Monday, December 5, 2011

THE STORY OF THE TEARDROP TRAILER - PT. 2

The day finally came the brothers had time to go back and work on the trailer. In this first picture you can see that they cut out the sides. It took a while to lay it out, but they finally picked a shape they wanted. After cutting out one side, they used it as a pattern and cut out the second side to match it exactly. After that, it was just a matter of screwing them together and sanding them to an exact match.

Next came the glue up of the floor. The trailer is 5 ft. wide so they cut two sheets of plywood, routed wood wafers every six inches on the joint and then glued and clamped them together until they were dry. There's a solid metal frame down the center of the trailer frame so the joint will be supported all the way down. In this photo you can see the floor in its unfinished state.

Once the floor was done, they fit it to the frame and sanded the joint and floor. This helped by smoothing out the floor and breaking the edges on the joints. It's also important because this is the surface you would stand on. After the sanding was completed, they took it into the spray room and sealed it. The bottom was sealed from moisture with asphalt emolsion and then bolted and glued to the frame.

They notched the back panels for the trunk and lid. Then they started standing the walls and adding the cross members. They have been building a set of cherry interior doors for a company in Las Vegas so all of the cross members have been cut from Cherry scrap. It's expensive to buy, but there's enough scrap to use here. At this point, it's starting to come together.

This is a close up of the ceiling framing. They 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. The whole construct is beginning to look like some of the pictures they found on the internet.

This is where they stopped for the day. As the trailer begins to take shape, they are getting more into it and should make some progress in the next couple of weeks. I'll post another update soon so you can read more about the building of the teardrop trailer. Be sure to check out other great products at www.goodwinmillandcabinet.com

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