Teardrops n Tiny Travel Trailers

Last weekend I attempted to secure my al. siding to the tear and several things went wrong. I offer this as a life lesson for others as well as - HELP -I still have another side to secure!
After exploring what others have offered about this I felt reasonably prepared. It seems that most folks glued the sheet of aluminum to their tear and then cut out the edges and door, so I figured I'd do that too. After dry fitting and drilling out holes for the wires, I slathered both sides with contact cement and stuck in place. I started placing the clamps, but soon realized that only a small percentage of my edges could be clamped before trimming. With the sheeting flapping around a bit I grabbed my router and after about twelve inches of trimming the lights dimmed and the router was done. I next grabbed the jig saw. I quickly snapped both metal cutting blades (I had purchased the wrong size) and took a minute or two to I wasted some time trying out other tools. (I fried the dremel tool, too) ...........
By the time I got back from K-Mart with the new jig saw blades, there was no longer much need to hurry as by then the contact cement had set. I took my time trimming out the door openings and shoe horned more contact cement into the all the gaping edges. I clamped them and we'll see if they stick..
There's got to be a better way!

John, we clamped up the Al with our side pattern template and cut with a combination of router and shears...since the sides were cut with that template the Al came out perfectly...we floated the AL...no adhesive used, just captured with trim and moldings....
madjack

madjack wrote:John, we clamped up the Al with our side pattern template and cut with a combination of router and shears...since the sides were cut with that template the Al came out perfectly...we floated the AL...no adhesive used, just captured with trim and moldings....
madjack

NOW YOU TELL US !!!!

Oh. That'll work.. Thanks, Madjack.. I have an endless supply of humility so I'll just keep tossing my goofs out there.
Thanks for your patience,
JohnT

You know it's funny how I have been saying the same thing that madjack did for a couple of years now. And every body would tell me you need glue so I would let it go because every one was in a hurry to get it done and was looking for the easy way out. The only difference between what Madjack and I did was I used a cheap adhesive to hold the side skin in place while locating the roof skin, sunroof, fenders and edge molding. After all that was installed, I set the teardrop outside in the sun so the adhesive would break loose. I did all that with no help and it only took a day to complete. Oh and after I stuck the skins to the sides, I rolled them with a hard roller. You can see my skin installation HERE

Have a good day.

As much as I hate the stuff, the Henrys carpet glue did OK. My side skins slid down slightly, I was able to jack them back up to place even though they were glued on.

I do all my work by myself so I had to wrestle the sheet into place, there was no way it would be exactly in place in the first shot.

Don't worry I fried my fancy dancy Dremel too. I wonder if you can buy just the tool and not all the junk that comes with it. A jigsaw with a metal cutting blade was the fastest, I kept it off the surface (almost using it like a sawzall) so that it wouldn't scratch the metal. The router was good to trim it down after you got it close with the jigsaw.

asianflava wrote:As much as I hate the stuff, the Henrys carpet glue did OK. My side skins slid down slightly, I was able to jack them back up to place even though they were glued on.
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Attach a couple of boards under the tear and then rest the skin on them.


Have a good day.