Teardrops n Tiny Travel Trailers

Alright, flame away. Please criticise, insult, demean as you see fit. Now is the time to give me bad news (before I start building) and I'm actually looking for it.

Okay, here goes:

Side cutaway:
This shows the rough interior dimensions.



Wall and interior:




Galley:
Not much detail here, but I intend to have a portable Coleman propan stove. The cubby in the lower left will house the propane tank. May need to be resized to allow for plumbing. Not shown are drawers and faces.
The blue stuff is plexiglass that will serve to partition off a storage area for dry food.




Wall construction:

I'll be using 1x4s with 3/4' foam board as insulation. Too much?



So that's it in a nutshell. If you have Sketchup you can download the drawing here:
http://www.losbacas.com/TD1lite.skp

Construction:

Walls and interior ceiling/roof- 1/4" plywood, 1x4" framing with 3'4 foam insulation

Galley cabinetry - 1/2" plywood, 1/4" Plexiglass

Floor - 1/2" plywood with 2x4 framing and joists

Trailer - unknown at this point. still looking for inspiration or a good deal.

My goal is to keep the weight under 1000lbs, tongue weight under 150 lbs.


Questions? Suggestions? Comments?

please make the door more roundy

You might want to extend the roof in the front a little. Your profile looks like there won't be much headroom to sit up in bed.

Kynetx,

Have you looked at the generic Benroy Plans on this forum? I think you are over building for your floor(2x4s). Don't forget about the spars for the ceiling(1x2s)

I would add more storage in the galley - places for pots and pans - not including DOs(Dutch Ovens)

Other than that if it works for you go for it

Thanks, Rick. I was wondering about the profile. I was also thinking it might be too shallow, but we're not really sit-up-in-bed people. We do read in bed, but that's laying down most of the time.

Good point about the storage. I'm going to have to come up with a solution for that.

Kynetx wrote:Alright, flame away.

Kynetx,

I think that's a very gracious shape and if you can live with the loss of storage space, it would make a very pretty trailer. I'm with Jay, though, on rounding the door a bit, which I've shown below.

However the point of this post is to highlight a problem you've got coming. I think this is where the ease of use of SketchUp hurts, as it's an easy way to draw something you can't build. I've drawn over your model's side view:



The problem looks really small now - there's a kink of about 15 degrees between the tight lower radius and the larger upper radius at the front. Now of course plywood doesn't bend around kinks. You could just join two bits of plywood with that angle between them, but it would look like a mistake, I think. On the right is a modifed upper curve that meets the lower curve smoothly.



The change in the upper front radius is all of 1/4"- which shows you accuracy you need to draw to.



Incidentally, I've marked on the first drawing how far back the wheel and fender have to go with this design - no more than 40" from the back (33% of body length). This is an acceptable figure for trailer balance, but it will give a fairly heavy hitch weight - no problem if you have a truck, but not good if you want to use a small tow vehicle.

Andrew

PS If you keep your graphics under 800 pixels width, they won't extend the page width and we won't all have to scroll left and right to read it. And really anything more than 600 wide is really rather 'in your face'.

With the more rounded profiles you loose interior space. You gain a smooth aerodinamic shape and loose weight. I opted for the space, on my first, and compermised on the smooth shape. I went with a Benroy. Don't get me wrong I love the Benroy shape but there are smoother profiles. I like your half round. Cut it out of cardboard and see if it works for you. Remember you loose height do the the thickness of the floor and roof. I also opted to not have cabinets, like most TDs do, over my feet. As a matter of fact my head is to the rear. Speaking of a "head" mine is in a closet at my feet, thats why my head is at the rear. My wife insisted that there was a "head" which pushed the size of my TD up. 5'w x 4'9"h x 11'L

Kynetx,

Looks like a neat profile to tow behind a new Beetle!

angib wrote:Kynetx,

I think that's a very gracious shape and if you can live with the loss of storage space, it would make a very pretty trailer. I'm with Jay, though, on rounding the door a bit, which I've shown below.

Thanks! =)

However the point of this post is to highlight a problem you've got coming. I think this is where the ease of use of SketchUp hurts, as it's an easy way to draw something you can't build. I've drawn over your model's side view:

You're right. That makes a huge aesthetic difference. Thanks!

Incidentally, I've marked on the first drawing how far back the wheel and fender have to go with this design - no more than 40" from the back (33% of body length). This is an acceptable figure for trailer balance, but it will give a fairly heavy hitch weight - no problem if you have a truck, but not good if you want to use a small tow vehicle.

That's something I have to work with. Tongue weight is important since I'm towing with a car.

PS If you keep your graphics under 800 pixels width, they won't extend the page width and we won't all have to scroll left and right to read it. And really anything more than 600 wide is really rather 'in your face'.

Yup, sorry. I have a laptop that I run at fairly high resolution so it looks OK on my end. I resized the images to something more appropriate. Thanks for the heads-up.

If you like it I say go for it but me personally would want more cabin space
especially if you are going to pull with a small car were space will be limited also I am just about finshed w/ our 5x9 benroy and I thik the weight is still uder a 1000#s
Just my thoughts but its you that is going to be camping in it not me

Mike

I would be inclined to modify the shape to look a little more like this...



Mike...

P.S. Sorry about the big picture... I'm linked to the pic at www.azteardrops.com

It is a graceful shape.
Were you planning a 4x8?