Teardrops n Tiny Travel Trailers

I’m using the shape of the generic benroy build found here, designed by Mark Schneider. He indicates a 48” radius, as well as a 19” radius on the rear. I’m trying to understand; are these two radius joined/blended together so the actual rear radius is not a portion of a circle?

On his sidewalls, he has a notch cut out for the hatch. On other plans I have viewed, there is no notch cut out for the hatch. I’m trying to understand the difference in the builds and pros/cons of each design. It seems the notch allows the hatch to “overlap” the wall in the rear via use of some aluminum trim. If no notch is used, the hatch closes within the two walls. Am I right?

On that same note, there are two hurricane hinges on the market – one has offset, one without offset. This is related to the notch above (I believe).

Can someone guide me through understanding these issues before I cut walls and order hinges. Thanks very much.

It sounds like you may be talking about the Steve Fredrick's hatch building method. Google his last name around the forum a bit.

https://www.google.ca/search?as_q=fredr ... as_rights=

Tony

Looking at the profile dimensions, they are two different radii with two different center points that "blend" together at the common tangent point. The 48 inch radius center is located below the tangent point with the flat part of the roof and the 19 inch radius center is much further back and up. The later transitions from the 48 inch radius to the vertical rear line of the profile.

Whether you use the Fredrick's method or not, having a wall notch is in effect the same as having hatch ribs at the very edge of your hatch. The other method has the outer hatch ribs nestling down inside between the side walls (with a clearance gap between them) and can potentially leave a very thin unsupported edge of the roof skin and ply. Also, this flat edge to wall top joint relies totally on the rubber seal to keep water out; whereas most versions of the notched hatch have a rim board or step configuration that helps keep water out.

I chose to do a hybrid version of both. My ribs are set inside of the wall with the hatch edge landing on top, but I have a very thick foam core and fiberglass skin providing thickness and rigidity to the edge of the hatch. because the gap between hatch and wall is still very small, I will router a rabbet, or shallow notch, along the outside edge of the wall for the seal to land on, thus forming a step that water would have to climb if it were to get under the seal.

KCStudly -
Thank you for taking the time to reply and answer my questions. I've viewed plenty of build logs but sometimes the little detail that you're looking for can take hours of going thru threads to find. Also, many of the pics that were posted in the early years of this forum are no longer available to view.
I appreciate your help.

Brian

Hi Brian - Welcome to the forum. I built mine from Mike's generic Benroy plans and used the offset hinge so I didn't have to notch the side walls. If you go to the Vintage Technology web sight at teardroptrailerparts.com and click on the offset hinge, Frank has a series of photos that will help you understand how it works. Frank Bear is a great resource and will be happy to answer any questions you might have. I bought many of my components from him and highly recommend his Vintage Technologies products. The Benroy teardrop is a fun project to build and will probably become an obsession as it did for many of us. When I'm not camping in mine, I'm thinking about it. Good luck with your build. Bill