Teardrops n Tiny Travel Trailers

I'm planning on building a 5' x 5' x 10.5' foamie. But we need a porta-potti, and instead of taking 40% of the galley away for that space, I thought I could put the bed sideways (across the width) and build a slideout for the foot of the bed on the driver's side. That frees up a 20" wide floor space across the camper in front of the bed for a porta-potti.

I would elevate the bed about 12" to incorporate 3 drawers underneath to use half the space under the bed. The rest of the underbed space could be used for a battery / electronics compartment and possibly long drawers (4' front to back) in the galley.

I've been working on a design for the slideout and have combined several images into one to get by the 3 attachment limit:



The drawer slides are heavy duty 3/4" x 3" x 24" lock-open type. I'm thinking of adding rubber door-sweep style seals that press against the top and sides of the slideout box to help with moisture resistance when open. Of course where needed there will be hard points on the foam.

Comments? Does this look feasible?

(Edited to clarify that the bed is oriented across the trailer instead of lengthwise and the placement of the porta-potti.)

I'm having trouble visualizing how one would use it. Could just be my brain not wanting to work on a Monday afternoon.

But here's my question, is the added complexity worth it to you vs. a side tent? To me the disruption is caused by getting out of the bed whether the toilet is inside or out.

Our camper is about the same size as what you describe. Our bed is on a platform, 16" above the floor. Under the bed rides the entire galley and the porta potty. The galley comes out the back of the camper through a recessed door and is now "stand alone". This gives us a huge amount of room to store stuff when traveling and when stopped. Takes about 5 minutes to fully set up the galley now and without an overhead hatch we have no concern on water leaking into the main camper area. With the "stand alone" design now, all food type stuff stays inside the camper, so we don't worry about critters.

dave

Homebrewer25 wrote: .... build a slideout for the foot of the bed.

Yeah, my reading comprehension disappears when I'm hungry. Got it now. Slide out is for the feet, not the porta potty.

Dave's galley is on my short list of ideas to copy. Very impressive.

If you haven't seen it already, Woodbutcher's new Standrop build will be incorporating a flip/slide out sort of foot well feature. It is a more traditional, although retro styled build and I don't think he has worked out all of the details yet, but you probably want to take a look at it.

As far as the seal recess goes, I don't think you will have much luck getting the canvas skin to adhere to the inside drip catcher radius after going over the corner at the seal surface. When the canvas starts to dry it shrinks and will want to pull away from this type of geometry (I couldn't get PMF to work on my license plate recess... but epoxy and glass cloth did fine ). Yeah, some guys have done that sort of thing on a galley hatch surround to form a much larger gutter, but for small detail stuff it is much harder. I would at least try a small mocked-up sample section before committing your whole design. The extra radius groove probably isn't even needed and adds complication; try it first with just a simple rabbet with a bit of a radius in the corner (i.e more of an 'L' shaped land instead of a 'J' shape). My opinion with a little bit of first hand experience.

Also, I see how you intend the pull out canopy to work in two dimensions from the side wall of the camper to the top end of the slide out, but I fail to see how that will work in 3D. Will the slide out box be sloped along its upper sides fore and aft (if so there is a bit of a gap to fill between the top of the slide out and the underside of the canopy roll), or do you plan to wrap and fold the canopy over the sides some how? You will have to fill the upper triangle shapes on the sides of the pull out somehow.

I think this complication is what drove Woodbutcher to decide on a flip up style cargo door with a slide out style box (or 5-sided drawer) for the foot well; the cargo door will seal the opening from the outside when closed and the slide out will seal the opening from the inside when extended (although I'm not sure what will seal around the draw slides ). His designs are always elegant but simple at the same time so I'm sure he will work it out.

I see your point on the canvas adhering to the recess, KC. You're probably correct that a plain old rabbet with D seal would work just fine.
Thanks for the link to Woodbutcher's build. I anxiously await details on how he is building the slideout. Mine will not be a standie, but will have 5' inside height, so when sitting on the bed my head will clear the ceiling. I will have a two piece mattress ... 1 piece will be 6" x 60" x 60", the other will be 6" x 60" x 20". This last one will be put in the slideout box after opening it to extend the 60x60 to 60x80.

I'm doing a bit of redesign on it. The drawer slide supports are outside of the slideout box as shown in my first post. But I want to make the slideout a 5 sided 1/2" birch ply box with 3/4" foamboard on top, sides, and front (extended to provide sealing flange), so I've placed the drawer slide supports on the inside of the box. The bed frame that the drawer slides are attached to will have to be relieved on the bottom edge so that the plywood bottom of the slideout has clearance to retract it.







I've added a pair of rubber door sweep seals under the D seals all around the opening in the camper side to seal against the slideout box. This should keep almost all the water from contacting the inner D seal when open.

I won't be starting my build for another 6-12 months because I have so many other projects going on right now that I need to finish several of them before I can start.
I'll probably build a miniature version of the slideout for testing before incorporating this into my build.

Dave, the idea of a slideout galley is intriguing. That would free up a couple of feet of floor space at the foot of the bed. I'll have to think about this a bit more.

KC sez, "I couldn't get PMF to work on my license plate recess... but epoxy and glass cloth did fine “ … You know we found that out too . The ever shrinking canvas wants to always pull away from inside corners , same thing happened to the ridge on my roof , as the canvas dried , shrunk , cured , it developed a radius instead of the sharp corner , with an air gap inside ( not good eh !)

Home , scale modeling your slide out may be a really good idea … chance to work out all those little details before the main build . Personally , we’re a little leery about slide outs , only because we live in an area where it pretty much rains all the time … If you’re not so blessed , you can get away with a lot of design freedom.