Teardrops n Tiny Travel Trailers

Well you said it would be easier to go and build out of fiberglass anyway so why not the fender's or wheelpants also. Sucks but hey it will look right and you couls use the tire size you want. If you have an old aircraft bone yard close go there and just look as some bigger aircraft had biggerwheel pants. I don't know of any on the eastcoast near me but in ohio I knew where a couple were. The stealth would be ahelluva lot easier. I still say the fenders of an old car with the added sheet metal work would be a little better than fiberglass work, but thats my stand No matter what the builder better be good at his fabricating of parts or it will look awkeward.
Cecil

Andrew one more question, does the program you use have the capibility of changing all dimentions based on one main size change,,, say reduce the floor size to 48" and all other dimentions automatecly change,,, ??

chipper

Looks a bit silly, eh?

Andrew

What you want are some, about 1962, caddy rear fin/fenderwells...with skirts.

Um...Craig wants to know...

If he were to build these, how many of you would buy one?

Of course, the Camp-Inn front windows would make it REALLY alien-like!

*Sigh*

Betsey

Betsey,
the raindrop ones or the regular ones?

HEy Andrew could you use say both sides of the fenders to make the wheel cover for the roswell? Just thinking it would be possible to get the look that way but not the extenion conecting to the rear of the trailer as in the pic. Where the lights are by the pic. That would be easier to fab that way and add that extension later. I still think that you could find aircraft wheel pants for it. The Cesna 172 may be a little closer than the ones posted on the one pic but I think it would still be a little small. I will run up to the airport for some help finding largerones to get you the size and maybe a manufactuorer for them. Besides I need to catch up with a couple of those guy's anyway.
Cecil

Chip wrote:Andrew one more question, does the program you use have the capibility of changing all dimentions based on one main size change,,,

Chip, a straight scale is easy - 1 second to do!

And then an hour or two to recreate the various views that have now slipped off the paper or aren't aligned with the grid any longer.......

Missing that floor width was a bit dumb - I just added the dimensions, but didn't look at them!

Andrew

Cecil, Using a pair of fender mouldings would give a good shape both sides of the fender - as long as the fender chosen had a wide flat top, so that half the width of the fender could be cut off.

Grant's new fenders with skirts (scroll down a bit) might well be just what is needed as it looks to be like the basic fenders are symmetrical, so the skirts could be fitted both sides.

The wheel pant photo used in the sketch above is actually described as "styled after late model Cessna 172". I think any aircraft wheel pant is going to be too small - no aircraft designer is going to allow a 2' high wheel pant (too much drag).

Don't look too much at the fender-to-body join on either the 3-D sketch or the profile/plan sketch of the Roswell - they are both completely wrong in this area. The fender only attaches well below the belt-line (max width line) of the body - so that bracket shown with tail lamps on it would actually be triangular and its bottom would be most of the width of the trailer!

To anyone interested in the Roswell, it's important to stress that the 3-D sketch isn't accurate - it's the trailer equivalent of one of those hot rod sketches with wheels 4' in diameter and width - the idea's the same, but the proportions are completely different.

Why hasn't someone built the paper model and photographed it yet?

Andrew

Your run of the mill aircraft wheel pants will be waaay to small. However that does not mean that aircraft wheel pants are out of the picture. There were some old vintage 30s aircraft with wheelpants exactly like that. Of course, now you are in the world of super rare unless you are lucky to know one of those great old timer airplane guys who have a hangar chocked full of old "treasures".

Fiberglass would be a good way to do it, but how about somebody actually doing one like those old wheel pants where done? Hammer it out of aluminum in two halfs and weld it and planish it into one piece. That would avoid the whole painted fender concern if you wish to.

Cary

Cary Winch wrote:....but how about somebody actually doing one like those old wheel pants where done? Hammer it out of aluminum in two halfs and weld it and planish it into one piece.

Dang, you're another one from the "If the standard Roswell seems too easy...." camp!

Andrew

Planish? what's that?

Andrew,

Yup, that's me!


Laredo,

Planishing is a process when you basically hammer a weld flat. When doing aluminum forming and there is a weld you never grind the weld. It will thin it next to the weld too much, even a little is too much, and it will crack. So, you basically hammer it down flat and flow the weld filler into the sheet stock. There are special flat hammers (sometimes called slappers) just for doing this. Even better, there auto pnumatic plannishers that make it go quick.

To see some good examples of this kind of stuff go to the expert Kent White's site:
http://www.tinmantech.com/index.php

Look under sheet metal shaping and you will see power plannishers and under hand tools you can see the slapppers.

I have watched this guy work many times and never get bored.

Cary

Wow, what a nifty design. Talk about the antithesis of the Weekender i've been considering.

Andew- you expressed concern with the door- Have you thought about a top-inged gull-wing type affair. The geometry seems simpler to me, but i'm simple minded...

PakRat63 wrote:Have you thought about a top-inged gull-wing type affair. The geometry seems simpler to me, but i'm simple minded...

That would work well, as long as you could get a support that worked....

The difficulty would be in making the hinges - they would have to be long and curved to match the body shape. They have to be long as the pivot point must be well above the (curved) top of the door, but the hinges need to come a long way down (18"?) to pick up the front and back of the door, where the strength is. It would be quite easy to laminate up these in wood, but the end result will stick out of the body quite a way.

Andrew

Andrew wrote:

That would work well, as long as you could get a support that worked....

Thank goodness that we're keeping this on a Teardrop scale, otherwise i'd be asking for hinges top and bottom, ala the Lear Jet hatch!!
i'm working on modeling at least the body (fuselage) of this thing, hopefully pix on Sunday.
The way that i understand Stitch-n-Tape construction is that we are putting a banana peel together with no banana on inside. The strength will be in the seams because there is no frame.
Rather than fooling with expensive wheel pants, build the fenders the same way out of doorskin or even aluminum (that's aluminium, isn't it?) More curve designed into the panel will make up for the thinness of the material. Won't it?

Thanks for your consideration, pete