Teardrops n Tiny Travel Trailers

The beauty of Tom's idea to merge a Westcraft back end and an American Homecrest front end is that there are no ball corners. The only double curves are at the back corners and since it wraps around a much larger curve I think with enough ribs some 1/8" ply, fiberglass, epoxy, plenty of Micro bubbles and a little patience you could come out with a pretty fair corner.



Doug brings up some really good points the first is the front and back upper cabinets, they are in all the vintage photos as well. They not only hide the tough to deal with inner corners I personally think that they add much needed structure to all those merging curves. Kill two stones with one bird if you will. I would plan on it being an integal part of any breadloaf design. If you want to keep your roof that is.



The other point is the door, the first thing I noticed when I started drawing a breadloaf is that the side curves cause problems with the height of the door. Either those original ones were really tall or you had to stoop at the door. The two options I came up with were the slanted dormer like you actually see on some of them.



Or the round dormer that makes me think of a Bowlus. Now there is a tough camper to build, but oh so cool.



The drop floor or drop footwell Tom mentions would both help, with the door issue for sure and then there is always stooping, which should be second nature to anyone use to an actual teardrop.

The garage storable thing brings a whole other set of issues. The canned ham standie I designed I put hitch tubes on all four corners and planned to make slide in's with casters and take the wheels completely off and move it into and around the garage on casters. But weight becomes a major issue there. The drop floor is pretty much a given on any standie you want to get in the garage, how to go about it is the issue. Peter

2bits wrote:So you will have two trailers in the garage and no cars? Sounds like me LOL

Thomas,

Yeah, with the (still unfinished) teardrop in one space and tools and workbench in another, I'm not sure where this trailer would go. I don't plan on getting rid of the Silver Beatle. I may have to copy your teardrop garage design in my back yard!

Take care, Tom

pebo wrote: The garage storable thing brings a whole other set of issues. The canned ham standie I designed I put hitch tubes on all four corners and planned to make slide in's with casters and take the wheels completely off and move it into and around the garage on casters.. .

Tom - you CAN engineer something like THIS! Casters to roll it inside for storage - Just remove the wheels. It solves the issue of a dropped floor

aggie79 wrote:If my wife finds out about this, I'll deny that it is me making this post.

A good friend (my former doctor) went to prison for treating chronic pain patients (our system feels that folks in chronic pain shouldn't have pain killers and should be forced to suffer when relief is availble). Anyway one of the "lines"/practices he learned while in prision is: "That's my story and I'm sticking to it".

Soooooooo, formulate your story now and should you be found out stick to it. It has always worked for when dealing with my wife of 37 years. I'm not "entirely convinced", though, that she always believes me.

Cheers,

Gus

I'm thinking about a full radius on the front end of mine. The plan was to basically shrink down the original breadloaf design, so that the original radaii would be smaller as well. I've got to have the round topped door...just looks better to me so the round dormer would have to be done. My plan is to do 2 layers of 1/8" cold molded ply on the exterior.

For the frame and the axle-less spindles...just build an arch on the longsills to attach the spindles to, then tie them back in on the cross members fore and aft of their location to prevent twisting on the arch. Andrew and I already worked that out in theory...just nothing on paper with materials called out yet. Thing is....if they are cost prohibitive, I'd just do the torsion like I did on the Nomad and make it all work out. That frame has worked fine for me. I'd kind of like to keep the rear of the trailer up a bit to prevent dragging on dips. The Nomad gets pretty close now.

I was planning on the 15" artillery type wheels so that would be taller than the Nomad as well. Tough to work out all the details and want it to fit in a garage. The idea of building outdoors is not in my plan at all. Doug

On the frame discussion. Sorry to those who have seen this already.

The rotational forces that result from using torsion stub axles concerned me as well.

In the photo below the driver's side was solid when tested with a load, however the passenger side axle would rotate mildly. The outside corner of the drop floor (near middle of trailer) would drop slightly under increased G's as the inner passenger side rail that would normally provide support could not be tied to the forward transverse due to the short leg of the drop floor.

My solution for the problem does not show in the photo. I welded a run of angle from one side of the trailer to the other (outer rail to outer rail ) under the drop floor under the unsupported outer corner of the drop floor pointed to in the pic.

Additionally, if the drop floor frame looks odd at the door it is because I had yet to remove a the section of outer rail visible in the photo where the door was to later be.

The camper has left the ground many times while in tow and loaded without discernible flex or incident.

John,

Thank you for the picture and your experience with the stub torsion axles. If I go the drop floor route, I'm going to have to do something like what you did or have "arches" built on the frame rails.

Take care, Tom

aggie79 wrote:John,

Thank you for the picture and your experience with the stub torsion axles. If I go the drop floor route, I'm going to have to do something like what you did or have "arches" built on the frame rails.

Take care, Tom

Tom, You might get away with the straight axle if you drop the floor only back to the axle, so it all depends on your design. With your idea being a larger one this might not be feasible tho, but just a thought.

Tom, You might get away with the straight axle if you drop the floor only back to the axle, so it all depends on your design. With your idea being a larger one this might not be feasible tho, but just a thought.

If I were doing it again, this is fairly close to what I would do. The only difference would be that I would drop the entire floor forward of the axle.

I used a full regular torsion axle in this frame. How it works out is that I have a small step between the floor and the bed, 5" high and maybe 1'deep. It works out fine for height on the bed and sitting on the edge of it.

The axle-less spindles would provide a full low floor all the way to the bed, but the more I think of it. It would keep the rear of the trailer lower and run the risk of dragging, so I'd have to put a lifted portion back there anyway. I'm thinking that maybe the cost of those spindles wouldn't be worth the dough or hassle to keep a floor that low.

On the Nomad, I have a raised portion on the front dinette, and head clearance is minimal for me at 6'2" with the canned ham profile. The Bread Loaf profile will give more headroom so I think I'd just do the lifted front portion as well, again to prevent dragging.

All of this sorta has to do with building one that can fit in a standard garage door though. Doug

doug hodder wrote:I used a full regular torsion axle in this frame. How it works out is that I have a small step between the floor and the bed, 5" high and maybe 1'deep. It works out fine for height on the bed and sitting on the edge of it.

On the Nomad, I have a raised portion on the front dinette, and head clearance is minimal for me at 6'2" with the canned ham profile. The Bread Loaf profile will give more headroom so I think I'd just do the lifted front portion as well, again to prevent dragging.

All of this sorta has to do with building one that can fit in a standard garage door though. Doug

Doug,

Your frame, as well as everything else on the Sierra Nomad, are a work of art. I don't think I can get anywhere near to your level of quality, but that is my goal.

I have a "breadloaf idea folder" on my computer at home. It has the photos of your and John's trailer frames for reference.

doug hodder wrote:The axle-less spindles would provide a full low floor all the way to the bed, but the more I think of it. It would keep the rear of the trailer lower and run the risk of dragging, so I'd have to put a lifted portion back there anyway. I'm thinking that maybe the cost of those spindles wouldn't be worth the dough or hassle to keep a floor that low.

I'm coming to that conclusion myself. I don't weld, and although the welding shop I use does pretty incredible work, it probably would be a challenge for them to get the camber and toe-in right on the axle-less spindles.

On my teardrop, I used a Dexter with a 10-degree up start angle. Even with the tall P235-75R15 on 15" x 7" wheels the frame clearance is 12". I don't think, for the frame, I want to go any lower.

I think I'll use a Flexiride "full" torsion axle rather than the axle-less spindles.

Take care,
Tom

Tom...I don't know how you are planning on using your trailer, but I'm way lower than 12" and have yet to scrape anywhere. I'm thinking...it's like just a hair under 8" on the lowest portions. You couldn't do that height full length, without a problem, but with a drop center floor, it seems to have worked for me. Those are pretty tall tires you are planning on using...I've only got some 14's on the Nomad, 0 degree start angle. Doug

I agree that with 12" and the way you take care of your stuff put a steel scuff plate underneath and slam it!

doug hodder wrote:Tom...I don't know how you are planning on using your trailer, but I'm way lower than 12" and have yet to scrape anywhere. I'm thinking...it's like just a hair under 8" on the lowest portions. You couldn't do that height full length, without a problem, but with a drop center floor, it seems to have worked for me.

Doug,

On my teardrop, the frame is at 12" but I have electrical conduit, return air duct, and stabilizers with pads that hang down as much as another 4" or so. The only thing that has every scraped - in the places I camp - are the stabilzer pads and they are located at the far back end of my teardrop. I'm comfortable with an 8" clearance, except as you said, at the front and the back.

doug hodder wrote:Those are pretty tall tires you are planning on using...I've only got some 14's on the Nomad, 0 degree start angle. Doug

I don't plan on using tires anywhere that large on the breadload. As you discussed, I think artillery wheels look great, but they are only available in 15". I probably will end up using 14" smoothies as you did on the Nomad.

Take care,
Tom

Well, since I'm snowed out for camping this Memorial Day weekend and for a couple weekends past that, I may just drag out some scrap ply and mock up a practice corner. I've got all the stuff....just need to make some room and start playing.

On this one...I want to do up a practice corner before I jump in with both feet. For me...it's just got to look "correct" to do it. I don't have the ability to do it in a metal and since I want uneven curves...a molded metal piece is out of the question. My plan is to do it up in cold molded plywood, some glass cloth on it, and automotive paint. Install a load of "fake" rivits. Doug