Teardrops n Tiny Travel Trailers

15. Now I apply the sizing to the corner. Again to make for a nice clean cut later. To help hold the canvas in place in the corners I applied push pins to the extra canvas on the opposite walls. The secret here is to allow a bit of extra canvas to lift up between the corner and the push pin. That way it will apply positive pressure to the corner to keep it from lifting up before drying. It will also keep the canvas from being glued to the opposite wall if any glue got on there.



16. One more pass with the putty knife.

17. We have waited for the glue to dry again. Now I take a sharpie to mark along all my cut lines. This photo only shows the corners, but I also marked around the outlet boxes and other cut locations.



18. Now the box cutter comes out to make some cuts. I found the box cutter to work perfect for this since it will allow the blade to only cut about 1\4" into the foam. I cut the corners at a 45* angle. I use the exato blade to get into the hard to reach corners that the box cutter can not get into.



19. Now it is time to pull the canvas. I found that you want to pull the canvas so that it is folding back onto itself like pictured. That way you are not pulling away from the walls and possibly creating a lift to the canvas if you did not get a clean cut or a glue bridge. In this picture you can see that two canvased surfaces are coming together and making a clean corner.

So nearly done. Now we have cut around all our windows, outlets, corners, ect. Remember applying a sizing to the areas to be cut makes it that much easier. I used the box cutter and exato for all these cuts. This is a shot of the inside with all the canvas applied and ready for the next step.



20. Now I use DAP Alex Plus caulk to caulk all the corners and anything else that may need some fill.



21. Now I apply a sizing coat to all the canvas to fill the canvas weave.



Finished and ready for primer and paint. (root beer).

Very nice. I love how sharp those corners are.


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bonnie wrote:Very nice. I love how sharp those corners are.


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Thanks Bonnie.

I got a coat of primer on today. Hope to get some paint on tomorrow.

Looks really nice.


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Looks really good George! So for the inside canvas, there are no overlapped joints?

Tempest wrote:Looks really good George! So for the inside canvas, there are no overlapped joints?

No overlapping joints in this method. Being that we are not trying to keep water out and wind from ripping canvas off inside I did not think it was needed. I did think about it, but I could not make it work well without more complicated steps.

George , that does look Super Nice (as per your standard) , and really no worries about the overlap on the inside .... over the years we’ve come to learn it’s the Outside skin that does Most of the work (if not all) holding everything together ... so the inside reinforcement isn’t doing much at all ... therefore could be optional .. The easiest way to do the inside ( JMHO) covering is flat on a table before finish assembly , just like the Wooden TD guys build from the interior out ... sorta’ ... ish’ I see that’s how the RV people build too ( not that it's any endorsement) ... wall panels are already “papered” or panelled then stood up and joined ...

GPW, I think so too in most cases.

I got two coats of wall paint on today. Still some canvasing and carpeting to do. Just hope the weather holds out for a bit longer.

Brilliant!

I am very impressed. I joined a year ago with the thought of building a tear drop for retirement travle in a few years and just happened upon this thread today. Just amazing craftsmanship.

I love the small world (so appropriate in a board about tear drops) in that (1) I became interested in tear drops at Canoecopia and there is a lot of crossover in references to canoe building and (2) the link to Control Booth regarding goop for canvas - a board where I've been a regular for years.

I'd not taken the foamie idea seriously, leaning towards stressed skin, but now have to reconsider.

Looks great! Your inside corner method is much better than mine!
I also feel that overlapping the inside corners provides no increased structural support. Outside it increases it considerably, but not inside.


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Thanks guys for the compliments.

This weekends accomplishments. Started to canvas the portion under the front shelves. Weather is turning cool here so it is taking a long time to dry. While waiting for canvas to dry I had time to install electrical plates, install LED lights and install vent interior ring. I was able to use #6 1 1/2" screws to attach the lighta to the ceiling. There was no hard point for these lights, but it seems to work just fine... Blank plates in the ceiling are for overhead LED's like I used for my porch light at a later time.

A couple of shots of the running lights running.



You can see how bright the porch light is on the far side. It is lighting up the wall of the shop.