After yesterday’s long day framing the hatch, today went by quite fast. The first layer of skin on the hatch was in place, glued, and stapled by about noon. So while the glue was drying a bit, I took some time to clean the garage.

Then after lunch, it was back to the tear for the second layer of hatch skin. Yesterday, when I was out at C&O picking up the Baltic birch for the ribs, I also picked up a piece of 1/8″ Baltic birch for the outer skin on the hatch. One of the nice things about the BB plywood there is that it comes in five foot widths. So, the entire skin is a single sheet. All we had to do was trim it to length, mark the rib locations, add glue and tack it in place.

In a couple of days, I will take the screws out of the sides and free the hatch. That will be the moment of truth when we first get to see if the hatch went together without any twisting or “springback”. Until then, my fingers are crossed (which probably explains my poor typing tonight).

On a side note, it seems that it is customary to name a teardrop camper during the build. So far, I haven’t come up with a name yet. Not to say that I haven’t called it any names, I have. But I still don’t have a name for it on good days. Any ideas??