First time teardrop builder - project on 4x8 HF

[txcamper]

Insanity of a weekend, non stop working on our trailer.

Here we go...

Friday night, my wife put the first full coat of white while I was working the drill press on all of the trim.





Saturday through lunch: second coat of paint, trimmed doors and galley openings, trimmed and installed doors

[parnold]

Very nice and clean looking. Bravo!

[txcamper]

Saturday afternoon and evening

Door locks installed (these are our latches for now - I went to the local hardware store and picked up three 'keyed alike' locks (each door and the hatch will match). His and hers key chains for fun.

My 3/4" hole saw kept losing the center bit so we have some touch up work to do on these.


Window frames, painted, dried and screened by my wife.



The paint tape..... First, I did horrible, horrible things to our fresh white paint with a sharpie to get the roof half circle done. Notice that the fan is installed now (YEAH!!! It works great!), and that meant I had to run my fishing string compass over it, while on a ladder, while leaning over the roof. It's not pretty with all the compass corrections, but the circle ended up looking good, I just need to figure out how to carefully sand and repaint where I got out of control with the marker. Learned my lesson on the sides and just used a pointed tip to lightly score the white paint which is much easier to touch up.

We used the green frog tape really stopping the rush here and pushing down all the edges, making sure trim was covered etc, and the lines still bled, but it looks likely that a small pinstripe will hide most everything on that.




We installed the strap hangers for the lower interior cabinet door and called it a night.... Yes, at this point we slept in our driveway, in the teardrop, with the three of us. It slept great with plenty of room still for our little one between us, although I imagine we'll be looking for trailer room extensions soon with as fast as he's growing. Big milestone!!

[txcamper]

Thanks Paul - it was crazy weekend! I'm adding posts one at a time as I max out the 'upload pictures' option.

-Michael

[txcamper]

Sunday morning.

Used butyl taped, the harsh environment plastic hinge and some 1"x1/8" aluminum (pre-drilled Friday night) to install the hatch, and then finished the taping for the red paint prep. You can also see here where I relocated the stocker HF brake lights, drilled new lower and further back mounting points then installed and re-wired to the new location.






First coat of red!

[txcamper]

Second coat of red went on, and then after a little dry time the tape was removed!






Not shown: Pre-drilled and added rubber grommets to tool box for wiring, cut cabinet shelves, trailer wiring is almost done, just need to connect the ones running through the roof so I can install my license plate on the hatch. I started on my telescoping roof rack for the 'changing room'. Going really simple on this one, just to give us an option to hang a couple shower curtains on it for room to stand and change.

To do by Thursday:
Wire battery box, install lock and hold downs for hatch (I'm using the rubber pull and hook style hold downs), trim hatch, trim and seal windows with 1/2" quarter round, install hatch lights, install stereo, and at least a couple other things I'm forgetting. Pull and re-pack bearings in wheels, and a once over safety check to test everything critical (lights, coupler, safety chains, tire pressure, spare tire, etc).

Whew, what a weekend. Perfect example of the theme that has come out of this trailer.... My wife was fantastically sweet about this but as soon as progress slowed, I always knew it was coming... "Ok, What's Next?"

[parnold]

I like the paint job!

What kind of paint did you use, and how did you apply it?

[txcamper]

Thanks Paul, Tractor and implement paint from tractor supply. Roller application. We were well under the manufacturer recommended dry time, but waited until we could stick and peal tape to it without damage before moving to the next coat. The roller had benefits and weaknesses: benefits - easier to control than a sprayer, a lot cleaner application in the driveway, and the ability to load it up and do a heavy consistent coat; weaknesses - roller lint mostly.

[Oldragbaggers]

You have made amazing progress and it looks really fantastic. I love it. Your paint job is really nice, great design. I wish I could come up with something cool like that. Galley has such a nice clean look to it and your cabinets are top notch. Congratulations and BRAVO!!!

So, when are you taking your first trip??

[Rob & Mel]

Wooo! Looks awesome! Great job, and congrats!

-Rob

[CliffinGA]

Great job and I lovr the paint scheme! Where did you get the trim from?

Cliff

[KCStudly]

+1 on what everyone else is saying. Your trim job looks spot on spectacular, and the paint scheme is inspired. I've been noodling around trying to come up with a subtle scallop paint theme, but haven't come up with anything near as cool as that. Almost a cross between art deco, contemporary and Frank Lloyd Wright. All very cool inspirations.

[txcamper]

Thank you all for the incredibly kind comments!

The trim was mostly from Amazon.com (ace hardware outlet through Amazon specifically). It is aluminum counter edge molding and left maybe a 16th of an overhang to the inside past the 3/4" ply walls. That little over hang was perfect because it means my locks are resting on metal inside and not the wood wall. The rest is 1/8" x 1" aluminum you can get from the local hardware store drilled every 3.5" and counter sunk. The T molding for the doors came from vintage technologies because they had the plastic hatch hinge for $16 and I figured just get the T and the porch lights at the same time. I did the same treatment to the T on the drill press of drilling once every 3.5" and countersinking a little with a slightly larger bit.

The paint scheme was inspired by the search engine image search of 'teardrop trailer profile' and then taking the pieces we liked and then reduced those down to something we could easily duplicate on both sides. The roof half circle was first and went wall to wall to give me a starting point on the wall half circles. My fishing line compass was reduced own to 18" to make it a little smaller than the 4' tall wall and started where the roof design ended. The extra stripe is 2" tall exactly one piece of tape from the bottom stripe.

Thanks again everyone! No pictures, but our toolbox on the front is mounted, and I built the battery separator box inside. Wired the main battery in, but still have to hook up the 110v and go get another battery for the accessories functions of the trailer.

Cabinet shelves are painted and stained, galley shelves are installed and my wife cut rubber liners for all of the shelves. Hatch lights are now mounted in some left over 1/8" birch squares to be attached to hatch and should be wired in tonight.

Remaining still - window trim (painted - needs to be cut and installed with silicone behind it), hatch latches, hook up stereo (speakers will be loose in their own boxes with just a couple plugs in the hatch), install one piece of trim on the base of the hatch. My final major hurdle is the telescoping roof rack for the changing room. Maybe Thursday on that project.

We (I) didn't order enough of the counter top edge molding to do the edges of the hatch so we're going trimless there, that's just the start of the 'to do as we enjoy this trailer list'.



Our first trip is this weekend, should be a blast!

-Michael

[txcamper]

We really want to find a solution for this that matches the trailer lines better, but I already owned this toolbox so the cost to the project ($0) was too attractive to pass up for now.

The wires from the trailer are fed through grommets and will be wired through 30 amp fuses to both batteries. Additionally the 110 you see will be wired through a GFCI plug to the inlet mounted on the front of the box. All of the wood was a re-purpose of the old floor from the original utility use of this 4x8 HF trailer.

There is enough room to hold two 5 gallon waters, 2 batteries, charger, 3 chairs and I'm adding a tray to hold extra tarps, bungees, tools, etc.



Final placement and attached to the new mounts we added to the trailer.

[KCStudly]

Not in love with the box, but it sure does hold a lot of stuff for you. Can't beat the price, either.