Teardrops n Tiny Travel Trailers

Im new to this site and very glad i found it. i will be making a trailer of my own; after i think and plan, and plan and think and plan some more.
I see every trailer is framed useing wood. WHY? It's so heave!! other than some shape constraints. I have a screenroom off the back of the house, the walls of it are made with a sandwitch like stuff.. it's alumineum, styirafoam, alumneum. it's 2 inches thick. they make end caps that would seal and strenthin, seal the pop rivits with silacone,,, to run wires through the styirfoam i have an alumineum pole with one end cut like a hole saw.
I will post some pics in a day or two of the wall material so you all can see what i'm talking about. this stuff weighs a lot less than wood and it dosen't bow like wood, it's strong as heck. they evan have I-beam like joiners that the walls slide into to make some big walls,,or roof.
after all, i see most trailers fill the walls with styirafoam anyway.
I think of it as macking a square airplane on wheels with no wings.

And what about a boat trailer for a platform? skirt the sides for storage compartments and or to cover the water tanks.

like i said "i'm new" gotta get all the ducks outa the pond and against the fence befor i can get them in a boat to row.

When all is said and done I will be pulling this trailer with a 1995 GEO Tracker, the trailer can't be heaveyer than the car. Plus it's only a 4 cylinder.

no spell checker so sorry for the spelling errorz.

Wood is cheaper, and easy to get for the average person. The material you describe sounds expensive. I don't think the wood weighs much more then alum anyhow.
As far as a boat trailer, it would work well, but they tend to weigh alot more then a standard utility trailer, and since you say you have a 4cyl Tracker, you might want to check on the limits that car could handle.

Wood is purtyer

Not all trailers are framed with wood. Mine is framed with 1/2 inch square tubing and skinned with aluminium. It all goes back to working with what you are comfortable working with. If you look at some of the pictures on the web you will find that some of the best looking trailer out there started out as a pile of whatever the builder had and the desire to be different. One of my favorite looks like it was built with old barn wood and tin.
as far as pulling with a Tracker that is no issue. My tear is a 4 X 8 (recommend 5X8) and I pull it with a 91 Tracker. I trade in antiques and hardly ever return from a trip without it being full of junk, I mean fine merchandise, and have never had a problem with it.

If you have a boat trailer use it but if you are going to have to buy look around some. If your area is like mine back yards are full of trailers that the owner thought they needed, bought, pulled twice, let the floor rot out and dont touch anymore. Sometimes you can get a bargain. I bought my last one for $ 100 bucks. A little paint and some plywood and it looked new again.

Just remember to build what you like and you will like what you built.

Tony

Sandwich panels are strong and light so they should be good for sidewalls. But there are several practical problems:
- joining sandwich panels at their edges isn't easy, particularly if you don't want to build a square box;
- joining other panels to the sandwich, or cutting openings for doors isn't easy as you have to work out how to replace the foam in the sandwich;
- sandwich can't be bent around curves, so can't be used for the roof.

So sandwich panels are the perfect choice for the very light tear, but expect to spend a lot of time dealing with all the joints. Realistically it is less work to make your own sandwich panels from thin ply and foam - and by the time you've added wood strips at edges, at openings and where other panels will fix on, you've pretty much got a wood sidewall with insulation in it.

Andrew

I have been looking at stress skin and composite panel construction for some time. This is one of the reasons I chose the Mega-Mini it is all aluminum frame with panel construction (pretty much the best currently available).
Future MM's may well be made of much lighter composites.
There are materials that can be used for a skin that would not use any wood i.e. marine .04 aluminum honeycomb .04 aluminum panels http://www.portafab.com
Alumicore http://fvvleck.com/laminates_alumacorr.cci
What I was trying to have used in MM #7 is Comositek, but finding a supplier means we could not. http://www.compositek-inc.com/superdek.htm
There are variations on this materiel developed by Kaiser for military use that look very interesting.
The honeycomb materials can be with proper cutting be bent and if you look at the album of our MM all of the materials are (other than the floor) are FRP laminates.

Andrew,
Is it possible to build a curved "stress skin" in place, so you curve each element, or is this counter productive?

dave

Depending upon where and when you're going to camp, wood also has a little bit of insulating quality. If your sandwich material has aluminum framing, you've basically got no insulation between the outside aluminum and the inside wherever the framing exists. If you have a cold night, you'll get strips of frost on the inside of the walls wherever the framework is.

Of course, you'd then be able to tell where you have the structural strength to attach your coat hooks!

David

Something to think about, most boat trailers are way over built, read as HEAVY and if weight is a concern, AKA the Tracker, I'd look to a lighter base to start with. The Tear quikly becomes a stressed box as it is built and most of the strength needed for the trailer will come from the cabin not the frame. the floor ties the cabin to the frame, the frame merely ties the hitch to the axel. can be built much lighter than one would imagine, look at what the frames on the Kit's and Benroy's, most modern trailers especially the home builts are way over built.

Just my opinion, others may differ.

I am building a heavy weight on a boat trailer, It was just 2 3x3 in rails tied together with a slidable axle assembly. The larger boat trailers allow you to move the axle depending on the weight of the motor hanging on the back of the boat. My trailer is going to be large @ 6x12. I will have to tow with a 6 cyl tow vehicle, or larger. I like to take everything I might need in a week when I camp, or use as a swap meet trailer, taking tables and junque with me. Size does matter, depending on what you want to take with you. Check out my Album to see my modified frame. I hope to use 75% recycled materals for my build. The cross members are old Street sign poles that have been knocked down. The trailer is a 1988, had a big Cuddy cabin on it. Good Luck Bill