Teardrop: Skinning the Hatch

I knew that the aluminium that I’d purchased for the hatch was going to tear the flimsy ribs apart. I had to find 0.032″ and in an alloy that was more malleable. Online recommendations were 3003.

I called all over North America trying to find this, and I found it in the US without issue. The problem was shipping. The product itself was inexpensive, but shipping was $700 USD! I could drive down, stay, have a nice meal or two and drive back less expensively.

I found another location in Quebec, but his shipping was nearly the same as from the US.

The one place I’d not called was the local “Metal Supermarket.” I’ve purchased from this company before and they’re quite helpful, not to mention inexpensive. I didn’t hold much hope, but when I called they said that not only did they have it, but they had it in stock!

“I’ll take it!”

A day later I was working on skinning the hatch. First the exterior to help hold it’s shape when removed from the trailer, then the interior and removing the exterior. Seems to be a lot of “two steps forward, one step back,” in this project.

The material worked perfectly and I couldn’t have hoped for better. If I build another of these I would definitely opt for the lighter on the interior and hatch, while retaining the 0.064″ 5052 for the exterior of the build.

It would have made it much lighter, probably by as much as 150 lbs.

Incidentally, the white of the aluminium is actually a white plastic covering used to protect it from scratches. That would have been helpful in the 5052 since you can see from some of the pics that it got quite scratched when cutting it.

That’s because it’s impossible to keep the tiny shards of aluminium off the table, all the time.