Teardrops n Tiny Travel Trailers

I have been kicking around the idea of making a small camper for a while now, but it has recently reached the obsession stage and I've been trying to come up with a workable design. I want to have space to sleep 4, ideally on a 5x8 frame. Blending some of my own ideas with others found through this forum, this is where my design is at:



The upper portion of the galley bulkhead folds down like a door, and 2 15" shelves rest on supports bolted to the side walls, storing beneath the shelf at the rear of the sleeping compartment when not in use. This gives me a queen size upper bunk. My main problem is that in order to make this plan workable, it needs to be at least 9' long in order to have decent space in the galley area. In order to build this on an 8' frame, it will have 1' of overhang front and back. Will that work, or should I go back to the drawing board?

Mark

Mark,

Before I comment on your design, I would like to know if you've checked out Andrews 2+2 in the design library, and the TTT for 4 plans on ebay...





Mike...

I've seen the 2+2 design, I've not seen the ebay plans. The 2+2 is wider than I want to go, I'd like to stay at 5' to keep it simple. The transverse bunks in the 2+2 would be too short in a 5' width. The ebay plans I haven't seen and can't really say, but it also looks like maybe it has transverse bunks?

Mark

Mike, Do you have any more info on the woody trailer in your post? Thats kinda what I want to do on my next trailer.

Mark,

I don't believe having 12" overhangs each end of a ready-made trailer are any problem structurally, but a couple of things you need to think about are:

- 12" overhang on the front of some trailers will leave you with very little tongue sticking out - you may get contact between the tow vehicle and trailer when there isn't much of an angle between them.

- You need to get the right trailer balance and so if you split the overhang equally between the ends, you may need to move the axle back.

On a different point of view, I think you should build a mock-up of your trailer body out of cardboard - in particular, I hope you've got some contortionists or acrobats to sleep in the top bunk, because I certainly couldn't get myself up there!

Andrew

O.K., I found the ebay design. Interesting ...

From the pics and dimensions given, this is what it looks like:



With a little tinkering with this profile, I've come up with a tall teardrop with a loft and traditional rear galley. The potential for storage area is tremendous.




How stable would a tall design like this be? I'm kind of liking the idea.


Mark

justduit wrote:How stable would a tall design like this be?

My personal rule of thumb is that the overall height (from the road) shouldn't be a lot more than the overall width - 125% of width is probably OK, but 150% of width is getting high.

I arrive at this rule of thumb by looking at manufactured trailers - if they don't fall over, a home-built one with similar proportions shouldn't either. This does assume the body is built reasonably light - if everything is in 3/4" ply, then maybe not exceeding the overall width would be sensible.

And remember these are overall dimensions. So your 78" body height gets at least 14" of trailer deck height added to it to give 92" total. If you build on a 60" trailer with wheels outside the frame, that will have an overall width of say, 60"+8"+8"= 76", so your height/width ratio is 121%. That's close to the limit but acceptable, in my opinion.

Andrew

I'm really getting somewhere with the design now. I've left the arena of teardrop like and entered the TTT area. I have 2 queen bunks, storage under the lower bunk split to be partially accessible from the inside, part from the outside. The end of the top bunk swings up to allow sitting on the lower bunk. I could possibly use ready made kitchen cabinets for the galley area.





Andrew, thanks for all your input.

Mark

Mark,

That looks interesting, though I think you still need acrobats - it's 46" up to the upper bunk (and maybe as much as 54" when you add some mattress thicknesses) and then you have to get end-on into a 28" high space. These guys don't have claustrophobia, do they?

Andrew

I'll put a ladder on the right side at the end of the bunks to facilitate climbing in. It will be my children, and they are pretty flexible and able to get into all kinds of places (and things) where I can't fit anymore. As far as the 28" (24" with a 4" thick mattress) clearance, I lived for 3 years sleeping every night in a space with 22" clearance above the mattress and sometimes a 60" climb to get in with one step at about 15". This was on board a Navy ship. My thinking is that if I could live full time in a bed like that, my children can handle it for a few days at a time.