Teardrop Trim, Wiring and More

I was on vacation last week, so there's been plenty of teardrop activities to discuss. This was a staycation with the direct purpose of accelerating the teardrop build. The tongue box is almost finally complete, it became a project just on its own.

It's now fully installed, with four mounting points on the metal frame rails. I had spent a bit of time looking for pre-fabricated boxes on the internet and couldn't find anything that met my specifications. I wanted a perfect spot to place the deep cycle battery, jacks, wheel chocks among other things.

This above is the interior of the tongue box, and a shot of the battery box in its mounted location. I've mounted it a bit off-center to allow for a small propane tank.

Above, the battery is in place with the battery box lid in place. I have a 20 amp main breaker in place above that for full system shutdown. I moved onto the cabin wiring again while I had the electrical tools in my tool belt. I wired in the 12-volt receptacle to the electrical raceway door, shown below, running wiring to the fuse box, ground bar and main bus bar.

In all its chrome glory, you see it below. It also works, which is always pretty fantastic.

To the left of the outlet in the photo above lives another receptacle slot that's designated for a household 110v receptacle tied to an inverter. I'm pushing that down the road a bit, I can only order so many parts at a time.

That brings me to the fenders that just came in from etrailer.com. Keeping with the accent motif, I'd ordered a pair of aluminum fenders in diamond plate.

Above is one fender on the workbench along with two side doors with a fresh coat of polyurethane on the inside surface. I sanded and cleaned up those surfaces earlier this week. The inside surfaces received two coats of poly, ultimately.

I had the fenders shipped in with the goal of installing them last week. Mission accomplished, as you can see below.

I had to pop the wheels off to install the fenders. I drilled five holes in the sides and mounted them directly to the walls of the teardrop with 3/4" screws. Note that I will be replacing the white wheels with alloy wheels and radial tires, which should fit the overall look better.

The next area to be tackled was the hatch weatherstrip, which is a trial and error endeavor. I settled on a solution for the hatch-to-side-wall interface that utilizes two different thicknesses of weatherstrip.

The space between the hatch door and the walls varies anywhere from 1/16" to 7/16", so I pulled some 5/16" and 7/16" foam weatherstrip off the rack from Home Depot. In the photo above, there are thicker sections upper and lower, with the skinny stuff in the middle. It works pretty well, even if it's not super attractive.

Back to the doors and trim. I'm working with 3/4" angle aluminum to fabricate outside trim for the side doors. I'm using a propane torch to heath the material and gradually bend it along the outer curved section of the side doors.

In the above photo, you see one of the old doors serving as a mold for the aluminum bending. I used the old doors so that there wouldn't be any heat damage to the paint while softening the aluminum. I did the bending while the door was vertically oriented in the workbench in order to provide downward pressure more easily. Heat, bend a small section, screw it down and repeat. While doing this, I drilled 1/8" holes in the aluminum butting against the door edges.

I'm currently working on the second door trim. Both will require some final trimming once they are mounted on the new doors. This may require some heat, but just a little. I think. Touch and go.

I'm on to the week after vacation, so time will be shorter. But I'm getting close to finishing, like you finish any project. You just hit a deadline, which is still nebulous, so I'm just steadfastly chipping along. Here's a photo to leave this post with me and the shop cat, Tommy.

-cheers

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

Full Coat and Some Accessories

Let's keep the paint rollers rolling! The Teardrop now has a full coat of the Fire Red polyurethane paint, including doors, hatch door and the body.

The sides require another coat (or two), but this is essentially cresting the wave of completion. I've completed the fan install and will begin installing the hatch shortly since the roof/front surface has received 2+ coats of paint.

Installed fan, silicone sealant around the bezel for waterproofing 

Interior fan trim piece, trimmed to size to snuggle up to the ceiling

Alright, what else? The new door handles and locks for the side and hatch doors came in yesterday. I'd ordered a full set via Amazon earlier this week. I'm also visualizing the utility/tongue box finishing. It's gotta be diamond plate. I'm looking at aesthetics here, so I don't need heavy duty sheets. This product from Home Depot looks pretty good.

A rainy weekend is upon us, so I'll get some more progress in for sure.

-cheers

Tongue box and body paint

That sounds a little dirty. Such is life when teardrop building. My last update was more than a month, let's catch up. I began building the custom tongue box for the front end. I also finally began painting the exterior.

 Tongue box main frame, 3/4" plywood

Bottom of utility tongue box 

Side panels installed, 1/4" plywood for weight 

Utility box mocked up on frame

Black Rustoleum in matte for the utility box

And then begins the paint. I went with red polyurethane paint to loosely match my Tacoma. The specific make is Interlux Brightside marine paint in Fire Red, available here and elsewhere. Check the photos below for the first coat.

Topside, Tara observes the first finish 

The hatch door gets the roller 

Front of the teardrop, hatch and one door first coat

This paint went on nicely with a roller. It should provide great resistance to environmental elements, but it's not cheap. My source had it for $36.95 for a quart. I just ordered a second quart, as I've nearly finished the first quart on the front and top skin and the hatch and door you see above. I think I'll do fine with two coats, after sanding with 320 grit on the first coat.

The next round of activity will be just that, along with installing the roof vent/fan, painting the sides of the body and so on.

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

Galley Trim and More Hatch Work

Ah Saturday, an actual real day off for most of us. I finished installing the hardware and mounted the galley doors.

I finished a few more sanding spots on the hatch and applied the ever-stinky EPS to the outside.

While I was working on the galley, I moved onto the last piece of trim that's been hanging out in the garage for a long time now. I had to do some trimming to the end of the piece below along with some trimming on the 2x2 spar that's at the top of the galley area.

Fits like a glove. I've got a coat of polyurethane drying on it now. Since I had a wet brush, I hit the spots in the cabin ceiling inside the cabinets. Minor oversight somewhere along the line. That's it for today, I think it's time to do an evening kayak paddle.

-g

Teardrop Hatch and Other Miscellany

Crack a cold one, the hatch is structurally done. One last 4' x 8' sheet of plywood bought and brought home. The last chance to miss a measurement and be forced to purchase another 4' x 8' sheet of plywood because you can't form a five-foot by four-something panel with scraps. Here's the Last Big Cut jig:

I'll oblige myself with a selfie and the finalized section of hatch skin:

The next two photos describe the attachment of the first edge. It's the upper edge of the hatch, in any case. All attachment points to the frame were countersunk and Gorilla glue was applied between the skin and the vertical spars.

The bend towards the bottom edge of the hatch gets a bit strenuous, so I used some bracing to pull it downward to button down the remainder.

Here is the finalized hatch:

I did a quick mock-up with the hatch and it looks like it fits pretty well. There will always be some bending and shaping, but it looks like I'm in good shape moving forward.

Since I was able to put a full day in working on the Teardrop, I hit a few more things. I added the last coat of polyurethane to the galley surfaces and installed knobs on the galley drawers, as seen in the photos below.

Due to the extended holiday that I arranged, I have two more days to put a good amount of work into the Teardrop. I'll slide the drawers in and do some more finishing on the hatch and see where else the hours take me.

-g