building Plan B....

[pappaw]

wow that's one pretty galley

cheers

[mike_c]

wow that's one pretty galley

cheers

Thank you kindly!

--Mike C.

[mike_c]

Update, July 16 2012.

We're continuing to make progress. My metal supplier delivered three of the four 5 x 12 sheets of 0.040 aluminum that I need to skin the trailer, with the last sheet on order for arrival later this week. The weather has been good, so we've made more progress!

A cool, foggy day in Blue Lake, CA:




I laid out the side gussets for the galley hatch:








Fitting them in place, and notching the bottoms to fit around the galley furniture. This was a fiddley, iterative process, marking and cutting a little bit, fitting it, marking and cutting a little more, rinse and repeat until it fits. Oh, and then I went and used the left gusset as a pattern for the right, and totally forgot that I didn't need that middle notch on the right side. Now I'm gonna have to hang something there.





Dammit!


Horizontal spars are poplar:




I glued on lots of little blocks for nailing the inner skin to:




I'm going to skin the inside with 1/8" birch veneer plywood that matches the cabin interior skin, but since I'll need a seam anyway, I'm going to paint the bottom-most inside panel to match the blue galley walls. Here's the framing:




Skinning the interior:






It fits so far....




Adding backing for attaching interior dome lights, paper towel rack, whatever. Those are the LED dome lights I'll install later:






Cutting the aluminum for the first side skin. I'm really happy we went with the 0.040 thickness rather than 0.032. That extra eight thousandths of an inch makes the skin much stiffer, less likely to crease or ding. Very little weight penalty-- just a couple of pounds for the whole sheet.






The other side. I realized that the scratches left by the jig saw base plate were going to be glued to the side of the trailer, i.e. not visible, so I took less trouble to prevent them. No blue tape around the edges.






Getting ready to apply the right side skin. Contact cement on the trailer side and the back of the aluminum:




Glued up:




And here are the sides trimmed to size with the flush trim bit. Next up (literally): the top skin! But first I need to locate lots of half inch aluminum angle molding, roof trim molding, etc to trim it out!




Until the next update....

--Mike C.

[KCStudly]

Looking good! Nice progress!

[mike_c]

Well, it has been some time since my last update, probably something like a year. Life intervened in the teardrop build, both personal and professional. The trailer has been sitting under the tent, though, and waiting to be finished. Here's a brief recap of progress since my last post, which was scant, but we're back at it with a vengeance now.

When I last posted a progress report, Kathy and I had just gotten the aluminum outer skins attached. I trimmed them flush with the trailer edges and added aluminum angle to hold everything together and keep the seams dry. All the aluminum angle is caulked with Vulchem caulk, which is nasty sticky stuff to work with but it seals like the dickens. This is the top side trim going on:





By the way, these pics are still from late summer 2012.

Bottom front near the tongue:



Starting to frame the door openings:





We have since fitted a linoleum floor. We added a Fan-tastic vent fan:





We installed and wired the LED reading lights:



One of the several around-the-house projects that interrupted the trailer build. Kathy did most of the knee work on this, thankfully:



That pile is the total waste from this two room floor installation. Needless to say, the last few pieces were like fitting a jigsaw puzzle together. We cut it pretty close, as there were no other boxes of this pattern anywhere locally at the time:



I know, I know-- nothing to do with teardrop trailer building, but it's been a YEAR since my last update. Indulge me a little. Oh, and I made new friends while working on the trailer in the backyard:



OK, back to the trailer build. Here's where the cautionary tale begins. I had to build the galley hatch THREE TIMES. In fact, as I write this, the third hatch is not yet completed-- but I'm getting ahead of myself. Here is the problem. I've roughly followed the Kuffel Creek plans for this teardrop, but only roughly. I pretty much abandoned them all together in the galley. That was my first mistake. Note the clearance-- or lack of it-- between the galley furniture and the edge of the curved trailer side:



Pretty tight, huh? Well, it's so tight that the side ribs spec'ed by Kuffel Creek would not fit-- for that matter, I had trouble with the transverse spars, too. They were so wide that the interior skin contacted the galley furniture in several places, making some painful and time consuming adjustments necessary. Here's the hatch-- the first one-- underway, showing one of those necessary adjustments, the notches in the side ribs:





The hatch fits, however, with those notches to clear the furniture inside. So at this point I was pretty happy and not at all concerned:



I skinned the inside with 1/8" Baltic birch ply and the outside with 1/4", and used some offcuts to patch together the outer skin in order to save materials:



By the way, here's a big shout out to Grant Whipp who sold me that 0.040 aluminum offcut for the galley hatch, thus saving me a mult-hundred dollar shipping cost! Yay Grant!









Here is where it all went to hell. Although you can't see it well in this pic, the hatch no longer fits the galley opening. You can sort of see that along the bottom edge, which used to fit nicely but now sticks out a couple inches. The overall curve no longer matches the galley sides, either.



In retrospect it's obvious what happened-- the outer 1/4" ply skin caused considerable spring back. Unfortunately, as obvious as that is now, I didn't understand it at the time and assumed that I'd just screwed up the hatch layout, despite having built the interior ribbing and spars in place and having confirmed the fit half a dozen times myself. Undoubtedly the notches I cut in the side ribs only exacerbated the problem, acting as hinges when the 1/4 in. outer skin sprung back. I just about cried, but there really wasn't any choice. I had to build the galley hatch again.

This required some comforting. You didn't think you could go on the internet without seeing pictures of cats, did you?



In midwinter I started work on the second galley hatch. Since I had the experience of the first hatch interfering with the galley furniture, I built the second hatch thinner, cutting the crosswise spars down from 1.75 inches wide to 1.25. I also cut the side ribs thinner, making them fit into that narrow space allowed by the galley furnishings:



Since it was winter, and the rainy season in northern California, I did most of the work indoors, on top of that brand new floor that the better half wanted to enjoy. This did not win me any attaboys.







If you'll permit me to digress just a little-- we took spring break 2013 off and went to the Mojave, where we camped in the Cadiz Wilderness, one of my favorites. Just imagine the teardrop trailer here instead of the camp:







When we returned, I finished the second hatch. Unfortunately it was constructed similarly to the first, using the Kuffel Creek directions, but only thinner and weaker so I wouldn't need the notches cut into the side ribs:



It's leaning against the fence in the pic above, rather than sitting on the teardrop trailer, because like the first hatch, it didn't fit. At first I was really, really perplexed, because I KNEW that hatch was built to fit properly. That is when I figured out about the spring back. Dammit, I have to build a THIRD hatch!

This time I redesigned the interior ribbing for way more strength. Here we go, beginning in late May 2013:











It still fits. The wiring runs through a chase at the bottom so that I didn't have to cut holes in any of the vertical ribs:





The galley still cleans up nice:



We installed a new electrical system in the shop:



By this time I can build the interior with my eyes closed-- it's the third time! The cross rib trim is clear heart redwood:



I used one layer of 1/8" baltic birch ply on the outer skin, then fitted it. With all the internal ribbing, the thinner skin is plenty rigid, although perhaps a little less puncture resistant. Yesterday, June 30, we checked the fit with the exterior skin on and lo and behold, it fits! O happy day!





Rather than laminate another 1/8" skin outside the first, I'm considering simply laminating strips of 1/8" ply along the outside edges to strengthen them, and simply leaving the rest of the hatch with 1/8" skin. It's lighter, and the whole thing gets covered with 0.040 aluminum. I'll seal the wood with CPES before putting the aluminum on, so I think that will be plenty strong. And it FITS!

We've also been working on the cabin doors. The blue tape in the first pic is to mask the CPES, since I've read that Titebond III doesn't adhere well to epoxy.











The windows are not actually installed yet, just press fit into place in these last two pics:





So that's where we stand now. That last pics of the hatch and the cabin door were taken yesterday. It was a good day.

Which brings me to my last info for this update. Kathy and I had previously scheduled a road trip at the end of July and early August-- she has grandkids to visit and I have to do some insect collecting (I'm a university entomologist in my day job). The departure date, dictated by her vacation schedule, is July 20. Today is July 1.

You know where this is going, right?

The 20 Day Challenge!

I'm trying to get the teardrop road worthy in 20 days. To make things even more difficult, I have a couple of meetings in Sacramento during the next couple of weeks, so I'll effectively have something closer to 17 days.

Sawdust is flying.

--Mike C.

[KCStudly]

Welcome back. The hatch and doors are looking great, and I am looking forward to seeing more of your work!

The race to beat the clock is on!

[Junkboy999]

I just have to read through this log today. I like what I see.

I do like your comment way back on the first page, the one about
“ streamlining the process, for the second build “ and you had not even started to make sawdust yet.
and I caught the “ grooving on a sunday day afternoon “ ( Queen reference ) as well.

I only hope and pray when I get around to building my bigger one I remember to build the hatch before the galley is installed and place in the gas struts before skinning the hach. That seems to throw every for a loop. GL and only 19 more days

[mike_c]

I only hope and pray when I get around to building my bigger one I remember to build the hatch before the galley is installed and place in the gas struts before skinning the hach. That seems to throw every for a loop. GL and only 19 more days

Yup, I really really really wish I had built the hatch over an empty galley and outfitted the furnishings afterward. We'd have probably been camping in the thing for the last six months if I had done it that way.

[WhitneyK]

I know, I know-- nothing to do with teardrop trailer building, but it's been a YEAR since my last update. Indulge me a little. Oh, and I made new friends while working on the trailer in the backyard:



--Mike C.

I can relate to that.....

Did you keep it?

Looking good Mike, regardless of the set backs with the hatch. Maybe if I build again, I'll just go to the salvage yard and cut the hiney off a minivan, hatch done!

[rebapuck]

I'm not sure I understand how you avoided the spring back on the third try.

Beautiful work.

[mike_c]

I'm not sure I understand how you avoided the spring back on the third try.

Beautiful work.

Thank you!

The two additional ribs provide some resistance to spring back-- they and the two outer ones are laminated 1/2" baltic birch ply, so they're an inch wide by an inch and a quarter thick, and the outer half of each outer rib is about 2.5 inches thick, so they're even stiffer. Also, the 1/8" ply that I bent over the hatch curve was MUCH easier to bend than the 1/4" stuff I used on the previous attempts. You can't see it very well in the photos, but the outer skin was tacked down onto the glue with wire brads, and they held it very tight. The second attempt, with 1/4" birch ply required #8 stainless steel wood screws to hold it down. Those big clamps in the pictures were to wrestle that sheet around the bend and hold it tight while we ran in the screws. Frankly, I think the thinner skin is the main reason for there being less spring back force, and the extra ribs hold it all together more tightly and make it stiffer and more resistant to spring back.

--Mike C.

[mike_c]

Did you keep it?

Looking good Mike, regardless of the set backs with the hatch. Maybe if I build again, I'll just go to the salvage yard and cut the hiney off a minivan, hatch done!

Nah. We're fortunate to have a wildlife care facility nearby.

There are many, many things I would do differently if I did it over again. I'll learn to live with them, LOL.

[mike_c]

Hi all. It's early morning on July 5, so here's some progress we made during the first four days of the 20 day challenge. We've actually hit several milestones in the last four days. We finished the doors and windows, except for adding weather stripping, which will happen in the next day or two:









The doors are solid and strong.





Adding the latches:



The new hatch is far from finished still, although it will be the focus of construction during the coming week, I think. Lots of work still to do on the galley hatch. Kathy is painting the fenders in the background:



The passenger door problem that I posted about in the Construction Tips forum turned out to have a simple, if somewhat temporary solution. The problem was that the door was "sprung" in the sense that the bottom rear corner stuck out from the door frame by about an inch, and had to be pulled into place with additional force and held there. It simply would not lay flush against the door frame. There is a very slight bow to the hinge side of the door frame-- if you lay a straightedge against the frame from top to bottom there is about a 1/16 inch light gap in the middle. That 1/16 inch bow just didn't seem capable of forcing the door out of line that badly, but doors are mysterious things sometimes, and there was the indisputable fact that the driver's side door fit beautifully while the passenger side door did not, and the only discernible difference between them was the small bow in the passenger door frame.

The key to figuring it out was that the "sprung" only happened when CLOSING the door. When it was fully opened, the door laid flat against the side of the trailer just fine. Hmmm, a problem that only occurs when the door is closing, i.e. when the two continuous hinge leaves were closest together. That sounds like mounting screws interfering with one another. So I climbed into the cabin with a flashlight and looked carefully into the hinge as the door closed and the leaves came together.

Bingo! It turns out that the space for the heads of mounting screws between the closing hinge leaves is quite small-- the screw heads are not quite flush with the hinge leaves, and they protrude a tiny bit into the space between the leaves. At first I thought a screw might just stick out too far, perhaps from running in a bit crooked. But no, the problem still turned out to be related to the bowed door frame-- the bow bends the door frame leaf of the piano hinge into a corresponding bow, which is slight enough to not affect the hinge operation, but it does bring the very top and bottom closer to the door side leaf, just enough to cause the top and bottom-most mounting screws through the door frame leaf to interfere with the corresponding screw heads on the other leaf, since the tolerance was already close. That slight bend over the length of the hinge brings those screw heads too close together.

The temporary solution was to simply remove the top and bottom screws from the door frame leaf of the hinge, allowing lots of room for the door leaf screw heads when the door closes. Now the passenger side door works just fine! I'll still have to straighten that door frame, but that's a winter project.



We've also had a problem in need of a solution since the very first day we began building. We're building the teardrop trailer in the backyard. The whole yard is fenced. The fence has to be breached in order to get the camper onto the road.

From the beginning I've meant to fix the broken gate in the backyard fence and add a means to leave through the front yard picket fence. As the deadline approaches, one of Kathy's co-workers graciously agreed to help out, and that's him working on the big double gate between the backyard and the front yard. He also disassembled part of the front picket fence so we can get the trailer all the way to the street. Big shout out for Matt! He saved me at least half a day:



We also added more cabin lighting. All the trailer lighting is LED to stretch battery life. The cabin currently has four LED pucks above the headboard positioned as reading lights and two larger pucks installed over each door, all independently switched:



We added the linoleum floor a couple of weeks ago, but it's been protected by a big sheet of rosin paper until now.





I also fabricated and installed turn buttons on the cabin furniture to keep the doors closed while underway.

Finally, we installed the mattress, a six inch foam mattress with two inches of memory foam over four inches of high density foam. In these last three pics the mattress is still expanding to full height, so it looks a bit thin:







After dark, Kathy and I went out and sat in the cabin for about an hour. It's so comfy we didn't want to leave, and would have spent the night there if not for the odor of the brand new mattress. The manufacturer says the odor will dissipate within 48 hours, so we will definitely sleep in the trailer this coming weekend. It's amazing how the addition of doors, windows, and bedding transformed the teardrop from a construction project to a camper, almost instantly.

Now it's back to the galley hatch!

--Mike C.

[KCStudly]

Nice!

Great detective work on the door issue, too. Glad that was something you could get working w/o too much pain.

[S. Heisley]

You write beautifully! Love the build.
I will enjoy seeing your trailer and meeting you all at an upcoming Jefferson State Tearjerker gathering.