It sure has been a weird couple of weeks, hasn’t it? More on that later, but for now I’d like to update you all with our latest progress on our teardrop trailer:
We finished weatherstripping all four windows with the correct rubber gasket from Vintagetrailergaskets.com . If you remember, we had originally ordered the wrong stuff! We needed a tight seal so it was important that we order the correct stuff. After prepping all of the windows, we pop-riveted them to the exterior walls, cut and installed the front channel to the two windows that were missing it, and got the last of the cranks in too! This was a fun little project because my brother, Jim, was in town and this was the first trailer-related task that he got to help me with! It was fun explaining our vision to him and finally getting to show this this whole project to someone who’s only been seeing photos of it!
Since Jim is such a great artist and very meticulous, I knew he would be the perfect person to help us start fabricating the interior walls. We have a running joke going on that whenever he comes to visit, I put him to work on some kind of home project … usually painting a wall or something. I stayed within the wall parameters…only this time he got to help build one! He helped create templates out of cardboard of the inside of the teardrop trailer, so that we could trace them onto our new aluminum sheets and then cut them out. He was relieved when he realized he didn’t need to use shears to cut aluminum like he was used to … Virgil’s air compressor tools are a godsend! He got the largest wall all traced and cut out … I only hope that I can live up to his steady hand for the other wall… 😉 We’ll end up sanding these walls before we install them so that we can paint them white later and bring some light into our Dewey!
Perhaps our biggest wins over the weekend were sealing off both the side door and galley door! We added rubber gasket to the galley door edges to create the tightest seal possible where rubber meets rubber. It worked like a charm and is super easy to replace (they’re self-adhesive) if over time, the rubber starts to wear down. This closed off all the gaps for us and we were happyyyyy! As for the galley door hinge, we covered that with a large piece of rubber (like you see on the bottom of a door) and fit aluminum channels on either side of the hinge with buck rivets. We were left with two small openings on the edges of the hinge because that’s just how the trailer itself was built … we slipped in some extra aluminum into this space as well as sikaflex, and we are hoping it does the trick. Fingers are crossed! In the meantime, I think we will leave the rubber piece long and hope that it acts as a sort of shield to any rain that may come its way…
We applied pretty much the same tactics to the side door hinge and it looks sooooo beautiful and so much more finished! We trimmed off the black edging on the outside of the aluminum channels and it was like night and day. We then applied this awesome T-channel that I’ve talked about before, to the outer edges of the door for both a cleaner look as well as additional protection! T-channel is easily malleable, which makes it the perfect solution for a curved door like ours. We plan to put a lip on the roof over this door frame so that if it is raining, this will stop water from pouring into the trailer onto our bed while the door is being opened and closed!
Additionally, we finally got the latches installed on the back galley door to hold everything tightly in place while we’re on the move! We picked hinges with a little bit of a bounce to them (a coil) since the trailer will be bouncing a little on the road, and installed one on the left and one on the right. We plan to add a lock to the middle to keep our belongings safe when we’re not around.
We buck riveted the final window coverings over all the windows and changed the angle of them a tad from how they were originally placed…this will just be another level of protection from the elements … and they look cute! 😉
We sealed up any small pop rivet holes we had left by creating an aluminum patch underneath and then pop-riveting it into place for the cleanest look we could attain…
And we got the second fender fully installed! So strong that yes, you can sit on this one as well. Although you know I won’t be allowing anyone to sit on them, right?? 😉
And I think maybe the best sign of the weekend was that it rained on and off most of the day on Saturday and the inside of our trailer stayed dry! So that’s a freaking win in my book!
In the meantime, work on Dewey has slowed down a good bit. Virgil moved back to St. Louis to be with his wife, Rach, in the midst of this Corona Virus pandemic … so renovations are kind of up in the air as of now. That being said though, so are our camping trips since we’re all quarantined inside our own homes. I hope everyone is hanging in there and trying to stay positive!
thanks for stopping by!
xo!
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LAUREN LIVES 