New teardrop building

[wysedav]

Just thought I’d post a couple of pictures of my build. Not very far yet but there is some progress. I’m building in my basement so one I get it mostly put together I’ll have to take it all apart and reassemble on the trailer in the garage. It’s a clone of the Altear which I thought was a beautiful build.

[wysedav]

Here are the pics.

[Woodbutcher]

Good start, building in the basement is a real commitment. Enjoy the building process, it's a big part of the fun.

[wysedav]

A little more progress and a few more pictures.

This is the whole profile, 1/8" Skins, 1" framing, aluminum is going to be final outside surface, and prefinished flooring on the inside. Sorry upside down!

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From Left to right, drawer set, sink/water tanks, cooler on drawer slide.
Top cabinet will have a tambour door, niche on the right side is for a microwave (possibly). Yes, I made a mistake...pocket screws are a little exposed will fix soon. Nothing is glued yet so not much of an issue. Trying to figure out finishing scheme, I think I'll leave the ply natural, face frame stained, counter retro boomerang, and backsplash brushed aluminum.

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Inside cabinets will be painted white, 3 drawers on the bottom two cabinets on top. For the AC I have a question, does everyone pitch it 1/2" at the back per the instructions? I think it looks crooked so I don't want to. Still have a long way to go.

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Money is getting tight right now, so I'm planning on just finishing out the interior cabinets as much as possible. By the spring I hope to have them at the point where I just need to screw them to the deck.

David

[wysedav]

Did a little more tinkering down in the basement. Some progress but it seems like everything little task is only half done.

Tambour door on the cabinet, still needs a handle and finishing.

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Made some doors for the sink cabinet. Just placed in the hole for the picture still need hardware and finishing.

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[wysedav]

A few more pictures

Under sink cabinet with 10 gal tank, needs to be secures and plumbed. Not a lot of room in there!

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Drawer for the cooler. Will get a laminate top, still needs to attached to the side wall and finishing.

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Started fitting the AC cabinet. I'm thinking of adding a couple of louvers on the side of the AC unit to pull some cabin air through the condenser coil. Should add some load so maybe it won't freeze up/short cycle. Still need to make dividers for the condenser intake and exit, Looks pretty straighforward, just a lot of tinkering.

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Need to head to the store to buy some more stuff. I'm almost out of materials.

David

[KTM_Guy]

Looks nice so far. What kind of wood are your doors? I'm doing the same style doors.

Todd

[wysedav]

Thanks KTMGuY. Im pretty excited, it’s nice to see it progressing The wood for the cabinets is recycled cypress that I had leftover from a canoe build. It was originally some sort of huge pickling barrels, the staves were 16’x6”. It smells pretty bad when you cut it up.
Unfortunately I only have a little cypress left so I had two cut it into veneer and glue it on to plywood. Really happy with how that worked out. Bandsaw worked perfectly. About 10 thousandths drift on the 5 inch wide pieces of veneer just needed to hit it with some 60 grit on the ro sander.

David

[KTM_Guy]

That is what I thought. I know that pickle cypress smell very well. My brother had a boom truck and would do some side work for a wood reclaimer that would buy the huge pickle vats (16" deep and 20'+ round) that I think came out of Canada, and wooded water tanks that would site on top of building for firefighting. Those were straight gran old growth redwood. We probably put a mile or more of cypress though my planer.

My doors will be a boring compared to yours. I'm using scrap Baltic Birch for the stiles and rails. I like the look of finished sides of BB.

[wysedav]

That's funny that you've used the same wood, it smells bad the quality of the old wood can't be beat. Cypress is actually pretty unusual for around here in the Northeast. I built a strip kayak and a strip canoe from the Redwood staves, that's by far the best quality wood I've ever seen. Old growth like 40 rings/inch zero defects in 3" x 6" x 16' staves, the guy I get it from has pallets of it.

Anyways, here is a little update. I'm trying not to spend too much money so I'm using as much as I can from what I have laying around. With that in mind I'm building a plywood sink. I'm keeping it pretty simple with the bottom just pitched in one direction. I have left over fiberglass and epoxy from boat building so my plan is to use that to make it waterproof. I add black chalkline chalk to pigment the epoxy. It comes out so black you won't be able to see the wood at all.

Profile, has about a one inch slope/ft on the bottom.

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Top view showing where the drain will go. When installed, the sink will be rotated 180 so the drain will be on the right.

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This is how it fits in the cabinet, no wasted space here! Looking at it I can't see any reason why not to make a wood/fiberglass gray water tank. I think can probably get 4-5 gallons of gray water in the remaining space.

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[HarleyCamper]

Looking good!

[KCStudly]

Just some first thoughts on the wooden tank idea.

There are a couple of nice things about rotary molded plastic tanks. They are light weight in their construction and some are translucent; meaning that you can see their level w/o having to have a dipstick or external sight tube. A portable jug would have the advantage of being able to be carried off to dump.

Also, if it freezes where you are at, I think they would be somewhat resilient to expansion (although the fittings might not be so, and it would not be a good idea to push your luck with a full tank). I don't think fiberglass and wood would fare as well; might crack more easily and then rot.

The sink is a different story. I think that could give a reasonable service life if you don't ding it up too much. (My personal preference for a custom sink would be stainless steel, but I understand that is not an easy option for everyone.)

Either way, you are doing nice work!

[wysedav]

Started epoxying the tank, first I thought I'd show you my mixture setup. Basically it's a fancy balance beam, I have a digital scale but for smaller batches I don't think it's accurate enough. I tried pumps, didn't like it always seem to have partial pumps and easy to lose count risking a batch of epoxy. It's really hard to make a measuring mistake with the beam.

First I have to tare the measuring cup, there are counter weights on the left side of the beam for that purpose. Once you get a cup tared they are all essentially the same weight so you don't need to do it again. The next time I mix I just move the new cup a little until the beam in nicely balanced.

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Underneath the left side of the beam I have two hooks I hang the counter weight on the hook closest to the fulcrum, this lifts the cup. Then I add resin until the beam is back into balance. I can add or subtract weight to adjust how much I have to fill the cup with resin.

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In this picture I moved the weight to the furthest hook from the fulcrum. Then I add hardener until the beam come back into balance. Ratios are complete then I take the cup and mix it up. the location of the hooks are critical as it set the mixture ratio. You can adjust them however you want to match your epoxy ratio.

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[wysedav]

Here is the sink with fiberglass set in place ready to be epoxied. You can't really see it but the glass on the bottom comes up the sides about 1/2 inch.

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this is the epoxy with back chalk ready to be mixed. For something small like this I use a disposable brush, just dabbing it onto the glass to get it to saturate. When I do boats I use a squeege to get the excess resin out to keep the boat light.

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Here it is all wet out, once it gets to the green stage I'll trim the glass and scrape the misc. hairs in the resin. Then I'll add two more clear coats to fill the weave and get it nice and shiny.

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That's all for now.

David

[wysedav]

Oh forgot to say thanks to Harley.

Studly, your points are all valid. I doubt I'll have much to worry about with regards to freezing (camping preference). In my mind the biggest benefit to making my own tank is that I can use essentially 100% of the available space.