Teardrops n Tiny Travel Trailers

Hey folks,

I'm planning things out right now, and am honestly concerned about my ability to work with sheet aluminum. I never have before, and it seems like an expensive mistake to make.

Has anyone ever used luster board, or nu-alum before? Both are aluminum products that are bonded onto exterior grade hardwood. Bonus is that you can buy them per-colored. Wile probably more expensive than doing it myself, like I said, I'm not real confident in my unproven aluminum abilities.

Here are a few links to the products. Thanks for any info you all have!

http://www.alumapanel.com/view_product. ... 02%20Sides

http://www.nudo.com/Sign-Panels/Designe ... uAlum.aspx

http://www.industrialplywood.com/06prod ... uster.html

http://ebiz510.regionalsupply.com/Defau ... oard*187@@

Looks like a fantastic idea for sidewalls. Roof seems a bit tougher. Seems too thick to bend. I'd say the aluminum was the hardest part of my build, but the roof wasn't too bad. Could be a good look using that as sidewalls and something else for the roof.

working with aluminium isnt too bad, you can get away with using shears and a router with a flush bearing trim bit to do most of the work. It is expensive however.

I was lucky, picked up an ancient black and decker sheet metal cutter like this



Cuts through it like butter.

And with alu, you can hide any rough edges or cuts with the trim.

Regarding the aluminum sheeting, here are a few tips:

1. Take your time.
2. Wear gloves and goggles - cut edges can be sharp and aluminum bits fly everywhere.
3. If you don't want scratches, buy aluminum with protective plastic sheeting and use painters tape to mask surfaces where cutting tools ride.

I cut my sheet aluminum using electric shears, router with carbide bits, table saw, and jig saw. The jig saw was by far the easiest to control. In the picture below, I was using a jig saw to cut the aluminum for the sidewall. (I guess this brings up another tip. You'll see there is no masking in the picture. The reason is that I was cutting on the back side of the aluminum so an scratches wouldn't be seen.)



Take care and don't fret about cutting aluminum. It's a little scary but not that hard to do.

The hardest part about sheet aluminum was putting it on so if you decide to go that route don't try it by yourself, get help with it and take your time.

I cheated and used a plasma cutter to cut the aluminum. As many times as I had pulled off my build to help my neighbors work on boats etc. I couldn't get a neighbor to help me with my aluminum in a timely manner so I did it myself. The .040 on the roof was much easier to work with than the .032 I used on the sides. It really is a two person job.