I’m Mike, building my first teardrop. I am mostly following Tony Latham’s book, but it’s going to be part woody. I built a wood strip kayak a few years ago and plan to translate those techniques. If you’re familiar with the cover of Matt Berger’s book, you’ll see kinda what I have in mind…the exterior sidewalls will be aluminum sheathing on the bottom, and fiberglassed wood strips on the top half. I plan the whole hatch to be a wood strip design. Still don’t know about the roof exterior….but I know I can avoid a lot of upkeep if I don’t go with wood up top.
I have already built the sidewalls, finished the interior side, and am now stripping. I couldn’t find any 1/8” Baltic birch anywhere around here, so the interior walls are poplar ply. I found a shop in Houston that gets the 1/8” in, and hope to find 10 sheets or so to do the headliner and roof and make a trip over next month. I plan to build the cabin first and then the chassis later (though I’m not a welder).
So far I’ve studied the build journals of and GarthB and JoeGrz. I am really grateful to have tnttt as a resource, though I haven’t become very adept at figuring out how to fully use the site (for instance, can I find all the build journals that followed Tony’s plan?). Although I have done several smaller projects before, this will be the biggest both in terms of complexity and cost. I don’t worry about the structural part of the cabin so much, but I sure hope the appearance doesn’t end up looking amateurish….hoping you all can help me through the inevitable rough spots!