Teardrops n Tiny Travel Trailers

Time to look at doors.

My mind is going crazy

Round doors, pocket doors, hatch, gulwing, piddelly eveyday doors, hinges, glides, door that opens like a vans, iris doors like a camera, door with window, door with peep hole?

Handels and locks.
house or trailer type.

Door seals

screen doors

any thoughts you wish to share?

Ron

Ron-

The Ctear is 6'w x 10'l x 5'h

The side walls are made from 1 1/2" thick stock with 1 1/2" ridgid blue board insulation.

The doors were made rectangular from 3/4" stock and insulated.

The "stick built" construction & the resultant 3/4" offset on the inside allowed me to frame out the door & weatherstrip/stop like traditional houses.

I also used a house threshold/weatherseal at the bottom.

No leaks and extremely insulated!

Been out @ low of 9 degrees F with heat source of a couple candles and my faithful mutt, Simba!



Cheers,

Coop

It depends upon your priorities. If you have more time than $$, build the doors yourself (stick-frame or use a cut-out). If you have a deadline (like we did), buy the door(s), cut out the hole, put them in, add some caulking & a couple of screws, and you are ready to go on to the next item. We built our TD in 6 very long weekends (started May 1st and had it finished by Father's Day). If we had built our doors, we would have added at least one or more weekends to that total.

If you are a craftsman and like the look of wood and the feeling of accomplishment , definitely build them yourself and the heck with the schedule!

Andrea.

We purchased the "Cubby" set of plans and built accordingly. If I were to do again, I would have gone with a simpler design. The radius in the doors lower corner were tight and a son of a gun to bend the aluminum around the edge. Had to rebuild one door three times before I was satisfied with the results.

Larry

Larryl when I was looking for ideas on how to mount my airconditioer I came accross your pictures. I think I settled on something like your setup. How has it work for you? Any drawbacks?Does it seem to breath OK? Any feedback would help before I get to far along.
Thanks Keith

Mark & Andrea Jones wrote:
If you are a craftsman and like the look of wood and the feeling of accomplishment , definitely build them yourself and the heck with the schedule!

Andrea.

I am,I think...I do love wood...But sometimes you gotta get done!!
Where did you get the doors??

Quick and easy wood doors, no screws, biscuits or joinery, frame is on the outside epoxied to 2 sheets of 1/4" plywood one facing in, one facing out. I cut out the frame pieces, clamped them to slightly oversized plywood then trimmed the edges and window opening with a laminate bit in the router when the epoxy cured. I didn't plan it that way, but when I got the first piece of plywood clamped in place, I liked the look of the frame pieces on the outside of the door.

Steve

Steve Frederick wrote:

Mark & Andrea Jones wrote:
If you are a craftsman and like the look of wood and the feeling of accomplishment , definitely build them yourself and the heck with the schedule!

Andrea.

I am,I think...I do love wood...But sometimes you gotta get done!!
Where did you get the doors??

Well, if anyone who frequents this board is a craftsman, then I'd think you fit the bill, Steve. We love wood, too, and I can appreciate the effort that it takes to create what you do. At the time, though. it was a time issue and we had less time than $$ (not that there was a lot of that either!). It was simply more important to get them done.

We got them from Cozy Cruiser http://www.cozycruiser.com/teardrop-parts.html. They were definitely pricey, but I think I would use them again - if, by some odd chance, we decided to do it again. Having a screen door built into the whole door unit and with a good sturdy latch / deadbolt was a major plus. I like being able to look out the door and see the not so little black & white visitors walk under the TD at 2 am.

I just wish that we could have gotten them keyed alike. Trying to find someplace that can make copies of the keys isn't going to be easy. Oh, and replace the opaque slide on the screen door (that you have to move to get to the door latch) with a clear one.

Of course, Steve Cox's doors look fine, too!

AJ.

Was wrong to buy a set. Too much modification to get windows etc

cuted out from one piece side - ply

If I had it to do over again, I'd DEFINITELY go with square doors. IMO, they're so much easier to seal, esp if you plan on having your teardrop out in rainy weather.

Tried to mimmick the curve of the teardrop with my doors. Think it looks pretty good, but also think square doors would look just as good.

I built the sides and cut the doors out. Trimmed them and added hinges and alum. angle. built the interior seal out of 1x2 strips with 1/2" lip. I used lockable screen door handles. I got lucky enough to find matching handles (same key used) at Home Depot.
interior view

exterior view

close up of interior handle

Mark & Andrea Jones wrote:

Steve Frederick wrote:

Mark & Andrea Jones wrote:


I just wish that we could have gotten them keyed alike. Trying to find someplace that can make copies of the keys isn't going to be easy. AJ.

Any good locksmith can key your doors the same. They either change the pins or replace the cartridge. (Is that whatit's called?)

Micro469 wrote:................ They either change the pins or replace the cartridge. (Is that whatit's called?)

Cylinder!

toypusher wrote:

Micro469 wrote:................ They either change the pins or replace the cartridge. (Is that whatit's called?)

Cylinder!

Glad you smiled when you said that pardner...