Teardrops n Tiny Travel Trailers

anyone ever built an all steel TD? i'm not really equipped to do major woodworking, and i cannot afford to purchase all the tools to do a nice job of it. And then there's the lack of woodworking experience i possess. If i go all steel i basically have all the recourses at my disposal. I could skin it with mild steel sheet metal and just finish it like a car. could even make it match the tow rig. Mild steel is relatively cheap, and durable. steel maintains it's shape better with time and weathering (provided you properly treat the metal)

anyway, like i said, I dont think i can hang with the woodwork; and i like the idea of steel construction.

I'm sure it is very possible, especially if you treat and/or paint all surfaces inside and out. Are you sure you want the weight gain of all steel? Probably 2000-3000#!! Depending on size!

When the "Forum" first started, someone had a steel, pop up, teardrop started. I do not remember why he quit building and sold the unfinished unit. Does anyone remember?

kai

Frank did a purple and white all steel teardrop. Let me see if I can find it.

Mike...

I think that would be Sumner:

http://purplesagetradingpost.com/sumner ... epage.html

A good description of how it was built, too - could be used for a non-pop-up just as well.

Andrew

Good find Andrew...

I can't find Frank's album right now... but here is his avatar...


Mike...

This frame belongs to a friend, and is under construction.



All of these trailers have the metal frame construction.




P.S. the Patriotic special, and the brown trailers are for sale. If anyone is interested. The two on the end were sold. Bellflower, CA.

prohandyman wrote:Are you sure you want the weight gain of all steel? Probably 2000-3000#!! Depending on size!

well i think its gonna be a 4x8 and i will try to cut down on weight through design. i think as long as i build the rest of the trailer to carry the weight it should be alright. and i'm pretty sure my 3/4 ton diesel dodge can handle the load.

thanks for the replies. i should do more research on material weights and figure out what it should roughly weigh.

does anyone have a chart for different stock weight?

the skin does not have to be very heavy. probably 20 or 22 ga. i suppose it would be important not to weigh down the galley door too much, else i will need spring support or something like that.

We had the same issue you do with not being good with wood and being able to weld. We have built five teardrop trailers that are 5X10' and are light weight and easy to pull. Here is a picture of two of out trailers as we were building them.



Keith

Keith wrote:We had the same issue you do with not being good with wood and being able to weld. We have built five teardrop trailers that are 5X10' and are light weight and easy to pull. Here is a picture of two of out trailers as we were building them.



Keith

that looks just about like what i had in mind, except 4x8. what stock did you use to make the radius' and how did you make them?

I believe we used .095 on the hoops for the trailers. It's been three years since we built the last ones. We used a manual ring roller on the first two trailers we built and then we used a power ring roller on the last two. Here is a picture of the manual ring roller and us rolling the hoop for the back of the trailer.



You can look at all my other construction photos on my flickr account which is linked below.

Keith

where did you get the manual ring roller or is it home made? been looking for one for several years now, or the plans. Denny

Hi Denny,

It belongs to my brother-in-law and he bought it about ten years ago. It is a commercially available unit but I'm not sure where he bought it. Norman built one when we were building our last trailers for rolling out the aluminum. It works great and will accept seven foot material.



The picture might give you some ideas on building a smaller one. We bought all the parts to build a ring roller for steel but never got around to building it.

Keith

100% steel (except for the diamond plate trim)

unfortunatly i do not have access to a roller of such heft. the roller at my disposal is only good for sheet metal and your thinner flat stock. Its kinda hard to see in the pictures, but it looks like you are using square tubing? i was thinking about using 1/8''x1'' hot rolled flat stock for the radius'. it would be very flimsy until it had some supports welded to it. seeing yours has got me reconsidering. it would be nice to use some 1x1 sqaure tube, or at least some angle to give it rigidity. but alas, i have no means to bend tube or angle, (other than lots of heat and elbow grease!). of course, the other option is to use angles instead of radius', which i prefer not to do. However, using angles would probably greatly simplfy the build process.