Teardrops n Tiny Travel Trailers

I promise to post pics this weekend. Nothing to show but a trailer frame yet. But I was hoping for some opinions so I can go to the lumberyard tomorrow.

I'm building a tin-top woody and need to get my sides before I cut my floor to size. I (and more importantly, the wife) would like a darker colored body with lighter trim wood. Mahogany would be great, but I'm not sure I want to shell out the money on this first tear. My other choice was oak, but thought someone mentioned having some kind of trouble with the grain. Anything else would have to be stained, like Baltic birch or poplar. But they are a little more in budget.

So, any opinions? This will only be 1/4" sheets since I'm doing sandwich construction.

I personally love the grain showing on Oak. Do what pleases your eye and the eye of the wife. You can stain pine, oak or birch if you do it carefully and get a good result. I am terrible at it so that is as far as my advice goes.

GitRdun

BK...I've built 2 woodies using mohagany...I liked the color of it and it takes epoxy on really well. Whatever wood you use, you ought to spend the dough and get what you really want. It's a lot of work to end up with something that you wish you had done differently, and that is your biggest show on the woody. Baltic birch won't dye up and really look as nice as a good sheet of hardwood ply. It sort of ends up looking blotchy...just not a corner to cut in my opinion...Doug

I used birch with an english chestnut stain for the dark part and unstained oak for the trim. The stain was put on light and lets the grain show nicely.

Get a small piece of luan mahogany and put a light cherry stain on it and poly it I think you'll like the look. With the contrast of a light trim like a clear coated poplar or such it should be a head turner.

If you're doing sandwich, the skins can just be 1/8".

And the cool thing about what you're doing is that by using additional thin skins, you can get your color perfect before committing to it forever by attaching.

Spend 20 bucks on a skin, and I guarantee you if you don't like the way it finished out off the tear and on sawhorses, you'll have NO problem trashing it and buying a new skin to try again.

That 20 bucks is NOTHING in the scheme of things as far as getting it to look exactly as it looks.

Thanks all.

As you might have noticed, I've been lurking and gathering info for a long time. Doug and Leon's tears played a big part in me choosing a woody. (ok, that's what the wife wants,too.)

Bob, I hate to sound ignorant here, but all luan is a type of mahogany, right? I have a piece right now that I'm going to use as a template. I may experiment with that.

Any other opinions welcome!

Brian

I went with oak for the sides and birch for the top.................the two easiest to find in my area.



The cool thing is there are so many ways to finsih your teardrop.

Barb

Bk ,I built a sandwich wall. for the grain you can laminate cheap door skin venereers as i did. Set them about 30 deg. angle. you can pick and choose the grain you like,besides only about $7.00 apiece.I just used a natural stain to POP the grain. Hope this helps

I skinned in Red Oak, could have done a better job matching the grain than I did. I liked the oak, thought it gave it the "vintage" look I was going for.

I used Luan for the sides. If you are using epoxy you should know that each coat will darken the wood. Here's a before and after shot of mine.





No stain. Just 4 coats of epoxy.

What wood for a woody???? Oohhhh...I don't know...maybe oak, ash, red cedar, yellow cedar, purple heart...whatever you have laying around

Dave,

Very inspiring picture

Fantastic work Dave!!! Doug

I personally prefer floating sealed veneered skins myself. After Hurricane Wilma hit us and rolled my new build across the yard. It was just as easy to remove the old (new) damaged skins and apply replacement skins and continue the build. It was easier to to do that than start over trust me. Since the skins took the brunt of the storm damage. Alot is to be said of plywood box construction strength and integrity cosidering the teardrop overall design also. They are pretty tough to destroy apparently. It also works if you ever decide to change the look down the road or some form of damage should occur