Hurricane Hinge, Fire and Diamond Plate

Sorry for the incendiary title. I'm really nailing some things down these days, as I follow directly from that last blog post a few days ago. The lock set has arrived, I bought all the diamond plate that Home Depot had and another coat of Fire Red poly paint went on the sides.

Hurricane Hinge holding the hatch

First, however, I'll get to the topic of the hatch door to body hinge. Known as the Hurricane Hinge, it's a bit of a must have for teardrop construction. It's available on Amazon, from the same company that produces the door handles I'd also purchased. The key to the hinge is that it rolls over into itself, preventing water from flowing down into the hinge apparatus. Above, it's been permanently screwed to the roof, along with silicone sealant below.

Diamond plate and Fire Red paint are snappy together

Above, we have the custom tongue box with aluminum diamond plate sheeting on the sides. I used .025" thickness, since it's not providing structural rigidity. I applied Gorilla Glue construction glue between the box walls and the sheets and then riveted it on in several places. The lid is soon to come, after moving to other areas.

Onto the galley, where the hatch door now permanently hovers over, as I've said earlier. An interesting thing happened once the door was fully installed. The sliding doors in the galley were jammed. It looks like the 2x2" crossbar just underneath the hinge and above the sliders became less bowed. I had to pop the top face of the galley and trim the edges of the doors slightly. Fortunately, I designed the top face and slider assembly to be removable.

Hatch door locking mechanism

I also adjusted the drawer faces for better fit while I was in the neighborhood. They weren't quite straight with one-another. This was an appropriate time to install the hatch door handle and striker. This was a bit delicate. Install the handle and latch plate first, and then the goal is to determine where you want the hatch door to rest in "closed" position, and get that spot marked for the striker.

Hatch door handle all shiny and chrome

Looking at the above photo, I need to install a bumper, trim and weatherstrip around the hatch door. Another major task arriving soon is fitting the side doors and installing their windows, handles, locks and trim/weatherstrip. Still plenty to keep me busy!

-cheers

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

Teardrop Tuesdays

Tuesday, and Monday, for that matter, are good nights to work on the teardrop camper. Two good nights alone, on otherwise uninhabited evenings after work. I continued to work on the galley sliding door situation. I finished sanding both doors and applied a coat of polyurethane to both outside faces.

While the first coat is drying on both, I countersunk holes in the bottom track.

I did these every six inches, alternating on the troughs. None of this is too exciting, but teardrop work was cut short by my day job doing network admin for some crisis. It wasn't the network, as we say in the industry, but you always have to prove it.

While the polyurethane "proves" itself, I ruminate on the next steps. A few more coats of poly on the doors, and it's inevitable to dry-fit the hatch door to check for fitment. March, you haven't stolen the show yet!

-g

Teardrop Galley Work

As February finds its way nearly out the door, I'm continuing on the galley tasks. The hatch door is resting for now with the hinge installed, as you see in my last post. I've since received the slider tracks in the mail.

Above we see the slider tracks. They were of nice quality, straight and well machined. I cut down both to size and applied polyurethane to the sides and just the top surfaces of the ridges. I didn't want to apply any to the troughs where the doors will slide, to avoid stickiness. Instead, I'll apply wax to those areas. The track with the deeper troughs is the lower track.

The upper galley face floats, in a sense, as it's attached only at each side. The tracks are also deeper tan the 3/4" depth of the face, so I places a 1x2" board behind for support of both scenarios.

Above we see the upper galley face and the bare white 1x2" glued and screwed to the left of it. I later applied polyurethane to that as well. To mount the upper track to this assembly, I ultimately went with short brass screws. I countersunk holes into the track with the smallest countersink bit I had.

I think glued and screwed the track above to the assembly. Below is a short video where I examine the different sides of the assembled unit.

Right, so then we move onto the sliding doors. I found my best piece of scrap 1/4" birch plywood and cut the doors. I made them 27 1/2" wide and around 13" tall. The tallness depends on the build. My upper galley measured out a little bit different than plans. To deal with this, I measured and fine tuned with the upper track in place and the lower just resting in place. The doors and tracks will all go in place at the same time.

The two doors above were cut with a circular saw on the short sides and with a table saw on the long sides. I used a hole saw for the finger holes. Below is the left side door, mostly finished with sanding.

I'll finish the two doors up and mount in association with the lower track this week, I'm confident. I'll shoot for a March 1st deadline, that sounds good to the ear. It's good to see March arriving, but it's also not without good, unexpected progress for this year so far.

-g