Teardrops n Tiny Travel Trailers

There are some design elements that take much longer to implement then others. In our case, it was the requirement for a sunroof. Now that shouldn’t be too hard should it? I mean, you just cut a hole and drop it in right? Well, not really. As we all know, the standard sunroof has a curve that runs side-to-side to fit the bow in a standard car’s roof. The teardrop has a curved roofline, but its front-to-back not side-to-side. Of course, the simple way to handle this would be to get two identical sunroofs and mount them side by side. Kind of like the glass in my old “T-Top”.

So, that is not how we did it. Instead, I came up with a plan to add a vaulted ceiling in the tear to take the normal 2” thick, flat, roof and reduce it to under an inch thick and bowed. A lot of head scratching and more then a little bit of trial and error led to the result that you see in the picture. So far, the inside looks good, but I can just bet that I will have “issues” trying to get the roof to match the new curves. I guess I will just mark this up as a lesson learned for teardrop number two. Umm, not that there will be a number two, of course. (my wife may read this post) But if there was, I would do a few things differently.

Outstanding!!!! I want one too!!! I sure like builder's that are stretching the limits. It looks like this is a success!!!

Yes very nice wood working Do you have any outside pics of the sunroof area?


Also love the picture of the bed you built nice work

Scott

ccdell wrote:I can just bet that I will have “issues” trying to get the roof to match the new curves.

Yes, the word 'nightmare' comes to mind - you can't bend ply in two directions at once, so I think you'll have to put some in some joints in the roof with 'knuckles' where the two pieces meet.

Andrew

I'll have to watch and see how you solve that. I've got an electric sunroof out of a 95 Grand Prix that is going in the next one, if I ever get around to starting it.

You might have issues but it will look really nice. Beautiful cabinets you have going.

Beautiful Work youve done..

Classic Finn

I like what I see so far... Good job!

Mike...

All, Thanks for the kind words. Sorry for taking so long to post a reply. I left for a week of Portland sunshine right after I made the initial post. It really is coming together better then my limited woodworking skills would suggest - but then again, I never show pictures of my scrap pile either.

Andrew, "nightmare" is the same word I used to describe the extra work to my wife. But I don't think she feels my pain. When it comes time to skin the roof, I am sure I will get yet another opportunity to "be creative".

Jst83, I am building from the inside out, so the outside skin has not been put on, but the image below shows how it looks from the outside (so far). The tiles in the photo are just there to hold things in place while I fit things together.

As for the bed, it was a pre-requisite for building the tear. It started out as a stack of rough cut knotty alder from the local lumber store.

I used aluminum angle with a slight bend to make up a lot of the difference in the moon roof, they also make flat moon roofs, but I got this one from my son who had it set aside for a future project of his..........ya snooze ya lose also when I laid the bendable roof plywood over it I made the exact finish cuts for the moon roof throug the aluminum and the wood. I have about a 1/4 gap in the middle ot the roof that will be taken up with the vinyl top and padding that I am installing and I will seal with silicone.
CCDELL yours installation is beautiful

How this all came about. After studying the tear's profile and the window (which I got for free), I realized that the curve would match exactly - if I turned the window sideways. So my second "original" plan was to get a matching window and mount the pair side by side with the windows opening to the outside. But after searching for quite a while I still could not find a matching window and I didn't want to pay $450 for a new pair, so I decided to try to make it work with just the single. So far, the inside has come out well, but I know the real challenge is going to be the outside skin. Of course, if that doesn't work out, I can always replace that part of the ceiling.