Cabin Doors, CPES and Some Hatch Work

Work continues on the cabin doors while Winter continues to hammer us with snow and cold temperatures. I'd expected to at least see some days in the 50s at this point in March, but I'm still blasting the propane heater for every teardrop session. I was anxious to see the 50s so that I could apply the CPES (Clear Penetrating Epoxy Sealer) with the garage open for ventilation. As Winter overstays its welcome, I've had to just plow through.

I've finished sanding and cleaning up edges and lines on both cabin doors, and you see one above with a coat of CPES. I had the garage door (the human version) open to at least balance temperature with ventilation. It's nasty stuff, but the Spring temps refuse to show.

With both doors coated with CPES, I used the remainder of the batch and applied it to areas of the hatch door above. I don't want to waste CPES, it's a bit expensive. The outer left and right ribs and adjacent surfaces got the attention, as well as parts of the two ribs inside those. Once that dried, the hatch door went back onto the teardrop with a  few temporary screws so that I could trim the bottom edge.

This was my final major trimming of the hatch door. The bottom edge, on the right side of the photo above, needed some trimming to normalize the gap between the door and floor when closed. The belt sander was a slow, but successful tool here. A couple hours of grinding away with the sander in that position is good for your arms and shoulders, right?

The hatch door made its way once again to the bench for more sanding and finally a motherlode of CPES. (I've been referring to it at EPS in more recent posts, I'll go back and fix that). I really overdid it. It's still in the 40s outside, and I opened the human garage door for ventilation, but the scent was still overpowering. I ended up with a headache after applying the CPES to such a large surface area. I woke up at 3AM with the headache as strong as ever and had to open the bedroom windows to the freezing air to solve this. I told you this stuff is nasty. I won't be doing another large treatment until Spring weather arrives. It's frustrating, since it's taking its time. I've got plenty to do in the meantime!

-g

Cabin Door Trimming

Ah yes, the cabin door struggle. They begin as just cutouts from the side walls of the teardrop, but there's much more to it than that. I estimate that you need about 1/2" space around the perimeter when they're sitting in the wall. You need to account for trim and some weatherstrip.

I've already trimmed the side doors down, as you would see in a previous post. Today, I mocked up the aluminum trim on one door and really needed another 1/8" trimmed off the two straight sides.

Above, you see the door resting in place with the trim mocked up. I used a belt sander for the trimming, but I might've used a saw if I'd known I needed to lop off this much. It's OK, I'm almost done with the second door's sanding.

After that, I'll pop off the aluminum trim, tidy up the window areas, do some finishing sanding and apply EPS to the entirety of the doors. Ok, maybe this won't all happen this weekend.

-g

Hatch and Galley Slider Doors Continued

March is here, and I wrapped up a few more tasks on the teardrop. It's all details now, it's just endless details that seem to spawn more details. Here's some details!

This was the hatch fit. The real-deal hatch fit, accomplished with actual screws once I'd dry-fit and trimmed and dry-fit and trimmed and... you get the idea. Just three screws to sanity-check the fit. I think the hatch door bowed out a bit, but it'll smash down when latched.

There will be some room in there for weather-proofing material once we're done. The key thing is that it's pretty "square". Here's an open look at the hatch door, tentatively attached.

I had to do some trimming of the upper edge of the hatch to deal with some oddities - the upper galley face for the sliding doors was a bit more aft than spec. Wood is nice in that you can adjust it with a belt sander.

That's the adjustment for clearance. This is where I recalled Mr. Miyagi's lessons: hatch on, hatch off, hatch on, hatch off... until I had the proper clearance. We move on to the galley sliding doors, which are now finished with several coat of polyurethane and pushed into place with the sliders screwed in.

The galley is structurally complete. There are some other details like power outlets, but that will come in time. I'll move on to the cabin doors now, whose fitment can be difficult. The hatch needs some wiring runs as well for the tail lights.

Until next time!

-g