Steel siding?

[Tom&Shelly]

Also, you can invite a professional engineer ...

You can "invite" a professional engineer to do almost anything. If you invite him over for a steak dinner or a beer, most will accept and not charge you. If you invite him to offer professional services however, he or she may have to charge you the professional rate. All of which is irrelevant, as you won't find many professional engineers whose degree is in tear drops and tiny travel trailers.

Ya just gotta laugh when a spammer gets on here and offers advice on its first post, with no evidence that it understands we are talking about campers!

Tom

[Tom&Shelly]

BTW, I've taken to reporting these spammers whenever their first post is clearly AI generated "advice", and they are obviously not a person interested in campers, even before they edit their post to include some sort of spam link. Excise the cancer ASAP!

Tom

[RJ Howell]

It is a good idea for using steel sheets to prevent rocks and hail. The price of steel sheets is lower than aluminum. But aluminum is more durable and has stronger corrosion resistance. For steel color, you can choose all RAl colors according to your requirement.
About the seams, if you want a vertical seam, I suggest you use high-quality sealants of the waterproof, which can prevent chemical corrosion. Also, you can invite a professional engineer to help you seal the steel sliding. On the side of the frame, I also recommend you use aluminum to ensure longer service life.

Depending on design, I don't see why not. Properly coated should work fine. Steel, hmm, I'd be welding seams. Steel shell, I wonder why any framing? Thick enough and insulated, hmm.. interesting.

[terrymorse]

All of which is irrelevant, as you won't find many professional engineers whose degree is in tear drops and tiny travel trailers.

No big deal. To a professional engineer, a teardrop trailer is just another mechanical object.

If it were my project, and the customer specified sheet metal skin, I'd call for lap seams with silver solder. Easiest joint to do, strong enough, water tight. If your house has metal rain gutters, they probably use these soldered joints.



- terry
"Professional" Engineer (retired)

[Tom&Shelly]

No big deal. To a professional engineer, a teardrop trailer is just another mechanical object.

- terry
"Professional" Engineer (retired)

Sure! I was being a bit facetious. But I wouldn't recommend hiring a professional engineer to help design/build a homemade teardrop, simply on the grounds that it is overkill, costs money, and, after all, many have been quite successful with this hobby without professional help. (Free advice always accepted, of course! And, there's usually free beer for anyone, professional or otherwise who comes over and lends a hand. )

The post, of course, came from some spammer repeating the original poster's question into an AI system, probably without the context of coming from a home-built camper forum. You may notice the system's advice differs substantially from that of the real human camper builders who answered the poster, back in 2016.

Tom (PhD EE, but this is my lunch hour)