Teardrops n Tiny Travel Trailers

Hi all,

I saw someone, somewhere here who had done a strip-built tear. I've done a canoe so am familiar with that technique. How did you apply strip-building to a tear-drop? Did you lay up panels and then attach to walls or did you lay up directly on the wall? Did you glass outside? Inside? Both? Neither? If you glassed what weight glass? Fabric or mat? Can I think of any more questions? Not at the moment.

Thanks,

Tom

Your thinking Steve Frederick. The stripping was done to the roof. His sides were solid ply, then he glassed the outside complete. Hopefully he'll come on and answer.


Have a good day.

Tom,
At one time or another during my design phase all of those were the right answer.
I'm going to be laying my strips as I go onto an 1/8" exterior skin.
I've been talked out of glassing over them. (I'm just stripping my walls)
Originally, I was going to strip my roof too and I wanted to do a herringbone joint right down the centerline, but I'm on a deadline, so that idea got nixed. (Going with an aluminum skin over plywood on the roof now...)
I'm going to fab up a hardwood corner trim that will cap both the strips and the aluminum, so bias taping the strips at the profile edge and the plywood roof underskin isn't neccesary either.
I'm going to epoxy over the strips with 3-4 coats of epoxy and clear coat over that.
If time wasn't a factor... I'd probably go another route.
I nixed the panel idea on my walls, because I'm counting on the glue to be a sealer also for the back side of the strips... I figure it may take a little more time laying up my strips one at a time, but I feel it will be easier to make sure each srtip has no voids of glue doing it this way.
BTW- My walls are insulated and both interior and exterior skins will be sealed prior to glue up to the studwall.
I'm probably going to just use Elmer's Yellow Carpenter's Glue to glue up my strips. I did some tests with Titebond 3 and it seamed to leave a carmel colored stain even when promptly cleaning up squeeze out.

Well...I'm still debating. I'm leaning towards a stud frame, strips, and 1.5 oz glass outer skin for the sides. Top to be bendable luan, glassed with 6 oz and painted to match the tow vehicle.....but don't trust me...I'm more talk and buy parts than build!!!!

Mine is/will be stud wall withe a veneer of 1/8 ply glued to the stud wall Top and sides built this way then covered with strips. Still figuring out which epoxy and glass combo to use.

tk wrote:Hi all,

I saw someone, somewhere here who had done a strip-built tear. I've done a canoe so am familiar with that technique. How did you apply strip-building to a tear-drop? Did you lay up panels and then attach to walls or did you lay up directly on the wall? Did you glass outside? Inside? Both? Neither? If you glassed what weight glass? Fabric or mat? Can I think of any more questions? Not at the moment.

Thanks,

Tom

That's my T/D in Gage's post. I employed two methods in the stripping process. First, I laid the strips on the roof underlayment, one-by-one..clamping each 'til the glue set.

Then, I came up with the idea of building smaller "panels" of 6-8 strips, then gluing the panels to the underlayment.
Those blocks of wood in the last pic are to keep the panel from buckling under clamping pressure. Waxed paper, I like Cutrite!, keeps glue from sticking!


Everything got a 4-oz glass covering, and 3-4 fill coats of epoxy, just like a strip-built boat!
If you have built a strip boat, consider building the side up on a flat jig on a bench. You could even glue them directly to the wall framing, assuming the use of insulation. Clamping would be easy as screwing a board to the bench with the strip under it. Once you get the wall done, 'glass it on the outside as you would on a boat. If you place the panel over insulation, you wouldn't need to 'glass the back side, as the glue/insulation would be plenty strong.
Someday, I'll do a 100% strip T/D, and that's how I'll do it!

Thanks to all for your replies, especially Steve. I've had to add your website to my favorites-too much to digest all at once. If I get around to building a tear I'm pretty sure it will be strip-built since I'm sitting on a pile of reclaimed old growth redwood. I'm thinking of a woody-type overlay of the strips, maybe? Thanks again.

Best,

Tom

I finished my stripper last spring...here is the thread with a brief description of what I did...
http://tnttt.com/viewto ... highlight=
If that doesn't work, search for posts by NH Stripper. Having built a canoe before, you're ahead of the game.
Jon

If one wanted a real unique tear, it could be built like a stripper canoe, with curved sides and some compound curves. It would be a kick, but, after thinking about it, I concluded the beauty vrs time ratio might not be enough.

Still, the thought will not go away.

dave

dwgriff1 wrote:If one wanted a real unique tear, it could be built like a stripper canoe, with curved sides and some compound curves. It would be a kick, but, after thinking about it, I concluded the beauty vrs time ratio might not be enough.

Still, the thought will not go away.

dave

Dave,
It's been done.
A guy and his dad built one on forms just like you would do building a canoe... It was pretty wild looking.
The son was only here for a short while, talked about it and promised to post pics.
He finally did, but the images were real small, but you could tell it was a very unique build.