Kenskill style build in Delavan, WI (Now Cub Modern)

[Mr. Lahey]

Yes I will be moving toward dry fitting the hatch hinge. I want to get the hatch operational and start the gas lift support install. So I want to get a hatch weight, and see how high I'll have to lift it, for headroom under the low point. Then get my parts ordered and on the way.

One little interesting gaff with the hatch skinning. In my haste to skin the hatch I forgot one little thing. I forgot to remove or disable the hatch locking spring bolts. Once the hatch was skinned, I had no way to unlock the hatch from the outside. So I've managed to lock myself out of the hatch for the first time already.
Not a real big deal. I don't have the lower galley cabinet installed. So I can shimmy my way back to the latches, to release them from the inside.

[breb]

You know this is something I disgusted with the wife this morning and that's the sequence of things . I have the partitions for the inside of the cabinet cut. They could be glued and screwed in place but I sat down and she said what's on your mind and I said there is a sequence to this , I need to funnel wires back here and I need to drop them down from the roof and I also have wires coming up from the battery on the floor to the converter panel in these cabinets. For my build , I need routing holes that will allow for this and I can't really drill those out after I have those cabinets installed (finished). Yesterday it was the
converter panel itself. I had some bad info on the size of that unit and it wasn't going to fit the arrangement of my cabinet face frame. I thought to myself the dimensions I had, sounded big but that is what I had. It stalled me completely for the afternoon. I did some more searching on a dealer web site and came up with the correct size's . I still had to customize the face frame. It's finished and ready to install. I will do some lay out work tomorrow for those holes for the wire's and do the drilling for it. It's all been thought of before but when I'm in the middle of a segment of this project I loose sight of those details that have crossed my mind previously. Wow today the time I did get in also included fighting mosquitoes along with a hot and muggy garage. I pulled one of yours and brought out a box fan. It was blowing hot air on my back , don't know if I was anymore comfortable.

[Mr. Lahey]

You cracked me up with the "don't know if I was more comfortable" comment with the fan. I did use the word comfort in my post about the fans didn't I. Bearable might have been a more accurate word I think? Hey, it's summer and it's the only time we guys with no heat in the shop can work. I would much rather sweat and deal with mosquito's (got a ton of em here too) than freeze.

Got the shop down to "bearable" temps with the fans after work. Crawled into the galley area from inside the camper and clamped open the hatch lock bolts. Tossed a few screws into the hinge. Then freed the hatch from the side walls.

PRESTO....an operational hatch!! HIP HIP HOORAY!!!

First thing I did with the hatch open, was to take the locking spring bolts off!

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I've got the hatch propped up to provide about 6' 4" of headroom at the low point. Going to start figuring the gas struts from there and order the parts.
It opens and closes great. It shuts with a nice solid WHUMP when you close it. Like a nice solid car door sounds.

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[breb]

Hey it's all getting done. I'll tell you what tomorrow sounds like a green lite day for sure 76 and low humidity . I spent enough of those hot and humid day's in the last forty four years working for someone else , now it's on my terms That being said , I put in another full day in on it. The GF finish was taking longer to cure . Thought I could get a couple of coats on this afternoon but It didn't happen . To humid . My transitioning to the counter top is just around the corner. In fact I have to make a piece for the back splash and that is either going to be exposed or closed . I'm not sure if I'm going to have drawers or open down there. Like I said no print or plan. It develops as I go . If drawer's than birch ply if not I'll continue with some hardwood. Your hatch sounds like it's the fit your looking for . You have any photo's of all those pretzel like moves to get at it from inside.

[Mr. Lahey]

Well perfect weather or not. I'll miss a good chunk of today in the shop. Have to work today. So can't get out there till later this afternoon. Did you finally decide to retire? Or you still do a few hours here and there?

Worse news is I may go in a few extra hours this week. The whole reason for the job is to pay for the hobbies and extra's in life. Well with what I spent this past few days on the new big shop fan, new 20v driver drill, hatch struts and hardware, and some LED taillights....looks like I will have to pay the price chained to my computer and phone at work for a bit more.

Enjoy the good shop weather. Make good progress.

[breb]

I'm still looking at the end of the summer here to make my decision on that but there hasn't been anything to do on that account . I was texted yesterday to do a small job but it will have to wait a little longer,not enough to make the trip worth while. It help's out on my project also and thought I could run the job out another 12 months. The company I worked for and am doing the aftermarket components for now got bought again. Crazy world and it might account for the lag or lack of part time work at my end. Anyway the Teardrop has filled the time and I'm enjoying it. I had to make another run to the hardware store for pocket hole screw's , I usually buy a 100 count box but this time I grabbed the 500# hope that is one less trip I have to make down the road. I still need some material's and other components to finish out this build. I set myself up with a fund of about (50%) , well what i thought would be 50% before I started this and the rest as I go. I will have to dig into the kids inheritance. This morning there will be some sanding to do and screwing in some of those wall partitions for the upper cabinets. The face frame needs 2# more coats of finish before installing. I can make the door panels for those uppers since I know all the opening sizes. Lots to do

[Mr. Lahey]

Went in to work today and got 5 hours extra in for the week. Had to earn some extra, to offset the spend some extra, I've been doing lately.

Got started on the camper about 12:30 and kept at till 5:30. Got slowed down by detail work, and "design as you go" issues. Still got a good amount done. Spent a lot of the time cleaning up the lower rail of the hatch. When I skinned the hatch I really laid on the PL adhesive and staples on that lower rail. It's where the skin was really trying to pull away from the bending force. So there was a lot of oozed out dried adhesive and some misguided staples too. They were either on or in the way of the surface that my weatherstrip has to glue to. I also wanted to stiffen the lower edge of the skin. I was unsure if I was going to do that on the hatch surface, or if I could hide it on the back side but still stay clear of my weather strip channel. Once I had the area clear of stray adhesive and staples I figured a way to get the stiffener hid on the inside. So I got it glued and clamped along the whole bottom edge. I'm happy with how it worked.

Then I decided to try out the galley cabinet doors and their hardware. So I dry fit the hardware on the doors. Then hung the doors in their openings. I knew the doors were not final fit. Now I know just by how much. It's going to take another long session of getting personal with each one of them and the belt sander. So I'll scribe them to their openings now that their hung, take them off, and have at them with the sander again. Not one of my favorite jobs. Plus I'm going to need to bevel the hatch rail that is right above the hinges. It hits the hinges just enough when you try to close the hatch. I'll have to get at that rail with a 45 degree bevel bit in my router to clear that up.

I'm also going to have to add stiffeners to the back side of the doors. These are the doors that wanted to curl up. I've had them stacked flat with a heavy tool box on top of them for weeks. They are a whole lot flatter now, but still need the help of the stiffeners. So some more details to fuss with.

I wanted the galley to look like the bare bones early teardrops. I was shooting for that 1940's ididit myself from some Popular Mechanix magazine plans look.
So I used the big grain fir plywood and today's low buck hardware. The hinges are plastic marine hinges with stainless barrels. Very strong, and work real well for as low buck as they are. The slide bolts serve as travel locks and knobs for the doors.

Taking the day off tomorrow. Hopefully back at it Monday.

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[Jordan87]

Looking good. Seems like we're in a very similar spot. Going to be keeping an eye on how yours progresses.

Sent from my SM-J700T1 using Tapatalk

[breb]

Any clamps left in the state of Wisconsin. 20 minutes of gluing and clamping and a hours worth of scraping , chiseling and sanding the access oozed out glue. I know that one. As far as the staples pulling through , that's one I have to experiment on. I have that wide crown stapler and the staples are 1/2" x 1" . I had a conversation with the Woodbutcher on this form and he clued me to that wide crown stapler but encouraged me to try the 1/4" crown on the 1/8" ply to see what would happen . I think your project just confirmed that for me. I hate to get in the middle of a glue up and don't like the depth or the 1/4" staples or are shooting through the ply. I do believe in the combination of both glue and staple. I used pl 800 in one of my first glue up's which was the deck ply to the inner core and decided not to use it again. It was to stiff in it's application and to brittle as it cured. A lot less pliable and found it not to level out as much as i wanted. I actually ended up spreading it out with a notched troll to get it at a uniform height. Never used it again. I switched to PL 300. Well I decided on a laminate counter top and pick it out . This morning I picked up the hinges for the two cabinet door's I made yesterday and will set them up for mounting and than will give them one more finish coat. Oops I forgot this is your build journal

[Mr. Lahey]

There were exactly 4 clamps left in our entire fine state. Clamps had become so rare in WI due to my hoarding, that they held an auction for those last 4. I sent a straw bidder into that auction, and they bought them for me. I now own all the clamps.

No chance to work on the tear today. Mandatory house repairs put that on hold today. Plus it was a plumbing issue. Which makes it worse because that always comes with a mess to clean up. At least it was indoor work in the A/C. So could have been worse I guess. Got it squared away. So hopefully a full day on the tear tomorrow.

I did get a chance to take my entire clamp hoard off the hatch. The stiffener worked nice. EXCEPT...it drags a bit at the very bottom of the floor when closing. There would be no room to canvas cover the area for my PMF exterior skin. It would end up rubbing and wearing it's way through the canvas and let water into the plywood.

I just finished up the house repairs. Going to head out there now and try and plan tomorrow's approach to solve this. I'm 90% certain I can trim the hatch lip and get the clearance I need for the canvas, and eliminate the rub potential. However it's also one more detail to deal with and slow things down.

breb-How tight is your hatch curve going to be? Is your tear a Benroy style if I remember? If so, if you have a long part of ply before and after the curve high spot, you may not have any staple pull through trouble. If my hatch had another foot to two after the curve, I doubt I would have had a problem with the staples.

[breb]

I'll load these 2 photo's , not a really a good square shot of the galley profile but you get the idea. I don't have that reverse curve or full curve that you are dealing with . But like I said in a past post about the interior walls I had some almost blow through. I"m not sure if I can control that with the regulator and on that account I just found out that the regulator is hanging up not to sure what the problem is there but haven't used it in years. Not really a benroy and I do know what you mean about a mild curve or bend not having as much spring tension. My day was planned to be filled with a lot of teardrop work and I also got side lined with my truck cab rear window being replaced. What a fiasco that turned out to be. nuff said on that subject. later on I completed what I set out to accomplish today. The next 3 days I'm up cutting grass at cabin up north and then back and heading up further north for a weak long vacation with wife. So today was really my last shot at it for awhile and it's to bad cause I really feel like I have a lot of momentum going.

[Mr. Lahey]

Had to laugh. You suffer from the same teardrop mania as I. You know it's bad when you're a little disappointed to be going on vacation. That you are on a roll here, and just want to carry on. Same thing happens to me.

Seeing your campers profile I would not worry about staple pull through from spring back of the plywood bend. Looks to me like it should go just fine for you.

Had a good day today working out there. Last night I figured out how I was going to trim the bottom hatch lip to get it to stop rubbing and have room for the PMF top skin. Set up for the router with a straight cut bit in it. One zip across the width and it's all good. No rub and good clearance for the canvas too. I switched bits to a 1/2" 45 bevel and hit the top rail of the hatch. Worked great. The rail doesn't hit the cabinet hinges anymore. The hatch closes just fine again at top and bottom sides.

Spent the rest of the time final fitting the 3 galley cabinet doors to their openings. That went well and I'm satisfied with how it came out. Started rough sanding the whole galley area and wood filling it. I'll come back at it with a finish sand next time. Looking forward to staining/poly coating the galley soon.

[breb]

So how's the filling, sanding and finishing going? I got back early today and I'm filling some Knot holes in a piece of hickory. I'm using some epoxy and it's taking forever to setup. Hoping to get a few things done tomorrow before I leave for vacation. I'm already feeling the summer shoot by .

[Mr. Lahey]

Nope. No sanding filling for me today. Got my hatch gas lift struts and brackets yesterday. So I got out there after work today to try and fit them up. I think this going to happen in 1 shot! I used board member Noseoil's instructions, and it worked 98.79999% on the money!! Only adjustment from plotted install was to lower the strut mount point at hatch end aprox 1" from location plotted by his method. I set up for 6' 4" headroom at hatch low point, when laying it out. When I installed them I got 6' even at low point. This was another place where small changes made a big difference. By lowering that mount point 1" I got 6' 4" and a tad more head room. Done deal in my book.

So I'm off to the local box store to buy one of those fancy plastic wrapped oak boards they sell. No scraps of hardwood the right size around the shop. Then I'll fab the brackets in oak and attach to the hatch frame. I had made my test brackets out of plywood, and want the oak for better bite for the strut mount screws.

One incident of pure luck also. I was lucky enough that the strut mount bracket attached direct to galley wall with no spacers. One of the galley cabinet doors hinges at top and has to swing up past the mount and strut rod. It clears by the hair of it's chinny chin chin......Whew....that could have been a problem for sure.

Once again hats off to Noseoil for showing the way to get this strut install right the first time.

[noseoil]

Did you allow for the hardware offsets? Most important to have the type of hardware in the layout (with pivots) when the lines are lofted! The brackets can affect overall heights if they aren't allowed for in the offsets on a full scale drawing.

Glad it worked out, sounds like you will have a good hatch that works. Make sure to use strong fasteners. I used metal "T" nuts in my build & epoxy to pot them in place once they were located. Makes for a good strong hard-point that won't strip when things are tightened. There's a lot of force in the struts when opening & closing the hatch, so the brackets need to be mounted securely. Mine went in with 1/4" X 20 screws & bolts. They're still good.