration of 52 kitt on 9/7/09. All wood dry rot. Need to change out. Sides are a little less than 1/2". Old wood is not up to current measuring of plywood. The 1/2" I bought shows 1/16 less that the old wood. Should I expect any problems with re-attaching the roof aluminum? Maybe screws wont go in on the new plywood??? Any help?

Funny how a half-inch has shrunk over the years.

If I understand right, you are basically doing a rebuild. In that case the fact that new ply is thinner than the old ply won't make any difference. If, on the other hand, you are replacing pieces here and there things won't match up nicely.

There are a couple thing you can do in that case. One is to use cabinet grade ply, which tends to run a bit thicker than the junk sold at your HD box store. Or you can shim out the new ply.

As far as the roof goes, if you can get it off you can put it back on.

Good luck with the project and keep in touch!

I don't think it shrunk
it was made in the 50's
most likely 3 ply instead of todays 4 or 5 ply
Just my 2 cents
i would think it would have swollen if any thing
Thanks im gonna be pondering that for a few days now
i guess somthing fifty years old would do that
Man i just dont no lol
Im just stupid
Norm

All modern ply that is sold as 1/4, 1/2 or 3/4 is no longer tru to size. That is why they sell plywood sized router bits. If you rout a dado for 3/4 ply with a standard bit it will have some slop in it. I believe in the 50's they used to sand ply down to it's true size. AT some point the "Suits" figured out if they started it at 1/4, 1/2 or 3/4 and then sanded it they could save a few bucks. It's been that way so long now that no one seems to care. Even the wood shed isn't immune to the corporate world

Much of the ply has gone metric as much of it is made in Canada or overseas. As stated earler in the thread; go with cabinet grade if you want true dimensions. I've even found 1 x 2s, sold as furring strips will vary in thickness from 7/16 - 5/8"

The only plywood I know that is actually to size is baltic birch.

I used 1/2" baltic birch on the Escape hatch, and it measured, of all things, 1/2". Imagine that. If I were building something that I wanted to put 1/2" insulation in the walls, baltic birch would be just the thing!!!

Mike...

I guess I will go with the less than 1/2" plywood that I have for the side of the tear. Seems that this would not have much of an effect on my tear. Probably just getting smaller diameter screws for the top aluminum and trim would fix the problem. What do you think?

mikeschn wrote:If I were building something that I wanted to put 1/2" insulation in the walls, baltic birch would be just the thing!!!

Mike...

Question that has to do with side so I guess it's not a total hijack. If you go with the 1/2" plywood and wanted to inlay insulation what would you do cause it's not 1/2" thick. Did that make since?

Jst83 wrote:

mikeschn wrote:If I were building something that I wanted to put 1/2" insulation in the walls, baltic birch would be just the thing!!!

Mike...

Question that has to do with side so I guess it's not a total hijack. If you go with the 1/2" plywood and wanted to inlay insulation what would you do cause it's not 1/2" thick. Did that make since?

I've wondered long and hard about that and still don't have an answer...

I suppose one could sand down the insulation to fit...

Or use r-tech which flexes a bit... I'm assuming it will compress a little bit...

One could use pink panther insulation... you know, the compressible stuff you have in your home...

You could use spray in insulation...

You could use 3/8" EPS... does such a thing even exist?

Mike...

Maybe you could use something like this:


The same stuff they make a lot of car window sun blocker to keep your interior from becoming an oven.

This stuff is at : http://www.farmtek.com/farm/supplies/cat1a;ft1_tekfoil_reflective_foil_insulation.html

Jst83 wrote:

mikeschn wrote:If I were building something that I wanted to put 1/2" insulation in the walls, baltic birch would be just the thing!!!

Mike...

Question that has to do with side so I guess it's not a total hijack. If you go with the 1/2" plywood and wanted to inlay insulation what would you do cause it's not 1/2" thick. Did that make since?

The foil bubble foil stuff that you can get at HD and Lowes??

toypusher wrote:The foil bubble foil stuff that you can get at HD and Lowes??

Pretty much if not exactly the same thing. The Farmtek site just had more flavors and specifications for reference.