Kelly & Cody Build a Teardrop: Day 2 of Building

Hi all, it's Kelly again.

We were back in the garage the very next day getting the teardrop roof installed into the mold. Because we had to wait for our fiberglass/epoxy seams to set overnight and throughout the day, we didn't start work until the evening. Our first step was to sand down the strips of fiberglass on the roof and wall panels that we had epoxied on the day before. We donned masks and safety glasses as we smoothed out the seams, then Cody prepped the roof pieces while I prepped the mold for installation.

Before slotting the pieces into the mold, they have to be secured to each other. To do this, Cody stitched the two roof panels together by threading wire through pre-cut holes (kind of like making a book by tying pages together). To minimize scratching, I covered the mold in painter's tape along the edges where it would touch the panels. We then lifted the roof panels up, unfolded them along the wire stitching edge, and set them into the mold. Pushing these panels down to fit the curve of the mold was pretty difficult, and after fitting it as closely as we could, we moved on to the next step - stitching the panels to the mold itself. This was definitely the hardest part of Day 2. In order to reach the bottom of the mold to push the wires through, I held one end of the teardrop above my head while Cody threaded and tied the wires.

We thought there would be enough time to tie in the wall panels after we got the roof in, but it took a lot longer than expected to get everything tied on the roof. We ended up simply laying the walls inside the mold and leaving it for another day. It was a short work day (only 3 hours), but boy are we tired. Check back next week for more updates and Day 3 of building!

Hour Count:
Day 2 -- 3 hours

Total Time -- 10 hours

-Kelly