Teardrops n Tiny Travel Trailers

The squash looks golden brown and delicious!

Sounds like a lot is getting done! Best of luck with everything. I know how weather can effect a build.

Catherine, so nice to see the new one coming along !!!

Great to hear you are building again,

Mary C.

Thanks for the encouragement. I'm trying to do a little bit every day/evening, but it doesn't always happen. On the bright side, my yard (and the whole mountain) is greener and deeper in grass (and weeds) than it has been in about 7 years!!!


Catherine

All work and no play makes Catherine a dull girl, so I spent yesterday, which would have been perfect for trailer building, talking with fellow fiber addicts. I haven't used my spinning wheel or loom since the twins were born (they turn 13 on Sept 20!). Yesterday I attended classes on spinning, weaving, and button-knot tying (and we even got in a bit of cheese-making talk), and didn't feel a bit of guilt for not gluing a single joint or canvassing any walls. (Well, maybe just a bit of guilt.) Today I'm at work. No, I mean work, fixing computers. Bummer. This makes up for taking Monday off to register the kids for 7th grade.

Catherine

As we found out .... some days are "Trailer days" , and some aren’t ... just enjoy it when you can !!!

Years back we made a drop spindle and made up some Flemish bow strings out of natural fibers ... Tricky to learn , but easy once we got the hang of it ... Portable too ... Always wanted a wheel , just never ran across one at the right price...

Hi! I'm back!

Okay, the kids and I flipped the trailer to apply the wrap to the under-side. While it was upside down, Patsy declared that we needed to sign our work.



Here is the wrap, it will go up about 4 inches on the outside of the foam walls. I glued it with TBII, but the foam gets glued down to the deck with the standard GG.


Back right-side-up, here's the floor waiting for the cabin to be installed.


Let's see, I know I have walls somewhere...

Catherine

Oh, yeah, there it is!




I'm Pooped!

Catherine

Catherine+twins wrote:

I'm Pooped!

Catherine

You should be! It isn't easy, working all day in the hot sun. But, hopefully, you'll get your reward for it soon.

Coming along now .... The second build is always easier, you know what to expect ...

That's a neat idea, gluing the canvas onto the bottom first! Takes care of the problem of accessing the underside, gets it done while it's easy-before the walls are in place.

Hey, it's been on the road! I had to pull my (unfinished) trailer over a hundred miles this weekend, and I turned it into an experiment. When I was ready to hook it up, I did a bathroom scale estimate--215 lbs (plus or minus maybe 5) on each wheel and 65 lbs tongue weight--that puts it around 500 lbs, right? (Made the goal! The car is rated for 750 lbs un-braked! Oh, and 120 lbs tongue weight. It's rated for 1200 lbs with trailer brakes, so you see where that tongue weight limit fits in). We added a light picnic table and 3 chairs, about 100 lbs more. (I didn't weigh it with the table inside, but the kids pushed them pretty far in, over the axle or just barely forward.) That puts Penguino2 at the goal of about 10-15% tongue weight, right? But not too tongue-heavy (Penguino1 was tongue-heavy.)

This was, of course, the first time I towed it over city street speeds, so I took it easy at first. It was awful!!! It bucked and bounced under 45 mph. I had failed!!! But over 50 it smoothed out. Happy speed seemed to be between 55-60. Even found myself going nearly 70 at one point going downhill, and didn't even feel it behind me! OTOH, going uphill into a head wind, oh man it is SO THERE!

I feel much better about my little trailer now.

Catherine

Glad to hear it tows well at high speed, but the bucking and bouncing at lower speeds would concern me. I'm wondering what the trailer axle is rated for and how much air is in the tires. Maybe someone else here can speak to smoothing our the ride at lower speeds

Try more nose weight. My UT is clunky, dare I say almost evil until it gets a little nose weight on it; axle is too far forward on it 'cuz it is a tilt bed.

I doubt the table and chairs adds up to 100 lbs, but add a sizable loaded cooler and maybe together they would.

Load some more heavy stuff up front as a test and try it (water bottles or jugs are easy to move around, and are easy to calculate weight accurately).