Teardrops n Tiny Travel Trailers

I'm not anywhere's near the point of installing the headliner but have a question regarding this.

After you lay panel that will be the headliner on the 2 ledges created by the two side walls.... and then the spars are installed... would you nail through what would
wind up being the cabin's interior surface of the headliner panel into the spars? Or is the headliner inner surface just glued to the spars?

I'm thinking I'd not like to see nail holes on the interior surface but can't really see it being done otherwise.

Any insights on how others have done this would be a help.

thanks

John

Personally, I didn't love the idea of seeing holes or staples either. However, without anything, I assumed the PL premium would expand and push the headliner away from the bottom of the spars as it was expanding/curing.

I ended up using some 3/4" painted finish screws instead. Before installing the spars, I chalk lined where each spar would lie on the top side of the headliner. I then measured out and predrilled holes so that I would have five screws spaced evenly across each spar. Once a spar was fastened to the wall lip from the outside of the camper, I screwed into each spar from inside the camper at the predrilled holes.




I was skeptical about how it would look, but my wife and I both liked the end result. They're more noticeable in the photos than they are in person. I used the same method on the interior side of the hatch, but with stainless screws.

John, again, there are lots of right ways to do this. This is just the way I choose.

On my woodie I used 1/8 lauan plywood (doorskins) and the curve of the roof line keeps the ply in a stiff position. My headliner was PL Premium glued and stapled on the wall dado and glued with PLP across the spars. As I added the spars (because with the Fredrick method they are installed after the headliner) I supported the ceiling from underneath with some light weight jigs to keep the shape. More so in the flatter areas toward the rear of the cabin. I did not attempt to flatten the PLP in those areas on the spars as it will flatten where it needs to and firmly fill areas that don't. I have had no problems with PLP expansion. PLP is a good glue to use here because of the small area it has to spread out. If I were gluing across many square feet of space, for instance laminating plywood sheets, I would not use PLP as it is not that forgiving in a wide area. In that case TBII is my choice.

On my bother's wood framed build and my son's foamie the methods were similar but with different roof structures (ply vs foam). All of these are five feet wide. On the foamie I dont think I used any fasteners. Great Stuff and PLP to glue the walls to roof and a PMF wrap to bond it together.

On my hatch the inside is 10oz canvas sewn to fit and three 1/8" cedar battens in the center following the framing to help hold the canvas in place and hide the staples (T50) . I like the look and when I did my recent refinishing and added a third brake light I was very happy I didn't glue an headliner on there!

As you may know, I use a 1/4" crown stapler (+ PL Premium) to attach the headliner to the spars. You can see them but they aren't very noticeable.

It helps to set them in line with the spars and do them in rows instead of randomly. I don't have a really good photo but these will give you a sense of what it looks like. You can see two above the Propex thermostat.







You might varnish a test piece of Baltic and lay a couple of staples in it and see what you think.

Tony

Since our headliner was covered with raw canvas, I didn't want to see any holes (staples, screws or nails). We set the headliner on the wall rabbets, then the spars were set in place with glue & screws into the ends. The braces inside the cabin were propped up until the glue set (titebond, flat scrap & 1x2's to act as temporary braces) to fasten the spars to the headliner. It worked well enough & set up as a solid bond at the joints. With the 1/8" headliner, it doesn't take much pressure to glue the spars to the headliner & have a good bond. PL would be a good way to go, as it's tack time is pretty long compared to the regular titebond. I don't use many of the newer types of glue & still use the old Elmer's for some stuff, as it's still a stronger bond than the fiber strength of most woods. It just takes longer to set than some of the newer yellow glue.

Thank you all very much for your suggestions. Lots of good "food for thought" from all of your comments.
As mentioned in original post, I'm not anywhere's near the point of installing the headliner but found myself ruminating about this one night.
Thanks again!

John

I don't know if you've already done your headliner yet or not (this thread isn't really that old... is it?), but at any rate this might help others who come along later.

I didn't want staple holes or trim battens showing on the inside of my ceiling either, so I glued my spars to the headliner/ceiling panel before I installed it as an assembly. Used less lumber than props would have, did all the work on the bench and probably ended up with better joints using TB2... no voids or waviness.

I used the same bench clamping method to assemble the ceiling panel and then glue the spars on. Basically a 2x4 caul spaced up off the bench a little then wedge shims to press the glue ups back down to the bench. You can see the technique beginning here in my build. That shows the ceiling panel glue up about half way down the post and a little further on is the spar glue up. My build is a hybrid foamie, so the joint between my wall tops and ceiling is a little different (prep can be seen a post or so prior), but the glue up technique would also work well for a drop in ceiling.

Most of the designs I've seen call for the stringers to sit on the 3/4¨ core panel, with blocking cut and attached between them, and then the headliner to sit on the inside wall panel. Would it work as well to cut the inner panel flush with the core and extend the ceiling all the way to the outer wall, screwing the blocking thru the ceiling to the core?

Most of the designs I've seen ...

I took the liberty of changing your nomenclature to mine in an effort to understand what you are talking about. My changes are in blue.

"Most of the designs I've seen call for the spars to sit on the 3/4¨ wall shelf, with blocking cut and attached between the spars, and then the headliner to sit on the wall shelf. Would it work as well to cut the interior skin flush with the skeleton and extend the headliner all the way to the wall shelf, screwing the blocking thru the ceiling to the skeleton?"

If I have it correct, I think you are talking about the way I do a ceiling system?





Does that look right?





Tony

Exactly.

Thanks Tony!

Wow, there are some beautiful interiors on this thread!



Mine was a squaredrop with a flat ceiling, so I was able to get away with using flat birch plywood sections, nailed and screwed along the edges. Then I covered the screws and seams with pine molding. Walls are knotty cedar.

Photos are a bit dark because of when I was working on it.




A year later the different wood species took on different hues.