Steve & Cynthia's Teardrop

[S. Heisley]

It's lookin' good already! Keep going! We're watching.

[PSBreen]

Slow day, IE I goofed off a bit . We managed to get the foam cut and placed in the walls. If our scale is to be believed we gained a whopping 0.3 lbs. That puts our walls plus foam at 30.8 lbs. The skins weigh 10.8 each before trimming. So maybe 53 lbs once we glue the skins on. I'm betting it'll be closer to 50 lbs. A solid wall with skins should be around 80 lbs. The target was to lose 50% of the weight, looks like we'll be a little short.

[PSBreen]

Short depressing day. Got the exterior skins cut and decided to attach them, that's where the trouble started. I'm using liquid nails since I had 2 standard size tubes I figured it would be enough for one side including the foam. That was the first mistake, it only covered about 3/4 of the side. The second was thinking I could make it to the store and back in the 10 minutes I had left of the 20 minute working time. Didn't happen. Oh well scraped as much as we could off the wall, calling it quits for tonight. We'll see if it's salvageable in the morning. If not, at least I have the template and can make a new one. Probably be good practice anyway.

[PSBreen]

Things have been a little slow the last few weeks. Only working on it on days off and weekends.

We now have the inner and outer skins on both walls. We'd glue and clamp a skin on and let it sit overnight for a good bond. That only took 4 days, 1 day per skin . Lessons learned: 1. Buy as many clamps as you can afford. You can never have too many. 2. If you plan to glue and stack you walls, get clamps at least 1" bigger than the thickness of two walls so you can place something under them to spread the load.

Good news on the walls. Total weight for a wall & door (no hardware) is 50 lbs (49.7). If I had been a little more aggressive at removing material we may have gotten it down a little more. Still not bad though.

We were originally shooting for a trailer under 750 lbs (no registration required) that's not looking too good at the moment. The weight so far is, rolling frame (350 lbs) + 2 walls (100 lbs) + floor (75 lbs) = 525 lbs. That only leaves us 225 for roof, cabinets and hardware. It might be possible, only time will tell.

[PSBreen]

Slow weekend but a little progress. I managed to get the door spacer/sealing rings done and cut the floor pieces out. I even got in a little day dreaming. I stood one of the walls up on the floor to see how it fit. It certainly looks nice from where I'm standing :):)

[Martiangod]

No fair havin a garage to work in...lol
Looks good in the snow

[aggie79]

Looking good Steve,

It's a lot more work, but I believe you'll like the insulated sidewalls.

Take care,
Tom

[S. Heisley]

Now it's even easier to see your vision become a reality! I'll bet that was a good feeling.

[Forrest747]

I agree i was hoping for under 750 myself, however that is not going to happen. looking good definatly a race betweeen us here in Utah. Hopefully the good weatehr will keep.

[PSBreen]

The evil black goo is kicking my butt. I applied it to the floor last Wednesday and it's still not dry. It's finally to the point where I only get black specks now instead of solid black. The weather certainly isn't heping as it's been pretty humid. I guess I'll have to think about heating the garage a few nights this week to see if that helps. I really don't want to think about scraping it off.

[PSBreen]

Wow! I know things have been a little hectic around our house but has it really been that long since we posted anything? Well at least we have a little progress to show this time. The walls are on the floor and the spars are in. The varnish on the back wall should be dry in a bit so we can install it tonight. It's finally starting to look like a trailer. We're hoping to slide the cab onto the frame this weekend so we can start on the cabinets.

[Forrest747]

Looks great.

[PSBreen]

It'll look alot better once the wheels are under it. Been working on it a little bit at a time. Looks like we missed our Memorial Day 2012 completion date though.

[Forrest747]

Its all good I missed my labor day 2009 deadline.

[S. Heisley]

I've decided that teardrops and tiny travel trailers have minds of their own. When you start building, the trailer shows you that.
Teardroppin' doesn't agree with deadlines. If you set one, it breaks it. You're on teardrop time! You'll get'er done when "it" wants you to.
...Isn't that why we name these sweet beasts?