Teardrops n Tiny Travel Trailers

Hi all: I'm new to the group. Just discovered teardrop designs & am fascinated.

So... what's the lightest material that anyone is using to construct these things? Seems like most everyone is using plywood, although I saw one guy in El Paso using structural insulated panels. I was thinking a fiber reinforced plastic composites might be more shapeable and lighter.

Do we have any aircraft engineers on the board?

Amy.

Amy,, Welcome to the adult day care and tiny trailer site,,,, a number of threads have discussed a whole bunch of light weight options, It really boils down to what available, what you would rather work with and how much do ya want to spend,,, there are some real spiffy ultra-light materials out there but they tend to get a bit pricey compared to conventional materials that can be picked up locally,,

Do it your way and think it thru and design a new lightweight one,,,

welcome and show us da pics,,,,

chipper

TexasTraveller wrote:I was thinking a fiber reinforced plastic composites might be more shapeable and lighter.

Amy,

Welcome.

You're right on both counts, but.......
- the more shape you have, the less space you'll have;
- the more shape you have, the more work you're making for yourself;
- a durable laminate, for example one that has a reasonable resistance to puncturing by flying stones, is not going to be a huge amount lighter than plywood;
- composites require a huge amount of surface finishing if building a one-off;
- having the self-discipline to build a plywood body light will achieve a large part of the weight-saving of composites;
- a tent will always be lighter than a teardrop.......

I'd love to see someone use composites to build an ultra-lightweight trailer of an interesting shape, but it would have to be done for its own sake, not because it made sense!

Andrew

Somewhere on the site I saw a couple of guys out in the SW desert area construct cardboard TDs and hold them together with duct tape. Thats certainly a unique approach, but they must be the lightest. I'm sure you could use luan or 1/4" if you wanted to go real light weight.

You can always insulate with Aerogel. It is typically 50-99.5% air, yet can hold (theoretically) 500 to 4,000 times its weight in applied force. Aerogel can have surface areas ranging from 250 to 3,000 square meters per gram, meaning that a cubic inch (2.5 cm x 2.5 cm x 2.5 cm) of aerogel flattened-out (again theoretically) would have more surface area than an entire football field! Aerogel's superlow density makes it useful as a lightweight structural material, and its superhigh internal surface area makes it a superinsulating solid material. For those of you who have always wanted to touch an aerogel, it feels like styrofoam. Silica aerogel is transparent with a blue color.

NASA used this technology to collect space dust,
"StarDust will sweep through the comet's coma, the ball of gas surrounding the nucleus of the comet, at 136,000 miles per hour. NASA will use an aerogel "catcher's mitt" designed by Dr. Peter Tsou and his colleagues at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. Rather than catch fly balls, this "mitt" will catch particles coming off the comet."

http://homepages.cae.wisc.edu/~aerogel/ ... rogel.html

Ken A Hood wrote:You can always insulate with Aerogel. It is typically 50-99.5% air, yet can hold (theoretically) 500 to 4,000 times its weight in applied force. Aerogel can have surface areas ranging from 250 to 3,000 square meters per gram, meaning that a cubic inch (2.5 cm x 2.5 cm x 2.5 cm) of aerogel flattened-out (again theoretically) would have more surface area than an entire football field! Aerogel's superlow density makes it useful as a lightweight structural material, and its superhigh internal surface area makes it a superinsulating solid material. For those of you who have always wanted to touch an aerogel, it feels like styrofoam. Silica aerogel is transparent with a blue color.

NASA used this technology to collect space dust,
"StarDust will sweep through the comet's coma, the ball of gas surrounding the nucleus of the comet, at 136,000 miles per hour. NASA will use an aerogel "catcher's mitt" designed by Dr. Peter Tsou and his colleagues at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. Rather than catch fly balls, this "mitt" will catch particles coming off the comet."

http://homepages.cae.wisc.edu/~aerogel/ ... rogel.html

I hope you don't have anything evil planned with this, General Disarray.

There is a couple that I met at the Colorado Campout last fall. They are from tha small town of Oury Colorado. They built it like an airplane, wood spars and Dacron fabric and then coated with dope to shrink it. I know it was light. I didn't catch their names. Duane had everyone sign in so he should have their info.
http://tnttt.com/profil ... file&u=259

Roly, from this board was working on his 1/4 Nelson. It is super lite and made of wood. He had a pic of him lifting it off the ground one handed.

Hi Amy, that's me, lifting the little 1/4 nelson's wheel with one hand. This tear has a standard Harbor Freight 40" x 48" trailer frame, which has a total weight of 145lbs. The 6 foot wooden teardrop is made up of an 1 3/8" hollow core door for the floor, 1/4" side walls and 1/8" roof plywood, and the total weight of the tear body is 95 lbs! (I know, because I weighed it prior to bolting it to the frame) That makes a total of 240 lbs. Unless you go the aircraft canvas and dope route, I do believe this is about as light as you can get. Perhaps eliminating some of the metal members of the frame, one could even shave off even more weight. Hmmm.......Naw, I ain't even gonna try that on the next one. :-)

Roly, with one TD built, one being worked on and another one in the cardboard model stage............Gotta build one we can stand up in.

Dang people are posting my pictures faster than I can