Teardrops n Tiny Travel Trailers

So how have you guys radiused the edge of your exterior walls. I'm not asking about a larger profile wall radius . But a small edge radius on the edge of my 2" foam walls/roof. I'm sure that someone has come up with a way to make nice even edge /corner radius's

I used a surform pocket plane. Done by eye.

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please explain this in more detail / unsure of what you mean.

So this is the tool. I think mine came from Ace.....But wherever is fine. http://m.homedepot.com/p/Stanley-6-in-P ... /202262007

It is like a cheese grater. So after the trailer was all glued up and mostly assembled. I used that to first clean off glue drips from the GG.

The I went along the roof edge and knocked the right angle corner off so I had a 1/2" wide flat making 2 45 degree angles where there had been a 90. Then I knocked those off.

Then I just went back and rounded it making the curve even by eye. I can try and get some photos on some scrap tomorrow if that would help.

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What Laura said … and that works for most anything …

I used a 3/4 round over bit to round the ends of my roof spars, and did the same to the front corners of my floor. This gave me somewhat of a guide and avoided dissimilar sanding rates between foam and wood when it came time to round over the infilled foam.

I made a simple sanding block, palm size, not too long so as to be able to follow the contour of the profile.



More details here: http://www.tnttt.com/viewtopic.php?p=1139355#p1139355

Simple marking jig:


More about that here: http://www.tnttt.com/viewtopic.php?p=1139586#p1139586

(I even rounded the front corners of the main rails on the trailer to match the theme, so the profile radius goes all the way down the front wall through the frame!)
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KCStudly wrote:
(I even rounded the front corners of the main rails on the trailer to match the theme, so the profile radius goes all the way down the front wall through the frame!)
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And that is why KC's trailer is art! (and mine is a hard sided tent on wheels) You have the best details!

I used a router.

I used a random orbit sander, just eyeballing it.

Absolutely. A roundoff bit on a router can achieve remarkable results.
http://www.tnttt.com/gallery/image_page.php?album_id=4097&image_id=142294&display=popup

videographer wrote:Absolutely. A roundoff bit on a router can achieve remarkable results.
http://www.tnttt.com/gallery/image_page.php?album_id=4097&image_id=142294&display=popup

I'll bet you've got to be darn careful using a router on foam !!!!!

rustytoolss wrote:

videographer wrote:Absolutely. A roundoff bit on a router can achieve remarkable results.
http://www.tnttt.com/gallery/image_page.php?album_id=4097&image_id=142294&display=popup

I'll bet you've got to be darn careful using a router on foam !!!!!

Not particularly, although it generates lots and lots of unpleasant pink foam dust. The worst part of building my foamie was routing out 3/8" deep recesses to put plywood in around the doors and windows - took forever, and in most places I couldn't use a fence so it had to be freehand. It got away from me a few times, and it bit me once. It's over now, though...hurray! And the results were worth it.

I would think that you would need to make a guide fence for the shoe, since the guide bearing on the bit would leave a mark, or even dig into the foam and not track evenly. Granted, I tend to pull/push the router pretty firmly into the roller when using one for a guide, so YMMV.

I did a lot of pockets for hard points using a guide collar and guide jigs. Best if you rig your dust collector (in my case a shop vac) up to the shoe of the router. Cuts way down on dust. The fine foam and saw dust does tend to clog the shop vac filters, so I built a cyclone separator out of another old shop vac tub.

I made a hot-wire jig to make a pretty large radius in the nose of my slide-in camper. There are two wires shown in the photo, the rectangular one was being used to cut a chunk out of a piece, and I slipped the curved wire in to re-create the radius curve used earlier. This could be easily modified to make a tighter radius.





I had used a trim router to start removing material from a piece of foam, but quickly realized the benefit of a hot-wire cutter. I've made more than a dozen different jigs to do different cuts. It's so much cleaner. (ghcoe has been my inspiration on that subject [http://www.tnttt.com/viewtopic.php?f=55&t=54099&start=75].) I also use the Stanley pocket plane for cleaning up less professional cuts I've made.

StanDahl wrote:I made a hot-wire jig to make a pretty large radius in the nose of my slide-in camper. There are two wires shown in the photo, the rectangular one was being used to cut a chunk out of a piece, and I slipped the curved wire in to re-create the radius curve used earlier. This could be easily modified to make a tighter radius.

I had used a trim router to start removing material from a piece of foam, but quickly realized the benefit of a hot-wire cutter. I've made more than a dozen different jigs to do different cuts. It's so much cleaner. (ghcoe has been my inspiration on that subject [http://www.tnttt.com/viewtopic.php?f=55&t=54099&start=75].) I also use the Stanley pocket plane for cleaning up less professional cuts I've made.

Thanks for the plug. Hot wire really is easy and making jigs is a snap. Glad I gave you the inspiration. Looking good