Teardrops n Tiny Travel Trailers

For my first build I was wanting to keep things simple so I chose to build mine like the Rimple. I don't have any pictures to post. I'll have to get them onto to computer. Here's my dilemna and long details. This is a 4x8 camper. My outside walls are 1/2" plywood, which means the inside measurement between the 2 ply's should be 47" and 48" on the outside, so I cut (or so I thought) all my spars to 47". 2 days after gorilla gluing and double screws on the spars I measured and realized the outside at the top is 47 3/4" and not the 48". This 47 3/4 starts at the bottom at the first spar at the front of the camper. I went back and measured some of the spars and the first few are right at 47" but then somehow they start getting off slightly the further up the camper I go. What this basically means is the top outside is 1/4" narrower than at the bottom on the floor. This I'm hopefull won't pose any problems installing the skin on the roof. The real sticky part is in the galley. My galley bulkhead is 3/4" plywood measures 47" wide and get this the bottom of the camper at the trailer is exactly 48" but if I meaure up about 2 foot from there it actually measures 48 5/16 and up towards the top of the bulkhead goes back to 47 3/4. Again that I can work with but I have no clue as to why I have a 48 5/16 and fear this will cause problems when it comes time to build the hatch. I know this is a long post, but hopefully someone can offer some advice. Thanks in advance.

Jason, you won't care for my advice but I say cut 'em out and start over, you will only be magnifying problems down the road as you try to build your hatch, and skin and trim the trailer...when we built ours, we cut the spars so that the overall was 47.75(46.25" spars)...this gave us a little wiggle room when instaling the ply substrate and the Al skin...and we were thankful for it when the time came...
madjack

Could you make it work?
Probably

Would it be worth the extra trouble?
Probably not.

I'm sure you could get it to work out but, you will be fighting it for the rest of the build.
Fix it now while you still can. At least you found it early enough to be realtively simple fix.

madjack wrote:Jason, you won't care for my advice but I say cut 'em out and start over, you will only be magnifying problems down the road as you try to build your hatch, and skin and trim the trailer...when we built ours, we cut the spars so that the overall was 47.75(46.25" spars)...this gave us a little wiggle room when instaling the ply substrate and the Al skin...and we were thankful for it when the time came...
madjack

Just to make sure I'm understanding you right, taking them out and cutting them shorter would pull the walls in more at the top and hopefully bring in the area that measures 48 5/16? Is that what you're suggesting. Thanks again.

Jason, what I am saying is what all the others are saying, cut the spars out and start over...the other part is just what we did spar wise on our tear and not a fix for yours....
madjack

May I intervene. I do believe what every one is saying. Is take the thing a part, unscrew & unglue. Then take the old spars and use them as fire wood. Cut new spars, check to make sure they are the right length you need and then reinstall. Every time you cut something, check it. Also most 3/4" ply is not 3/4". 1"x2" stock is also not 1"x2". So check everything before you start slamming it together. This time, take you time. Your not in a race to get it done.

Have a good day.

JasonTX wrote:I have no clue as to why I have a 48 5/16 and fear this will cause problems when it comes time to build the hatch... but hopefully someone can offer some advice. Thanks in advance.

Jason, This is just a wild guess. It sounds like you may be using a stop block to cut your pieces and you keep bumping it with each new board making each cut a little longer. Danny

Jason,
2 things.
If you are not lining your spars up perfectly (if they slant) they can fit wrong and the result can be longer or shorter. Try measuring up every, however many inches you are spacing on both sides and mark before putting them in.

Secondly, try to cut your spars all at the same time. Put them together by clamp or screws and treat them as one piece of wood..

Is it possible your floor is not square and you are using it as a measure, or your sides have a slight warp in them?

Miriam

Miriam C. wrote:Jason,
2 things.
If you are not lining your spars up perfectly (if they slant) they can fit wrong and the result can be longer or shorter. Try measuring up every, however many inches you are spacing on both sides and mark before putting them in.

Secondly, try to cut your spars all at the same time. Put them together by clamp or screws and treat them as one piece of wood..

Is it possible your floor is not square and you are using it as a measure, or your sides have a slight warp in them?

Miriam

I went back at lunch and checked the spar alignment and they are lined up. When I built the walls I sandwiched the two walls together and then created a notch to slide my spars into so that they would be in the same location. After further examination I looked at the possible warp and that in my opinion is what is going on. The area where there are no spars in the galley area I can visually tell that it bows outward. I took some long clamps and pulled the wall inward and that removed the warp and now with the clamps on, the walls measure 47 3/4" which is consistent with the rest of the camper. I suppose I'll leave those clamps on there to help reverse the warp. Thanks to all for the suggestions and the very quick replies.