Teardrop trailer construction 5

We made a little progress today and things are starting to look up. The doors were refinished and mounted. They look much better but we are still not happy with them and we may rebuild them either with Lyptus or we may just make maple doors so the countertop contrasts with the cabinets. If we do that I think it will be after the rest of the trailer is finished. We are starting to build in the cabinet partitions as you can tell from these pictures. The open cabinet will be drawers. We have the fronts done but not the drawer boxes.

The cabinet frame is mounted and the partitions are in place. These cabinets will have a flat panel door that is black. The panels will have the same herring bone paneling that the walls have. It should be a nice accent. All of the casing around the door will also be black and there will be a shallow shelf on the other wall that will be black also.

Here is a picture of the panneling installed on the side wall. You might wonder what happened to the door that was cut into the side. Well we put the plywood back into the opening and screwed it in place so that we could install the wood tiles over the top of the door. That way when we cut the door out this week all the tiles will match up on the door. We think the paneling is turning out awsome.

Teardrop trailer construction 4

While I was up North this week Kent began the
install of the cabinets and paneling in the teardrop trailer. I mentioned before that we were using scrap materials for this construction. You will see here that we made the countertops out of waste maple and lyptus wood creating a checker board pattern in the countertop and the doors. The doors are made out of maple and cherrywood because we didn't have enough lyptus to do them also. The contrast is not as great but the cherry will darken over the next few years and the contrast should become similar. We are not entirely happy with it right now and have some ideas on adjusting the finish to make it look better. I might mention that the center upper door is actually the size of a chess board. If you are so inclined it can be taken down for a good ole chess (checkers) match.


This is a view of the little under mount sink we are putting in. We will eventually have running water that is heated. This will make cooking and clean up a lot easier. The other object you see cut into the backsplash in the first picture is the power converter that will change 110 volts to 12 volts DC for the operation of lights etc. The opening in the middle of the base cabinets is for a little stove that has gas burners on the top and a little oven in the front.

This picture is taken from the inside of the sleeping compartment. You can see the back of the power converter sticking through the back of the backsplash. This space will become the electrical chase for panels and wiring. A face frame will attach to the front of the black shelf hiding all of the electrical and giving us easy access. We think we have the electrical figured out but hope our electrically inclined relatives will check it over and make sure. You can also see in this picture that we changed the interior paneling to a wood tile pattern. this makes it easier to use scrap material. Kent distressed the tiles and finished it in a cinammon sugar glaze.

This picture shows the black face frame that will go on the bedroom side. The doors will be a black glaze with rubbed burnished edges. It is a nice accent with the Cinammon sugar finish. We have some dividers and electrical chases to install and then the frame will be fastened into place.

Teardrop trailer construction 3

Today we finished the framing of the main compartment. We are installing tongue and groove paneling in the interior so we added a little more backing in the framing. The paneling will be glued and nailed to the verticle members.

Here is a view from the doorway looking up at the ceiling framing that was completed back to the rear hatch.

This is the first addition of the paneling. This happens to be a structural member that divides the sleeping compartment fron the galley. This paneling is screwed through the floor and sides to make the walls strong and plumb.

We built all the face frames for the cabinets and will have them finished by the end of the day. We will not get them installed today unless I make a trip back to the shop after they are dry.

Other items we started on today are the side doors and the countertop for the galley.

Teardrop trailer construction 2

We finally had a day to go back to work on the trailer. In this first picture you can see that we cut out the sides. It took a little while to lay it out but we finall y decided on the shape we wanted. After cutting one side we used the original as the pattern and cut out the second one. After that it was a matter of screwing them together to sand them to an exact

match.

Next came the glue up of the floor. Our trailer is 5 ft wide so we cut two sheets of plywood, routed wood wafers every six inches on the joint and then glued and clamped them together until dry. We have a solid metal frame down the center of our trailer frame so this joint will be supported all the way.

Once the floor was done we fit it to the frame and sanded the joint and floor. We then took it into the spray room and sealed it. The bottom was sealed from moisture with asphalt emolsion and them bolted and glued to the frame.

We knotched the back panels for the trunk lid and started standing the walls and adding the cross members. We have been building a set of cherry interior doors for a company in Las Vegas so all of our cross members have been cut out of cherry scrap. Pretty costly to buy but more scrap than we will use. It is actually coming together pretty well. It even looks like some of the pictures.

This is a close up of the ceiling framing. We have framed an opening for the motorized vent. These trailers are air tight when they are done so you have to be able to open a window and get a little air movement. Each framing member is screwed and glued together for strength.

This is where we stopped for the day. As it begins to take shape we are getting more into it and should make some good progress in the next couple of weeks.

Teardrop trailer construction 1

Our teardrop trailer construction was started on March 15th 2008. My brother and I have searched the internet to find all we can about these little travel trailers. I have seen them for years on the road and thought they were the stupidest idea for a trailer ever. How did they get all that stuff through those tiny doors? I didn't realize that it was a sleeping trailer with a lift up hatch in the back that revealed a small kichenette for camping. A traveling bedroom for two that you can hook up to a car if you want and take off. They were popular after World War II and many were made out of materials salvaged from military vehicles and airplanes. Wow what a neat idea that has re-invented itself in our day to become a rising fad.
We have decided to build a Benroy model similar to this picture . It seems to fit our purposes the most. This picture was taken off the internet for a sample. We may build and sell ours so we have the resources to build a more elaborate model as a keeper. We have an extensive background in commercial and residential construction as well as owning and running our own custom cabinet shop. We should be able to do this.

We have toyed with building a woody similar to the one shown here on the left. Having a cabinet shop would almost make this a must. We spray a considerable amount of auto lacquer on exterior doors. We were thinking that we could finish it up pretty nice with auto lacquer and actually give it a good wax job occassionally to repel water. Anyway don't be surprised if we end up with a woody.

Phase 1-The first thing we are going to do is build the trailer frame. We have old lumber racks that have not been used for a while and a left over truck rack that can be cut up. We are going to salvage this material to build the frame.

We have several spare tires and wheels from cabinet trailers that we were going to throw away until we decided to build the trailer. We may get through this first phase without having to purchase very much. Kent (My brother) and I cut up the scrap and laid out the frame on the floor of our shop. We used pipe clamps to hold it together to insure it all fit correctly. To a degree the design was created based on the available size of the material. This is what it looked like after welding it all together.

We ordered 2000 lb rubber torsion 1/2 axels and hubs from Northern tool. We learned a lesson about start angles. I didn't know the difference between a 7" start angle and a 3". I selected the 7" and found out the frame now sits 4" higher off the ground than I wanted. We were going to exchange them but decided the extra clearance might be good for some of the back country roads around here. There is also the possibility of building a storage box into the floor.
Did I mention that we don't know how to weld. We do have a couple of really good welders that work for us. It looks like they are willing to help out during slow times at the shop. We may even get a lesson or two.

We are painting the trailer frame. We sanded it down and primed it. There was a bit of rust on the metal when we salvaged it. Not much and it sanded off easily. We used rust preventive black paint for the frame. it is amazing how much better the frame looks with a couple coats of black paint on it. Kent had a can of Aluminum chrome paint so we sanded and painted the wheels. Not custom chrome wheels but better looking than they were before.

When we

mounted the wheels on the frame it almost looked like it could end up being a pretty good trailer. A few more items to mount on the trailer and we will be ready for the floor. We need safety chains for towing and a trailer jack for leveling the trailer when it is un-hooked and parked.