joshua keroes

The teardrop won’t be happening this year. I could possibly get it on the road but I’d end up cutting more corners than I want to. Fact is, I’m still waiting on mailorder deliveries. The portholes haven’t been delivered yet and I haven’t even ordered the galley hinge.

Instead of rushing and making more mistakes than I have to we’re going to push back the completion date as much as we need to.

Plan B for camping this year is an 18′ dome. We’ll put our tents in it which will reduce sun and dust exposure. Even with the tents in the dome, there will be a nice sheltered area in front of them for hanging out, getting dressed; that sort of thing.

Manda and Karissa really know how to glue and screw.

Took the trailer out for a spin. Hit the potholes on my street at a good clip; everything settled down after a bounce or two. Took the highway at 65 over to Lowes for more plywood. They didn’t have much in the way of 1/8″ and 1/4″ sheets so I went over to Home Depot. Much better selection. Still lacking in what I need. I’ll try Mr. Plywood tomorrow. After that, we can put the sides on and have what should look like a teardrop!

Karissa grabbed the sander and went to town. She sanded all of the outside visible edges on the kitchen cabinet. Took the door hardware off and sanded the doors, too. When that was done, she grabbed a paint brush and primered the lot.

While she was busy, I drilled holes through the deck and chassis for carriage bolts. After tightening everything up, I realized that I should have laid down a bead of caulk between the layers. Out came the bolts, recaulked everything, and rebolted things, too. 10 minutes with an angle grinder and the bolt excess was trimmed away. Primered and painted them.

The trailer is now ready to make its maiden voyage, out to pick up more plywood and veneer.

Choices, choices. Behind door number one we have custom cabinetry: perfect and beautiful. Door two has pre-owned cabinetry, recycled from houses being torn down.

On one hand, I could build all the cabinets and they’d fit like a laser-cut jigsaw puzzle. On the other, I could get cabinets that mostly fit, are already built, and move on to other tasks. Oh, and cheap.

I sat down, figured out how much space is available, how big a Yeti Roughneck cooler we wanted (60 qts), and went to The ReBuilding Center to look for cabinets. The ReBuilding Center is massive. They had five long double-sided rows of cabinets. Cabinets for the kitchen, vanities for the bathroom, entertainment consoles for the living room, and 16-18 piece wall units for, um, places with a long of wall space.

I took home a matching double and single cabinet. These will be stacked on one another at the front of the trailer and used for clothing. They’re narrow enough that I can install a horizontal pole next to them which will be our closet. An elastic cord or two will hole the hanging clothes in check while we travel and sleep.

For the kitchen, we have what used to be an entertainment hutch or part of a desk. The cooler will slide sideways into the void. This cabinet is within an inch of the ideal width. (The picture is sideways but that’s to show its final orientation.)

All three cabinets? $20.

Check the old posts out – I got one of Nikon’s proprietary camera cords (what, they couldn’t make do with any of the four standard USB plugs and had to make their own?) and added the pictures I’ve been taking up until now.

That’s our timeline until we leave for Burning Man. (the Man burns five days later) Will we make it? Will we have to resort to sleeping in the car? Stay tuned!

The plans have a template for the side profile. A teardrop has to look like a teardrop, after all. I put the 10′ sheet of plywood on sawhorses and played Battleship with the edge coordinates. About 20 points later, I used a pliable dowel and some heavy weights (in my case, half-full cans of paint), to connect the dots. Cut, sanded.

Karissa and I played Towers of Hanoi to put the next sheet of plywood under the first. Traced, cut, sanded. Kinda hard to see from this perspective, but they’re pretty heavy. You’ll get a better picture when they’re vertical.

Stats for today: three torn sander belts.

Built the subfloor over two days. This is a rectangle of 2x2s (ripped 2x4s) with additional 2×2 cross-braces. The subfloor is 10′x4′ and sheets of plywood are only 8′ long. Under the subfloor, there’s a single 2×4 to handle the gap and shorty plywood.

Painted two coats of green wood preservative on the bottom and sides so the road splatter doesn’t rot it out from underneath.

It will be bolted through the chassis. Here’s a pic with it resting on top:

Welded on the safety chain stays. Need to have chains on your trailer – it’s one of those Good Laws.

Primered and painted the chain stays and the rest of the tongue. Touched up some other spots, too. All that primering and painting takes a long time while it dries. The chassis would have been done a week ago if not for the drying.