Teardrops n Tiny Travel Trailers

Hi everyone, I hope I am putting this in the right place so that people can see it to respond. My initial post was a hello and telling about a foamie for my motorcycle to pull.
I have a few questions for u expert trailer builders. I am learning as I go and have had to rethink several things. I initially made everything for a 4x8, using the HF trailer. I was ready to put it all together and viola skinning time, but for some reason i got stuck, I don't know if this has happened to anyone else, but i just could not continue for some reason and i couldn't figure out why. Then one day my mom came by and looked at it, she said that looks big for a motorcycle to pull, it seems the ones i have seen are smaller than that. POW

That was it, I was subconsciously worried about that. Now that i know what it is, I am back at it full time again. I cut the trailer down by a foot and a half, and took one foot off the floor as well. The walls have been redone and now I only have to move the axle up forward. Since my TV is a Harley, I am gonna move it up to 40 percent. that should be ok for a bike right?

But as I am doing that I am looking at the trailer and wondering if I can remove another bar. Initially i removed two bars and fixed the trailer so that it no longer folds in half, removed the legs and wheels as well as the springs and spring supports. I thought I was doing good removing all that weight, but then i brought home the torsion axle that i had made and it weighs at least a hundred pounds, so there goes all that weight i thought i was removing, lol.

So what does anyone think about this, would it be ok if i remove one more bar, and just have one bar smack dead center. The floor is gonna hang over a small bit in front and back. The floor is 3/4 foam sandwiched with luan and 5/8 plywood. I am going to borrow a welding machine and weld all the corners, bolts and connections, to make it extra sturdy. The axle itself is between the front and back sections holding them firmly together at the area that was meant to bend. What advice does anyone have for this, does this sound like a terrible idea, and would I be better off leaving it with the number of bars that it has now, which is two in the center. This is how it looks now. the trailer now measures 78".

Thank u so much for your time and in advance for your responses.

Hi everyone, I just looked at my post asking for advice about my HF trailer. I'm trying to cut more weight off of it and realized that I posted the wrong pictures. I wanted someone to look at it and tell me if just the one bar would be safe enough to support my foamie, or if I should put the other bar back for more support. Here is the current pic of it with the one bar in the middle.

Not sure where my post went. I posted this thread to maybe help you out. This build came in at 180lbs and has a lot of good info in it http://tnttt.com/viewtopic.php?f=55&t=50313

ghcoe wrote:Not sure where my post went. I posted this thread to maybe help you out. This build came in at 180lbs and has a lot of good info in it http://tnttt.com/viewtopic.php?f=55&t=50313

Thank You so much, I had seen this before, but was looking for it again to see more of the details of what he did on the chassis and couldn't find it again. I appreciate your time in posting it again.

It's probably too late now as it sounds like you have already built your floor, but 5/8 inch top skin is way over built. With a lower skin and foam core you could get away with 1/4 or 5mm ply for the top skin over foam.

KCStudly wrote:It's probably too late now as it sounds like you have already built your floor, but 5/8 inch top skin is way over built. With a lower skin and foam core you could get away with 1/4 or 5mm ply for the top skin over foam.

You know what KC, u r the bestest bestest and I mean that for realz.. Thank u so much for answering all my goofy questions, these specifics for a motorcycle are hard to find. I trust your opinion and will remake my floor if I have to. Initially I was going to make my floor with a luan on top and bottom and the half inch foam in between, but my uncle talked me out of it saying that wouldn't be strong enough. Being as insecure as I am with a first build I listened to him. I should have known from all the things that I had read on these forums on floors that it would be ok.

I glued the 5/8 plywood and luan to foam using glidden gripper and in some areas it didn't seem to take very well, as in this picture.
I wonder if I would be able to pull that plywood off without causing too much damage to the luan at least and then I can re-use that piece. Then again would that be entirely too much work. I do have another piece of 4x8 luan in my shed and can just buy another piece of one inch foam and start all over. Maybe I can salvage small pieces of the old floor for a table or the shelves if I can save the lighter pieces.

Now with the way that I lightened the HF trailer and removed all the inner bars except for one in the center, it left the floor with 38" of empty space between support. Will that be too far apart for the lighter floor? Should I go ahead and replace one of the bars leaving approx. 26" between support under the new floor.

One more question if u will. When u make a floor with wood on one side and foam on the other, do u put the floor face up on the chassis, so that the foam is what u will sit/lay on? This is how I would think it would go, so that the wood can be against the metal not squishing the foam, but what I think and how it should be are not always entirely the same things.

Now about u being the bestest bestest KC, When I get this thing done and am finally on the road pulling it with my Harley, I will have to head to your neck of the woods and buy u a couple of twelve packs of beer for all your help.

I guess I thought it was understood that the floor would have some sort of perimeter frame, perhaps 1 x 5/4 nominal stock to match your 1 inch foam, or 1 x 1 if using 3/4 inch foam. Where you will connect to the trailer frame should have some form of solid blocking so that the fasteners there won't crush the foam sandwich. I don't see anything like that in your pic^. You will need a way to join your walls to the floor, too.

My floor does have 1x2 and 2x2 xmbrs built in, but there is probably a happy place that you could build lighter for a single motorcycle sleeper.

I would be leery of using gripper as a construction adhesive, it does not have any gap filling capability to speak of. It works good with canvas or fabric, because those are flexible, but the plywood and foam won't always lay together like that. Did you weigh down or clamp your glue up?

Is there a particular build here on the forums that your are using for guidance and inspiration? There are a lot of successful builds here that could give you a good reference on how to build light.

If you're still working on the floor, besides the perimeter mentioned in a previous post, I would also add some sub-floor spars, made with some 1 bys... And if you place them so they fall on a steel cross member, even better. I would use titebond II for the wood to wood connections, and gorilla glue for the foam to wood connections.

Then I would do foam walls, glue the canvas to the foam with gripper, and then size the canvas with TBII.
Last, I would paint the canvas to match the color of the Harley.

Mike...

P.S. I am also curious as to which design you are using as guidence...

KCStudly wrote:I guess I thought it was understood that the floor would have some sort of perimeter frame, perhaps 1 x 5/4 nominal stock to match your 1 inch foam, or 1 x 1 if using 3/4 inch foam. Where you will connect to the trailer frame should have some form of solid blocking so that the fasteners there won't crush the foam sandwich. I don't see anything like that in your pic^. You will need a way to join your walls to the floor, too.

I feel a bit silly now as far as my wondering about the foam getting crushed. I am planning to bolt my floor down with u bolts and I also have some other thick bolts that I may use in addition to those, was just gonna wait and see if it would be overdoing it when that time comes. As for the frame, I did read in a few posts about bolting the floor directly to the chassis, and in one light build post how it would be bolted directly to the axle on the A frame trailer. Now I wonder if I misunderstood that.
AS for the wall to floor connection, because this floor is so thick, I was planning on gluing it with GG and using drywall screws to hold it in place. The walls on to the side of the floor, not on top of the floor.

KCStudly wrote:I would be leery of using gripper as a construction adhesive, it does not have any gap filling capability to speak of. It works good with canvas or fabric, because those are flexible, but the plywood and foam won't always lay together like that. Did you weigh down or clamp your glue up?

Oh I never did plan on using gripper as an adhesive, and in fact bought it only to make the outside finish look smooth after I finished the pmf and was about to put my finishing paint on it. The reason that I did use it was because I just so happened to watch a video about different glues and how well they performed and as u can guess glidden gripper worked very well. Like a numbnutt, I went ahead and used it, and of course regret it now. As I always think that nothing happens by chance, maybe that was so that I can tear it all apart easily to reuse some of the wood anyway. I did weigh it down heavily, but didn't work well on the edges.

[quote="mikeschn"]If you're still working on the floor, besides the perimeter mentioned in a previous post, I would also add some sub-floor spars, made with some 1 bys... And if you place them so they fall on a steel cross member, even better. I would use titebond II for the wood to wood connections, and gorilla glue for the foam to wood connections.

The gluing the way u describe it here is exactly how I have planned to do it. I have two bottles of titebond II and one large one of GG. Im not going to use gripper to glue the canvas down, I will use the titebond. If I do buy another bottle of gripper, it will be to make the outside smooth, even that, I'm not so sure I will do anymore.

OH OH, I was watching videos again. There is the one on the forum comparing glues again, and in that one GG came out the lowest man on the totem pole, especially for areas that can't be clamped tightly. In fact the glue that testest better was the PL premium. I did buy a tube of that and was gonna give that a try on my wood to foam door handle supports and hinge supports. The hinges I can get away with GG because I can clamp that area, but the door handle area is awkward and is really where I wanted to use the PL premium.
Would u advise against using this on the floor since I do in fact need to redo it. I can see how the wooden spars would make the floor much sturdier too without the use of another piece of luan or plywood.

I still am unsure if the one crossbar will be enough support for the floor, or if I should in fact replace one of the other ones. I wish wish wish that I could make me one of the ultra light A frame trailers, but I don't have the skills to do that, so I have made do with the HF trailer to the best of my abilities.

AS for following any one build, I have not done that. I did however look for your build thread to no avail. Mike. I tried to click on it under a few different light build threads, and each time it comes up that this page can not be found. I was disappointed about that. This other ultralight build that ghcoe linked on here, I have looked at quite a bit and that is one sweet little trailer.

Thank you so much for your help, it is greatly appreciated, and as always I will continue to look up things on the forum as well. This is one wonderful place. Thanks to u all.

When I did my floor I had trouble with the tb2 sticking/drying. Humidity was high.
I flooded the loose spots with more GG and weighted things. 2 Days later it was
good...