Welcome To
Teardrop Thoughts...

January 25, 1999

Now that I had the shape, and a basic idea of what the galley, closet and the storage cabinet over the bed would look like, it was time to decide on the construction method. I had read and reread every set of plans that I could lay my hands on, so now it was off to the lumber yards and hardware stores to see what type of materials were available. Since I would be building a trailer that didn't utilize standard 4' X 8' sheets of plywood, I began to obtain estimates for oversize sheets. After visiting several lumber yards and deciding that I really didn't want to take out a mortgage on the house or sell one of the kids, I quickly gave up on that idea! Specialized plywood IS NOT INEXPENSIVE! So, playing on the computer, working to scale with 4' X 8' sheets of plywood, I turned, cut and tried various sized panel panel pieces until I came up with a workable design. I decided to have the joints for the outside plywood fall over inner frame members. This would make it easier to seal and I would have solid sheets from top to bottom. Seeing as the trailer was going to be a "woody", I also planned to cover the plywood seams with an overlapping trim piece in a contrasting color.

O.K. I had the outside covering figured out, now I had to decide how I was going to build the body frame. I live in Colorado, at about 5,100 feet elevation. I enjoy the out of doors year round so insulation was definitely a must. With this in mind, I knew that the walls, floors and ceiling needed to have hollow spaces that would accommodate the insulation. This pretty well left out plywood walls as I would have to glue two panels together to get the thickness that I wanted [one inch] and then cut out sections for the insulation. I contemplated steel and aluminum, but quickly gave up on that thought after talking to several people who had steel framed trailers and lamented over leakage problems. In the older home hobby magazines, I had read quite a few articles about laminating thin strips of wood together to obtain desired shapes and thickness. Figuring that this trailer might be once in a lifetime project of it's type, I said "Why not?" and decided that this was the way that I was going to go.

Off to the library I went in search of books on the subject. Let's see... What type of glue to use. Epoxy can be difficult to work with, it needs a fairly constant temperature to cure and I have an unheated garage/shop. Reading about all of the alternatives, I decided to use good old Elmer's Professional Exterior glue. Easy to work with, cleans up with warm water, sands well. Clamps. I was going to need a LOT of clamps. Poking around, I found a super deal on some 4" and 6" clamps at a local hardware store. I bought all that they had. The lady kind of looked at me strange... They were such a good deal, I decided to go back and get some more several weeks later. Would you believe that they had DOUBLED the price?! So I decided to just use what I had.

Knowing the height, width and contour of the trailer. I once again turned to my computer and drew up the plans so that I could figure out the radius points. Working with a scale of 1/4" = 4", I drew up the side plans and printed them out so that I had quick reference to them in the shop. My one foot chalk squares were still on the garage floor, so I transferred the shape from my plans to the floor in chalk. I used everything from string to molding to make those large curves. One of them needed a seven foot radius!. Once the side outline was created, I took several large cardboard bicycle boxes and taped them together to make a full size template. I transferred the one foot squares to the cardboard for easy reference. I now had a full size "mockup" of the trailer silhouette. You can believe me that I looked at it from all angles, set it up behind the van to see how it would look and even set it on my utility trailer to check it out with wheels. It sure is easier to change a cardboard template rather than a completed trailer...

Now that the easy part was done, I started work on building the jig that I would use to clamp the work in while the glue set up. The jig ended up being 13 foot long by 6 foot wide. I set it up on four sawhorses and two jack stands. I was in it for the long haul now as I had taken up my main work area in the garage. Using the cut off portions of my cardboard template with the reference marks at one foot intervals, I cut 2"X4"'s into 6" lengths. I spaced these at one foot intervals around the outline of the template. I marked these blocks with the letters A to Z. Transferring the outline to the blocks of wood, I bandsawed them in half, making sure that each half had matching letters on them. I then mounted the OUTER half of the blocks to the top of my table with glue and screws. I now had a perfect outline of the trailer surrounded by wooden blocks. The second half of the blocks would be used as wedges to clamp the strips of wood in place while the glue set.

I had decided that I was going to use standard two by fours as the source for my strips. They are relatively inexpensive, easy to transport and can be purchased almost anywhere. Boy was I in for a surprise! Knowing that the tightest radius on the out line was 12", I began to experiment with the thickness of the strips. I used a table saw to rip the strips into the desired thickness. I finally ended up with 1/8" strips. They would take the 12" bend without splitting. Now that I knew what I needed to work with, I began work in earnest. Wax paper was placed between the table, mounting blocks and the strips to keep the strips from becoming glued to the jig. Each strip was glued and clamped in place for a minimum of 30 minutes, usually longer. After this time, I could leave several clamps in place and move around the table to the next strip. I varied the strips between 4' and 5' lengths. I trimmed the ends of each connecting strip to one another to insure a tight fit. I was also careful to stagger the strips so that the joints were randomly scattered throughout the frame.

I started gluing up strips in July of 1997. It took me until February of 1998 to laminate both outside frame members. Doing a few calculations, the distance around the frame is 25'. The thickness of the frame is 1". At 1/8" per strip, it took 8 strips to build up to the desired 1" thickness. If you do the figures, it took 400' of 1/8" strips to construct both side frames. It wasn't too bad of a job ripping the 2X4's into 1/8" strips as I cut them as I needed them. The biggest challenge was finding wood clear enough. Most of the wood that is available is second and third growth. It usually has been cut too early and dried too fast. This is turn causes the wood to warp and split easily. I narrowed down my supplier to Home Depot as their wood seemed to have the fewest flaws. Bear in mind that I still rejected about 19 out of 20 pieces. After each side was completed, I used a 7" disc grinder with a worn disc in it to smooth out the sides. A lot of time, but all in all, I was quite pleased with the final results.

To be continued...

Please return often and share my teardrop construction journey...

Click for a larger image