Tell me this about that Idea

[41ford]

I am planning a Tiny trailer build with a 6'x10' Carson utility trailer as a platform. What I'm leaning towards building it so it can be taken off the trailer,Slide it out the back. Would that even work or just sound to cheesy to continue with that line of reasoning? All Opinions or comments welcome, sooner than later.

[Treeview]

Teal has an interesting concept:

http://www.tealinternational.com/TailFeather/index.html

[41ford]

I saw that Advertizement, but not what I had in mind. A more traditional approach, still build a platform as you would decking a trailer, and build it slightly narrower. Bolted down when it use unbolt raise a little pull-out from under.

[Gage]

Nothing wrong with that idea.

[jstrubberg]

Sure it will work!

One thing you will have to figure out, that railing is pretty high. Sitting down in the door of a teardrop above that rail is gonna be tough.

[41ford]

Sweet, That is along the idea I'm thinking of,may be taller.

[Gage]

Sure it will work!
Sitting down in the door of a teardrop above that rail is gonna be tough.

Not if you add a step and raise the mattress like has been done on the above setup. Common sense will do it every time.

[Woodbutcher]

In my opinion, you give up a lot of space by raising the mattress up that high. The headroom inside will be under 36" (Assumes a 4 foot high trailer). Plus the door will be very short, making it difficult to sit in, or get in. My suggestion would be to modify the sides of the trailer to make the railing a gate, where the door is. It could swing out of the way allowing the tear door to open, or it could be removable and left at home when camping and put back on when you want a utility trailer. This would add space for cabinets and head room inside. If modifying the trailer is not to your liking I would make a couple drawers that pull out between the railings to make use of the space. Good luck and have fun with your project.

[mgb4tim]

Do you know how it is secured to the trailer?

Nothing wrong with that idea.

[KCStudly]

The thing with those manufactured trailers with side rails is that most all of the ones I have seen are made from angle iron. The side rail is an integral part of the structural strength of the frame; a ladder style side frame, and angle iron is not a very rigid shape when unsupported.

Cutting the top rail out means that that strength must be gained back some how for the bottom rail to survive. This is not an issue if you securely attach the cabin to the trailer floor in several locations along each side. The depth (height) of the cabin has great rigidity and by connecting the two together as one you would have plenty of strength reinforcing the lower rail. Just strapping cabin down at the 4 corners won't do; the trailer could still flex out from underneath.

The extra connections would make it much more difficult to remove the cabin from the trailer, and would leave the trailer weak if you do.

In my opinion, you will never have a traditional looking camper with the side rails, and you will have a weak utility trailer w/o them. Sure, you "could" do it by just cutting out a section and making it so that you can securely bolt it back in, but it will need to take both compression and tensile loads, so plan on squaring it off and having it attach at the top and bottom with a couple of bolts each front and rear. I would steer clear of a gate; I don't see how an operable latch could reliably transmit the loads (the "doorway" of the gate would act like a hinge point allowing the frame to flex).

There have been a couple of examples of trick setups where rigging cradles or jacking feet were used to attach to the sides of the box and lift it off of the trailer relatively easily, but you have to consider electrical connections, anchoring methods, and how all of these extra features are going to impact the appearance of the camper.

The WAZAT is another good example, but it is only 4x8, and is aluminum, so two people can handle it.

I'm guesstimating that 98/ct of home builders that I have seen ask this question (including myself) come to the conclusion that it is just not worth the hassle and they have quickly abandoned the idea. $0.02

One last thing, in the Foamie section, GPW helped Eaglesdare come up with a nifty little arrangement for a rear entry standy (or was it a slouchy?) that was built out over the railings of this type of trailer. If I was contemplating building a removable cabin for this type of trailer I would be looking in that direction.

[41ford]

Hear is the actual trailer I have, I misspoke the trailer is a 5'x10' , other photo came off internet. It had a bad flooring plank that I removed, if I don't use for camper I need to repair anyway, thinking now remove the top rail and use it to box bottom rail, or shorten to about 6" tall.

My 6'x10' Carson

Tiny Trailer 008 (200x150).jpg (44.61 KiB) Viewed 681 times

My 6'x10' Carson

Tiny Trailer 005 (200x150).jpg (45.99 KiB) Viewed 681 times

My 6'x10' Carson

Tiny Trailer 007 (200x150).jpg (45.4 KiB) Viewed 681 times

[2bits]

What would be the method to load and unload it? Casters and ramps maybe? Seems like it would end up being too heavy to lift out even with four guys, it would be an awkward lean over. Just wondering what you had planned.

[Ron Dickey]

that was the original Idea for the boxkite. There was another guy on the forum who did that too. mine only had 2 bolts running down the center that held it on. As time went along the trailer became to heavy to remove and it is now bolted down in 4 places and the front box also connected to the trailer was attached to the trailer. But I do not know what will happen if it got in a accident

You want to make sure if you do that that it stays no matter what. One guy had a deck that was the same heigh as the trailer which he parked the back half on and had polls and a cross bar that supported the front half.

Andrew came up with a device that would lift the trailer off. I had even considered putting it on a truck before I got my free trailer frame.

gallery/image_page.php?album_id=708&image_id=54717 You would need some strong ones for this not made at HF.

there are several like this there is a couple in San Luis Obispo who have one and they say the rearly take it out. So much that I think they were sorry they did not just make it to stay on the trailer. But if you have space to park it you might also realize that that space could be two trailers it cost next to nothing to license and insure. If you already own that trailer the cost of a 2nd one it about $300 for a HF trailer frame unless you can weld one.

Ron

[41ford]

Good information, much food for thought, you are probably right about not taking it off the trailer. Thx I got some thinking to do.

[2bits]

Yes good point to step back:

How often would you be camping
How often would you need a trailer
How often would those moments overlap where going to pick something up would have to involve the complication of removing the camper
How cost prohibitive is it to your situation to buy a 4x8 harbor freight trailer to build the camper on.
How space limited are you

If you did decide to put it on the flatbed, I had the idea to use cabover camper stands, but then I remembered that to get four of them, would pay for an whole separate trailer.

Always good to think it through though, so good job for that!