Beyond the End teardrop (Tony Latham-style build)

[Capebuild]

Looks great, Mike... nice. I recognize that blue film overlay
John

[tony.latham]

I'd like to camp next to you some time. I can sit and relax and watch you run tear-tours all day long without being interrupted by some guy asking me, "did you build this?"



Tony

[orourkmw]

Thanks, y'all, for the encouraging comments. I PM'd WesternTraveler because I inadvertently left him off my "walls up" list of the 5 build journals of "Tony" builds from the last few years that I am constantly going back to for reference...his walls were up 6/19/21. Having all those resources available to a novice builder is invaluable.

No pics worth anything, but I've made a little progress. Got the galley countertop aluminum angle supports mounted, gave the upper bulkhead its haircut, and installed the aluminum trim on the lower sides. I am going to Florida next week, and will buy the 1/8" Baltic Birch for the headliner and roof....$54.50 for ea 5x5! I was going to get it in Houston when I picked up my new truck camper, but Lance has delayed it yet again (we gave deposit last October) so we've given up and are buying a 1-year-old model in south FL. I had hoped to be done with the td by now, but as usual life intervenes...I do recognize that the "walls up" milestone generally shows up in the first few pages of everybody's journal....so I have many more pages to go! It think it is like blacking in a house...all the tiny details take so much time before you're ready to move in

[tony.latham]

and will buy the 1/8" Baltic Birch for the headliner and roof....$54.50 for ea 5x5!

Ouch. It was $17 when I wrote the book. I just checked my supplier and they don't list 1/8" as available. 1/2" is $108. I've got two sheets in my shop I paid $30 apiece. I'd better get a deadbolt.



Tony

[orourkmw]

OK, guys and girls, I think I need some help. I needed to fit my Challenger Door in place to measure a piece of trim. Although I don't have my roof spars up yet, I used a pipe clamp to pull the walls in the needed 1/2" to get to the correct dimension. When I fitted the door, I found it is flush on the top and bottom, but is out 1/4" in the middle.




I have already realized it will be critical to mount the frame accurately, because any binding makes the door almost impossible to open. I am trying to figure how to mount the frame to secure it flush, without distortion. I can obviously open the door and clamp it in place while I drive the screws, but I don't know if the door will close properly afterwards. I couldn't find anything on a search of the archives, but undoubtedly others have faced this? Any thoughts would be appreciated.
Mike
P.S. I see that the preview images are pretty small files, but I think you can get the idea. I can try to load larger files if necessary.

[orourkmw]

Late night revelation: I didn't account for the thickness of the epoxy on the top half. I have a difference in elevation. I'll need to think of a way to build up the thickness of the wall under the bottom half of the door. At least I think that's the problem....will check it out in the morning. Now I can sleep!

[orourkmw]

Well, it is not the wall. It turns out I had forgotten that I had considered the elevation, and that the 0.040" aluminum on the bottom compensated for the epoxy on top. The problem is with the door:


The straightedge is flush on the top and bottom and the door has a bow of 1/4" in the middle. Challenger was clear when I bought these doors there was no return.

I may have posted early on about the condition of these doors as recv'd. I contacted them at the time and told them that the packs of styrofoam peanuts had been cut open by some sharp pieces of the door, and the the peanuts were everywhere and stuck to the door interior, leaving a mottled surface. Note also that the painting on the door edges is incomplete


I had also advised them at the time of delivery that the exterior seams didn't match up:


Both doors are about the same, but the second door has about half of the bow of this door. So I'm really disappointed in Challenger Doors, and I can say that even laying flat on the ground, the door is hard to release from the frame. Putting this door in will be like hanging a door in a house, versus having a framed door...it's half art, and in this case the frame can flex. I am worried that if I don't get it right when I first screw it in, the door will not operate properly. I hate the thought of filling holes with thickened epoxy and doing the trial-and-error approach. Any thoughts anyone has would be appreciated.
Mike

[KCStudly]

Without being there and being able to analyze the issue it is kind of hard to find the solution.

I wonder how much of the hard operation you are experiencing is due to the door not being rigidly mounted while you are test operating it.

It might be worth knocking together a mock up frame of simple 2x4's (or what ever scrap you might have laying around) to screw the door flat to, and attach the mock up frame vertically to something with some heft (like a workbench), so that you can represent the installed condition better. If the door works fine while screwed flat in the test, just screw it flat to your wall and you are done.

If not, I was able to successfully adjust a bad door gap by laminating varying lengths and quantities of woven glass strips. Which is what I would have recommended if you had a belly in your wall, and couldn't get it to go flat overall. In other words, if you wanted to build up the face of the wall under the door flange from zero at the bottom to 1/4 inch in the middle to zero at the top, you could laminate strips the width of the door flange starting with, say, a 6 inch long strip in the middle, straddled by an 8 inch strip, 10 inch, 12 inch, etc. so that you build up the middle more and taper thickness from the middle out gradually. Once filled and sanded to the profile of the flange (if the wall had been bellied in, that would have been sanded flat now) you could mask and paint the built up area black so that it would "disappear" into the door. Not saying that this is the answer for your problem, but it is a valid method for building up areas with a taper. Becky (oldragbaggers... AFAIK, no longer active on the forums) used a similar technique to build up the edges of her galley walls on the Sagwagon.

[Tom&Shelly]

This is probably irrelevant, but I vaguely remember some sort of black plastic spacers in our Challenger Doors that were evidently intended to help with shipping and should have been removed. Took awhile to notice that last part. I think the doors worked better after taking them out.

I also seem to remember toying with removing the striker plates, per a suggestion from someone on this forum, but (I think) we ended up putting them back on.

I don't remember any packing peanuts; ours were shipped in custom made wooden boxes with sheets of foam (I know because they are still in my junk pile waiting for some other use).

I will say, our doors were acceptable, but not really high quality.

Tom

[orourkmw]

Thanks, KC. I will mockup something when I get back at the end of the week and see how it goes. That's probably the only real test. If it doesn't work, I'll consider laying up some fiberglass. I did watch a couple of youtube videos from Oregon Batman and Florabama Homestead, and both of their doors lay in perfectly flush before installation.

Tom, I had some white plastic clips that held the rain "gutter" on to the door for shipping, so an earlier version of that may be what you remember. The doors were also shipped in corrugated, not wooden crates.

I'll let you know how it goes. Sticking doors kinda throw shade on the quality of the whole build.

Thanks for the help,
Mike

[orourkmw]

Ok, I mocked up a door opening, per KC's suggestion, by clamping 2x4s to my vertical Paulk workbench:


And then fought with trying to get the door to close properly for half an hour. I could close it, but probably with 15-20 lbs of force, and I couldn't get it to latch. Then I remembered what Tom said about shipping inserts. I saw these wedges around the perimeter of the door, and went ahead and peeled one off. It was apparent the adhesive was temporary, and was designed to be removed. It would have been nice to have some instructions from Challenger.


I still had a problem, though, with the door latch. First, they had drilled from the outside of the frame in, and left a big burr behind the strike plate, which held the plate too far out and wouldn't let the door close. I Dremel'd that flush, and found I still had a problem...the door would close fully, but the latch wouldn't engage. Without the strike plate the door works fine. I will have to cut out the opening in the door to allow the plate to move out a little, and play with it to get it right...I think I'll have to drill new mounting holes. So it can be fixed. I am still disappointed in the fit and finish of these doors....maybe I should have paid more than $840. But the good news is that they lay flush and work without binding. I'll check out the latch on the other door.

Thanks again for the help.
Mike

[Tom&Shelly]

Yep, they're the ones!

Tom

[orourkmw]

Just an update since I've been MIA for a while (we did pick up our truck camper, took a 2-week trip, have made mods to it and the truck, etc, etc, etc....."the more you have, the more you have to keep up"). I did make a little progress on the TD along the way, but by the time I am freed up in the afternoon to work on it, I feel like my outdoor cat....it's so hot I just want to lay around!

Anyway, a couple of pics since last posting. Here is a view showing the headboard supports, with the ceiling spars cut but not yet dado'ed for the wiring:


And a shot from the other end, with the counter mounted and the hatch spar installed:


It would be nice if I had an airplane hanger. I need to set up my Paulk workbench on a dry day under my canopy out on my driveway, so I can do some table saw and router work. On a positive note, I am on about page 106 of Tony's book, which means I am more than halfway!
Mike

[tony.latham]

On a positive note, I am on about page 106 of Tony's book...

And it's really really looking nice!

Tony

[JasenC]

That stupid adulting stuff always gets in the way of the important stuff.

It's looking great.