Teardrops n Tiny Travel Trailers

This last week has had a lot of good info posted concerning trailer doors and sources for manufactured ones. Esteban came up with some excellent sources that I had not seen in two years of reading this forum, in this post (among others) http://www.tnttt.com/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=57273. If I had seen some of those doors prior to my build, I might've gone that direction, but eventually did not. In my design phase, I considered the advantage of a manufactured door with window included: kill two (or more) birds with one stone! The doors I see shown seem to have the door, hinge, seal, window, and latch all figured out, ready to install. Pretty smooth! Even if one wanted to alter the basic design package, there are several different ones to choose from, and even then, components could be done differently...but the basic package is mostly complete. The manufactured doors come in two basic designs: one is window as a door, and the second is window in the door. Again, if I had seen the second design, I might've bought one. The reason would be that I would want the frame surrounding the window to be the "shock absorber" and not the "window as door" taking the whole shock if the wind caught it, a person slammed it, or someone pulled down on it when opened. An expensive and necessary repair might be needed. The frame surrounding the window seems to be less likely to become unseated, or cracked, if stress was applied to its surrounding structure. Mind you, I am rough on my stuff, and have seen many others even rougher on theirs, so I always look for a major component that might get broken. (I know, my trailer has several flaws, but I am also painfully aware of them, darnit!). I designed my doors to be solid, overstrength hinged, and with rugged hardware, to avoid catastrophic failure on the road or in camp. Doesn't look conventional, but unbreakable (I hope). I thought of putting a small viewport (a.k.a. gunport) in each door, but the size and placement of the sidewall-mounted awning windows made that unneeded. True that most TD's and TTT's utilize the window/door or door/window (chicken or egg?), and it looks good on them, but for strength and component replacement (heaven forbid), separating the two just made more sense to me, IMHO. Further considerations for a separate door and window: two different openings for twice the airflow, per side, and the curtains remain inside the cabin, at all times. I had to sell my ideas to my wife, and to my friend who helped me start my build, since it was outside-the-box in their views, but there is sometimes method in my madness .

I am still a long ways off from building the two doors for our TD. I have however been throwing lots of ideas around on the CAD for when it comes time to construct them. I have decided that I will build then instead of buying them. The doors will be rectangular in shape with a 3 inch radius in each bottom corner and a 4 inch radius in each top corner. There will be a window fitted in each door. I have yet to decide if I will build the two windows or buy them. At this stage, building them looks to be the way I will go. The next decision is whether I will hinge the doors at the side or at the top. This decision is running 50/50 at the moment. The corners of the door opening will be fitted with a turned wooden seal mount that will also encompass the sides and top/ bottom of the door entrance with its profile. I have the basic shape for this on my CAD program drawings. I much prefer the radii in the corners as this greatly increases the strength of the walls and is not all that hard to do. The radii certainly will look fabulous when it's all finished. The plywood removed from the wall to make the entrance will also become the door panel as well.
Dimensions of door :-
Width 31.5"
Height 49"
Bottom of door entrance to ground 25" max. The top of the mattress will be 2 1/2" above the door entrance.
Top of door entrance to ground 74"

Some big decisions yet to be made. I will post lots of photos as it's being built

Kody

Kody.... I used a standard dinner plate to trace my radii on the teardrop. Making them a 4 - 4 1/2" radius.

Circles are a wonderful thing until you have to trim them. I have since opted for a 45 degree corner as they are easier to trim out. Just offering a thought.



Here is the clipped corner I am talking about....



This is one of my side tables but the corners are 45 ed just like my idea on the doors.

For my 2 cents worth, one corner of the door matches the radius of the wall.

bobhenry wrote:It isn't the door it's the trim that get inky and hard to do.

I haven't heard "inky" used like this in a loooooong time...LOL

Kody wrote:The next decision is whether I will hinge the doors at the side or at the top. This decision is running 50/50 at the moment.

Somewhere I read someone's experience with "Gull Wing" doors. They thought it would be a good way to provide shade and rain shelter. However, what they found was that they were less practical to close from inside due to the fact that they need struts (and the complication that goes with them) to hold the doors open. Whereas a side hung door will more or less stay put within reach while you are entering and closing the door behind you.

Also, unless your TD is very tall and you are very short, they may be a head knocker in camp. Whereas std. side hung doors can be pinned back against the camper out of the way when open. On a shorter TD this means that the door must extend into the roof to get any real height, and that adds a lot of complication in addition to compromising the ease with which getting a good seal would come.

In short, it seams like a neat idea, but it isn't worth the trouble. Again, this was another person's experience(sorry, can't remember where I saw it), but it makes good sense to me.

viewtopic.php?f=21&t=57192&p=1036248&hilit=cheapest+door#p1036248
my own oddesy to what I think is the best door/window