Teardrops n Tiny Travel Trailers

Hi,

I'm having a hard time thinking about how to make the "roll-pan" under the front and back of the tear. We have a 5x8 trailer but want to make the tear 5x9 with 5x9 3/4 plywood walls, and drop over the frame. Does anyone have any cool tips/techniques for making/skinning the roll-pan area? We're going to try and make a Grumman type. Also, I want to buy plans...I believe Steve sells plans? Thanks.

Please post pictures on the front/rear roll-pan and also ideas on how the hatch closes to said real roll-pan. I hope that's what it's called...lol.

jandbsteardrop wrote:Hi,

I'm having a hard time thinking about how to make the "roll-pan" under the front and back of the tear. We have a 5x8 trailer but want to make the tear 5x9 with 5x9 3/4 plywood walls, and drop over the frame. Does anyone have any cool tips/techniques for making/skinning the roll-pan area? We're going to try and make a Grumman type. Also, I want to buy plans...I believe Steve sells plans? Thanks.

Please post pictures on the front/rear roll-pan and also ideas on how the hatch closes to said real roll-pan. I hope that's what it's called...lol.

FYI - we are going to put the 3/4 walls on top of the frame but drop the 1/8 or 1/4 luan down the side.

This is how I do the roll pans. Danny

halfdome, Danny wrote:This is how I do the roll pans. Danny

Perfect, thank you very much! This helps a lot!

Jack

I cut curved ribs and skinned it in 1/8th inch ThermoPly and covered that with aluminum.


It's lightweight and sturdy.

"Steve sells plans?"

Steve Fredrick sells his teardrop Shop Manual and I'm a big fan, it really helped with my build.

http://www.campingclassics.com/shopman05.html

Tony

halfdome, Danny wrote:This is how I do the roll pans. Danny

I am trying to wrap my Brain around this for my buld. We are doing a raindrop copy. Here : http://www.tnttt.com/viewtopic.php?f=50&t=58616

This would assume that the aluminum comes down and covers the frame right?

Also, for the curved front, this will mean that I would also need to frame down ( I don't know the technical term) behind the radius on the front wall at the bottom so that their isn't thin skin (1/8 and Al) hanging over 4" (the thickness of my outer frame)?

Not meaning to hijack the thread here, but that also ties in to what I'm going to do on the roll pan in the back.

Brian

How you build your roll pans depends somewhat on how your frame is contructed. My frame has a platform of 2x2 steel tubing with the tongue mounted welded to the bottom of the frame. I extended my walls 2" to cover the platform. Most of the radius of my front and rear roll pans were above roll pan so I framed that portion of the front roll pan and rear hatch similar to how Danny showed. For the 2" depth of the roll pans that projected below the floor and over the platform, I built them up out of solid wood and planed them in place to match the roll pan radius.

These pictures showed how I did this on the front roll pan. To make it easier, I flipped over the teardrop so that the floor was up.



I approximated the radius by bevel cutting the wood on the table saw, and then glued it into place.



I then added more boards until I built up the roll pan to the depth of the platform.



And then I planed and sanded the boards until the matched the radius.



I did the same thing for the rear roll pan. You can kind of get an idea what both roll pans and the extension of the sidewalls to cover the platform look like in this picture.



I really had to scratch my head to figure out how to the rear hatch/roll pan seal. I ended up using a vertical edge at the galley floor.



To this I installed a "P" shaped weather seal.



I then added aluminum trim to the flat part of the seal.



I don't have a picture of it, but the lower edge of my hatch is vertical and uses the same detail but is upside down to the galley. This way the bulb part of the P shaped seal on the hatch overlaps the bulb part on the galley floor and each bulb part seals against the aluminum trim of the opposite side.

Here's a picture of the hatch closed where you can see where the hatch and floor meet and the rear roll pan below the floor.



Hope this helps.

Take care,
Tom