Teardrops n Tiny Travel Trailers

I'm in the process if getting my door and hatch hardware orders together. My original plan was to use Grant's offsett hinges. However, Grant's hinges will not accomodate my 1 1/4" wall thickness.

So, I'm researching other hinges. I found this Hinge at Austin Hardware. I was thinking that I cold cut this 72 inch hinge in two and and use it for both doors. I plan to install it like this.



I have no idea how the heck I'm going to keep everything lined up while I mark and drive screws into the sides. Any suggestions?

I think it was Mike who posted this site, he ordered the stainless hinge from them for 1 of his tears........

They will "form" to whatever specs you need. It's listd about 1/2 way down the page.
http://www.stainless-hinges.com/hinge_t ... hole_specs

Tom,

Thanks for posting that link. I am looking for a hinge too, and was recently quoted over $70 for a 6' stainless steel hinge I would rather use stainless than aluminum since the door will be used a lot and is fairly heavy. I think aluminum would be fine for a baggage door or something that doesn't get much use, but maybe I am trying to overbuild

What kind of hinges do most people use? Maybe I'll start a poll

McMaster-Carr also has a bunch of hinges. They start on page 2804
http://www.mcmaster.com/

TomS wrote:So, I'm researching other hinges. I found this Hinge at Austin Hardware. I was thinking that I cold cut this 72 inch hinge in two and and use it for both doors.

That's the hinge that I used and I just cut off the part I didn't need. Its a nice hinge. I mounted my hinge on the outside of the door. I couldn't figure out how to align everything so I'm curious to see how its done.
Bruce

It looks OK to me.

The only problem I can forsee is a clearance issue with the latch side due to the thick doors. This offset may help in that department.

You could experiment with some scrap wood to see how it works.

I got a 6 foot stainless marine hinge and cut it in half. I opened the hinge and laid one part on the outside wall and the other in the frame and marked the holes... then did the same on the door, so the hinge lined up perfectly. My door was built as part of the wall and cut out, so door and wall are exactly the same thickness..

If you are still looking for a good hinge, you cannot beat a pemko hinge.
Check out http://www.pemko.com and click on products, pemko hinges.
While made of aluminum, and not steel, I can guarantee you they are strong enough and then some.

A Pemko hinge will hold up a storefront door, I use them all the time for that. They are much stronger than anything else in our industry. They will not rust, and they will last literally forever. Well, ok nothing is forever but, I have pemko hinges still in use that I installed more than ten years ago.

Rob

Tom,

If you use that hinge, just shim the door in place and insert the hinge. Then mark the top and bottom and the inside and outside (if you can). Remove everything and align the hinge with the opening and mark the screw locations. Then align the hinge on the door and mark the screw locations. Drill all pilot holes, then mount the hinge to the door and then mount to the opening. If the original marks were acurate, everything should fit perfectly.

Kerry

TAKE, PICTURES, TOM! I'M AFRAID!

And I have one door that's just DYING to fill that hole.

Ira,

The hatch looks pretty good in your picture. How's it working now?

Kerry

Thanks. Kerry. I wanted to be low key about posting it.

It opens and closes fine--it's the edges I want to camouflage.

As you can see, I used my never-in-a-million-years-will-rust Deckmate deck screws on the edges, and I used small brads into the horizontal spars. I forget now, but I have A LOT of horizontal spars, more than the Cubby plans call for.

I tried using brads on the sides too, but the flex of the ply kept pulling the nail heads through the ply. Any larger brad/nail would have been visible anyway, so I figured I might as well go for the stronger deck screw.

That's red oak ply on there, because I COULDN'T find anything else. (I swear. Only Luan.). It now has just 2 coats of varnish, and I'm going to give it like 10. It looks REAL nice, but it doesn't exactly match the birch.

So, in order to kill 2 birds with one stone--hide my bad edges, those screw heads, AND minimize the difference in the wood appearances--I'm going to be covering the surface of the hatch with thick black fish netting. (I'm bidding on eBay right now and I'm sure I'll win it. It's the same stuff they use for batting cages and as of now, there isn't a world shortage of it.)

Using the netting, I may also be able to overhang it off the sides a bit, for even more camouflaging of bad construction. And on that netting, I'll attach my custom-ordered "The Crab" crabs--14" resin, colorful crabs that I also got through eBay. (I also have a cool brass anchor to mount either there or on the front.)

Below the bottom of hatch, I mounted two strips of that same oak, to attach the tag and some other cool stuff. I used two pieces because although I have one full sheet of that oak left (I bought two), I didn't want to cut into that when the center of the way it is now will be covered by the tag anyway.

By the way--I think that maybe 85% of the tears that I see don't have the interior hatch skin installed. I haven't decided yet--I have the ply to do it, but it's a matter of how "bad" I think it looks, and whether I want it totally covered. As of now, I can definitely live with it.

I also want get those darn fenders on, but for the life of me, I can't find acid etch primer anyway to prep them prior to painting. Granted, I haven't looked EVERYWHERE, but I've looked around a lot in the past. In addition, I just don't know how I want to finish them. I know I'm not going to be happy with simple Rustoleum, and I may go for one of these specialty "texture" paints they sell.

And I know this may sound crazy, but I'm going to have a lot of that netting coming, and I've toyed around with the idea of not painting them at all and just covering them with THAT, like an army Jeep.

Ira,
The hatch does indeed look pretty good. The black fishing net sounds cool. Have you decided how you are going to do the door hinges?

Scott F.

Hey, what's the theory behind the 1/4" offset? Why is it a Good Thing?

I still haven't made a blood commitment on my door strategy yet. Tom has always been 5 steps ahead of me, he takes good pictures, so I might just copy him.

I also might ignore ALL advice and use the simple Tee Hinges that I previously posted about. Gipsie used them, those folks seem to know what they're doing, it looks easy to do, and it they look nice. Worst comes to worst, because you would trim the doors less using this method, if I had a big problem in the future, I could always fix it.

What's also confusing me is door thickness:

I insulated all around because everyone told me I should, even in steamy south Florida. (Granted, this also has something to do with body moisture escaping whie you sleep, other moisture, etc.) But I now run the air conditioning with no doors, just a plastic tarp coming down, and it's FREEZING in there.

So why the heck should I bother insulating the doors? (Forget cold weather. I'll risk that living 110 miles from Cuba.) So with no insulation, do I still have to frame the doors? Can't I just sandwich the door ply on both sides with the skins? But now that I've done that, the door will be narrower than the wall--so can I still install a door this way?

My head is ready to explode. I'm going back to the Strictly Politics thread in Off Topic that Mike just deleted on me. Plus, we have a hurricane headed our way.

I think I prefer the blimp.