Teardrop II Has Begun

As I'd mentioned in the previous blog post, the original Teardrop met with some tough times. You just can't store an RV or camper under a tarp and expect things to just go fine, especially through a snowy winter.

The snow wasn't the problem either, it's all straight-up moisture. Tarps will leak. As sure as the pope shitting in the woods, they will leak. Yet the problem is that they could stand to be less suffocating, actually. This sounds counter-intuitive, but there is solid reasoning here. All that moisture that does get underneath the tarp, and that includes underneath the camper, will begin to form its own atmosphere. Maybe we should call it more of a terrarium. Just like a dense, moist forest, nature too will render objects within to the earth again.

Except the metal parts, I saved those.

Here then is the photographic documentary of Teardrop II up to this point in time. We should just call this the Teardrop II restart megapost.

Stripped Frame

All wood and wiring remnants of the original teardrop have been removed. I then cleaned up any surface rust and blasted some Rustoleum on the frame. It really was pretty clean to start with.

Floor Construction

It's 1/2 inch plywood with some 1x2 inch pieces to create structure and space for the insulation, seen in the third photo. The second to last photo in this section is the 5x8 foot floor, face up, with insulation and roofing tar on the underside. The plastic is keeping it from gluing itself to the frame. The last photo shows the floor bolted to the frame.

Wall Construction

This section starts with a photo of the walls, made of 3/4 inch birch plywood, and the cut-out doors in the background. Tara is forefront in the second photo for scale.

Below, this is a mock-up of the sides, to allow for measurements and fitment purposes.

The walls go up, but then come back down for measurements and cut-outs we see below. The areas that are notched compensate for bolt heads and other areas that aren't flush with the sides of the frame. We also add roofing tar to the bottom areas of the inside of the walls, since they will be pressed against the trailer frame, but not truly sealed against weather.

Cabinet Building

Again, we build with 3/4 inch birch plywood. This is a fairly time consuming process, but includes both the galley and interior cabinets in one combined hunk of boards connected at (hopefully) neat right angles.

This is the cabin cabinet face below. The opening in the center is big enough to fit a modest laptop within, which allows for rainy night movie watching opportunities.

Below, we see the galley cabinet face in the foreground. It is attached to the counter-top, which is on the bottom here, and also the bulkhead, which is a solid piece. The cabin cabinet assembly is in the background. It includes the face and the bottom and rear portion of the cabinet.

The portion below is the galley assembly, with the top of the counter to the left. The backboard (of sorts) is being placed, happening at the top of the photo. The next photo is the same scenario, with the vertical sides of the sliding door portion of the upper galley going on.

Like voodoo, the two cabinet portions are assembled together. You screw and glue this together and let it dry like the desert, and then begin the install, covered in the next section.

Cabinet Assembly Install

The cabinet build is a lofty adventure in itself, but this step is technically challenging. You need to get the fit correct, otherwise you have a large cabinet assembly that's diving into the floor or slanted one direction or another. It will also affect later parts of the build in terms of the ceiling liner and roof.

Below, one wall has been installed, after having been mocked up, then removed. Now that it's permanently attached, we get the cabinet assembly in place and pencil mark the outline of the sides of the cabinet on the attached wall. The cabinet assembly must be moved away from the wall to drill pilot holes from the inside-out. The key to that is that you can then countersink your holes from the outside for the many screws. You do this with the other wall as well, so you'll be attaching that wall permanently at this time as well.

The photos with the Home Depot bucket propping the assembly up are of this stage of tracing the cabinet profile.

Below, both walls are attached and the cabinet assembly is propped in place.

The cabinet has been removed in the below photos. You can see the tracings of the cabinet on the teardrop walls.

This photo shows the countersinks on the outside surface of the wall. At this point, both inner walls have been traced for cabinet fitting, and the right side of the cabinet assembly can now be screwed and glued into the wall.

The cabinet assembly has now been permanently attached to both walls. There's no turning back now! Hopefully everything lines up at this point, which it did for us.

Spar Installation

This is a favorite part of a build for me, strangely enough. Perhaps it has something to do with neat uniformity of these little 1x2 inch horizontal sticks of pine. It's also satisfying that it adds more visual evidence of the final shape.

New Workshop!

Teardrop II is now in my garage for additional winter work. It was slightly harrowing pulling it home without tail or marker lights. I tried, but I had some wiring incompatibility with the light kit, adapter and hookup on my truck. I had a following vehicle to act as my tail lights, so there was no calamity. Hey, I had a license plate on it with a valid registration, so I was at 90%.

The garage has a kerosene heater and a boombox, so we should be able to wait out the winter with some productivity.

There is just simply put a lot of sanding these days. Progress seems slow, but you have to sand and polyurethane all these parts.

I'm building drawers for the galley for this teardrop. You'll see them in some of the photos below, along with Zombi the cat doing some QA.

I'm paying more attention to all the details for this build. Seams, extra coats of poly, a little bit of extra sanding. It's the full treatment.

Below, this is the electrical raceway going into the cabin. This will house wiring components as well as openings for receptacles, both inside and out. I'll build in a shore power outlet that enters into this raceway in the future.

The next two photos are of the raceway door in the cabin. I've installed two wiring boxes to house a 12-volt outlet and a 120 household receptacle. It's hinged for accessibility, but you shouldn't expect too much fiddling with this area.

I have to bring the megapost to an end. That's all the photos to date, so now all updates will be much more current, and much more concise. I actually have additional work that's not documented yet, so I'll snap some shots and upload soon.

[g]