CNC Build: The Bed and Breakfast at 4 years and 40,000 miles

[capnTelescope]

The first part of the day was spent picking up the odds and ends of the wiring connections. Can't wait to see how it all works when I get some lights mounted.

Next, I turned my attentions to the rain gutter at the top of the hatch. It turns out the really cool corner piece I made isn't usable. It is too close to the hatch ribs to clear with the weather strip installed:

Nuts.

Next I got out the two pieces of angle for the rest of the gutter to see what that looks like. (same end)

That's better. Back to ye olde drawing board.

I also spent some time looking at the back end, trying to visualize something for the hatch bottom seal.

If you remember back to the days when I was doing all that hatch prototyping, making the gutter narrow at the center and wider at the ends creates a down hill for water to drain. So I laid that out, made a cut on the downhill angle, and tried to stick it all together.

It looked nice, but failed as soon as I picked it up. Memo to self: Caulking doesn't work well as a glue. I think I'll try epoxy next, unless someone can suggest something better for gluing Al to Al.

Speaking of gluing Al, I've had about 50 views of my "how much Sikaflex?" question, and nary a reply. Apparently, everyone reading my post wants to know, too. Maybe the Sikaflex fumes cause memory loss?

I'm finding it harder to contain myself as things take shape. Earlier in the day, I took one of my 5x5 sheets of 1/8 ply and did a test fit for the roof. That's what I'm talking about! The fit was very good. Later, I got bored with the gutter. Dragged 2 sheets of 5x5 to the table saw and cut 1-1/2" off the ends to make a couple of ceiling sheets This, too, was good.

So, to contain or not to contain, that is the question. Today, I contained. Tomorrow?

Fit to the profile with gravity only was good:

Although there was a little sag towards the middle. Nothing a little glue on the bottom of the spar couldn't handle.

There's a little mismatch going on back at the bulkhead:

But it's in the back of the cabinets, where it doesn't show. Persons pointing this out will be ejected from the tour.

The second piece of ceiling takes care of the front.


Looking along the edge where the ply meets the wall.


My aluminum sheet is supposed to get delivered tomorrow. Gotta get that hatch figgered out soon.

Thanks for stopping by!

[KCStudly]

...something better for gluing Al to Al.

Molten hot aluminum works good, although it is an acquired skill that is difficult to master (I have trouble with it, but my friend Karl makes it look easy).

Ceiling joints look excellent!

[RandyG]

How's about mounting the Al in place with wood strips and screws, then caulk it?

[capnTelescope]

After getting stoked on the ceiling yesterday (not the first time I've been stoked on the ceiling) I decided to make it happen. Step one: splice the two ceiling pieces together. Plan A was to do it right there on the tear. Lay the ply on top of the spars and glue it up:


It refused to behave and was just being a b-word, so I went to Plan B. Lay it out flat on some 2x4s & sawhorses.

Much better.

I picked two boards that were a little bowed to support the joint. With the bows like this: )( , I should get some clamping force all the way across.


I just happened to have a cutoff that was perfectly suitable for a backer-upper. Apply glue liberally.


That didn't brush out enough, so I applied more glue more liberally. Better.


Clamp it up and weigh it down:


Admire the approaching rainstorm and put a dropcloth on it:


After letting the glue set up for a while, I moved the ceiling back on top of the spars, just like the first pic.

Meanwhile, back at the drawing board...

Those cute parts I made up for the front turned out to be about a quarter inch too short, which I could handle with ease, but they won't let the ceiling go all the way to the floor. That makes no sense. Floors and ceilings hardly ever meet. So the parts need a redesign. I think. Or I'll need to cut the ceiling off while it's still above the floor.

I also need to get some g-code produced for rain gutters and to trim the Al for my side skins. So I'll be at the dwg board a while.

I also need to do some kind of finish on the ceiling. Probably I'll leave it blond. I need advice from all you interior decorators following this build. I've got blond walls and dark cabinets. Any suggestions for the ceiling? I'll probably just poly it. Paint is a possibility. Oh, and I think the bedding, etc. will be a camo theme. Help me out here, Dear Readers. I can barely coordinate my pants and shirt.

Oh, and lest I forget, Many thanks to my twin Bro, tony.latham, and to tonyj for 'splaining some of the finer points of floating my skin.

Thanks for stopping by!

[noseoil]

I'm thinking the headliner on mine will be covered in some type of a cloth (light gray?) to make things quiet and feel a bit warmer, but still in the planning stages so it might change by the time I get closer to actually doing the build. I saw one I liked a while back about a guy who used speaker box enclosure cloth and it looked very nice. Here's a link to look at in your "spare time." The automotive stuff looks nice & has a foam backing as well. Plenty of choices out there in cloth.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/like/251498662627?lpid=82

[oakinteriors1]

You want to stiffen up that pullout ..put another slide toward the top against the outer wall like the lower one...

like this...

[capnTelescope]

You want to stiffen up that pullout ..put another slide toward the top against the outer wall like the lower one...

Great idea, OakInteriors! I'm on it.

I mentioned in a previous post that the floor needs some stiffening, too. Gotta get that done. I think that second slide will do more good, though.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

[GuyllFyre]

I went directly from plan A to plan M.
No hatch and FRP skin.
My Teardrop project has stalled as I'm working on acquiring a 5' wide trailer base and working on many other projects that are taking up way too much time and money.

[capnTelescope]

My Teardrop project has stalled...

I wondered where you went. You were going great guns, then suddenly... nothing. I assumed you were off camping all over the place and having too good of a time to post the finale. Good to see you're back, GuyllFyre.

[capnTelescope]

I've been working on the tear and not posting, so this post is a catchup.

After splicing the 2 ceiling sheets, I decided the expedient way out was to just poly the darn thing and move on. Thank you, noseoil, for the headliner tip.

So 3 coats and 2 days of parking the TV outside later, that was done. While I was at it, I shot a thinned coat on the outside walls. I carefully laid the newly polyed ceiling over a few of the spars, just to hold it up to get glue under it:


The ceiling rests between the framing layers on the edge of the quarter inch interior ply:

I laid down a bead of TB on the edge of the interior ply and lowered the ceiling into place. No nails, staples or screws. It was a nice fit side-to-side, and the 1/8 ceiling ply followed the side contour very well. I noticed a slight gap above the door opening where there's a transition from curve to flat. Pondering that, I decided that the ellipses that make up the outer contour maybe should be parabolas. At least that's what I think you see when you let ply droop naturally. But, then again, my CAD program does ellipses and doesn't do parabolas. So there.

Later I'm gonna goo the ceiling to the bottom of the spars. I want the ceiling to stay up!

Speaking of spars, the first installed spar is infront, holding the end of the ceiling down:

There's a little droop at the straight section on top. The Fantastic Fan will take care of that. The curve in front prevents any droop.

With such a small glue area, a lot escaped:

With the prefinished walls, it came right off. With a little help from my plastic chisel, a great little tool for removing stuff from a surface you don't want to scratch. I think HF has them. Look in automotive.

Next came installing the spars. I had them in their slots earlier in the build, and they were quite tight. I had to overuse the BFH to get them in. This time around, I took the hand plane and cut a starter angle on the ends:



Drill and countersink a couple of screw holes on the ends.


Add glue to the pocket:


Tap the spar into the pocket and screw it down.


Rinse, repeat:

I ran out of screws before I ran out of spars. One more to go!

During all this excitement, the Al sheet for the sides came in. I got the left side rough cut on the CNC and mounted!

Something compelled me to wire up the porch light and test it. As you can see, it works. The wall switch turns it both on and off. The other side is up on the router table, ready to cut. I'll get more pix of the process this go-round.

I'm going to float the side skins. The left one is stapled on, to be trimmed later. In the process of doing that, I learned something about my air stapler. There is an adjustment to set the staple crown depth. It's a knob with icons molded in above it, and I interpreted the icons bass-ackwards. So instead of getting a max high staple crown, I had it set for max deep, and quite a few staples got driven all the way through the Al before I realized the problem. Had to go back and redo a few. At least it won't show.

That's enough for now. I think I'm caught up.

Thanks for stopping by!

[tony.latham]

It's really looking sweet. I'm all packed and headed for the Gravelly Mountains of Montana for three nights. We've got to get out of this 90 degree heat.

Tony

[noseoil]

The progress pics, it looks really nice. Should be plenty stout with your construction technique and execution. The headliner & walls look nice & snug and the slats & insulation should be a great sandwich for strength and durability. Hoping I can do half as well on mine when I get started soon.

[capnTelescope]

It's really looking sweet.

and

The progress pics, it looks really nice.

Thanks, guys. I'm really happy with how this part is going.

Should be plenty stout with your construction technique and execution.

It was already solid as a rock before the ceiling. Just going for more.

I'm all packed and headed for the Gravelly Mountains of Montana for three nights.

I haven't been to Montana in over 40 years. My grandparents lived in Butte. Beautiful country.

We've got to get out of this 90 degree heat.

I am so jealous. You're camping in the cool and I'm working in the heat. It's more than a day's drive from here to get any altitude enough to cool off. It's been pushing 100 lately. Slowing me down.

[capnTelescope]

With the ceiling now in place, I laid in the roof spars. Next I ripped up a bunch of nice 1/8 steaks from a 2x4, applied TB to both sides, and slipped them under the spars, to help hold up the ceiling.

This worked just fine. I had originally designed for a 1/4" ceiling, before I found my 1/8" source. It was too much work to revise the drawing, so I didn't.

Before putting the insulation in, the few wires in the attic needed to be placed and holes drilled thru the ceiling for dome light, reading lights and Fan-Fan. Once I got the holes drilled, there was nothing stopping me from mounting the light fixtures. So I did. I now have working battery powered dome and reading lights. One step closer to campable!

Fan-Fan goes here:


Next step was cutting attic insulation to size between the spars. I went to HD and got 2 sheets of the white foamboard, got it home and cut to the trailer width, so all I needed to do was slice off pieces from the side. So what did I do on the first piece? Cut off the end. I realized my mistake when I put the piece in its place and the between-spar width was good, but it was almost a foot short. So I set that sheet aside and started with the other one. I got it right from there and only a couple panels had to come off the goof sheet.

My "attic" is only 3/4" high, so only got one layer of insulation. My decision to do this is based on over 50 years camping in tents in snow, tent and truck dry camping in the desert, and whatever in between without any insulation. If none was good enough, some should be just fine.

I had just finished cutting roof insulation when RandyG stopped by on his way home from San Antonio. He got a good close-up look at the CNC Tear and the shop. We got to shoot the breeze about Tears and swap ideas. It was good to meet another teardropper in person.

Today, while starting to skin the roof, I made a disturbing discovery. I laid down a 5x5 sheet of 1/8 ply on the roof and the galley end did not square up! Across the width of the Tear, it was out of square with the ply by about 3/8".

You can see the galley spar peeking out from under the roof skin in front, but the far side is even.

The aft bulkhead is square to the wall on the right side, but not on the left. BUT the walls are parallel to the point where the 1/8 ply fits between the walls as planned. So the walls are parallel but not square with the bulkhead on both sides? This makes no sense. Whatever the cause, there's no fixing it. Everything is tightly screwed and glued, and solid as a rock. There's no taking it apart now. I just hope it doesn't show, 'cuz that's how the roof is going on.

I started at the rear and worked forward, cutting to size lengthwise, gluing and stapling. Once the glue sets up, it should be good and strong. The first 5x5 sheet went on just fine.


On the second sheet, I mismeasured. The end should have hit the middle of a spar, but ended at the edge nearest to the rear. Worse yet, I didn't discover the problem until the sheet was half glued/stapled on, and there was no going back. I got out the handsaw and tried to follow a line, but the cut came out wavy and ratty looking.


So now the last piece wasn't going to match up at a neat seam, no way, no how. So I cut the last sheet for best fit, installed it, and I'll have to apply some spackle before the Al goes on.


Since I had the Tear out to work on the roof, I took a couple of glamour shots:




The Al for the right wall is up on the CNC for a rough cut, so that should be the next big step. I'm saving the hatch for last.

Thanks for stopping by. Stay tuned!

[KCStudly]

That's really starting to shape up now.

Looks like you have a bunch of irons in the fire, working on many things all at once.

It looks like you kerfed the roof foam. Did the 3/4 inch not want to bend? The reason I ask is that I will be using 2 layers of 3/4 thick, and I am hoping that I can keep the kerfing to a minimum. I'm going to be getting to that part soon.