"TrailTop" modular trailer building components

[Hardryder56]

Jeff
That is too cool.
Tom

[Rhino Ray]

What a great concept. If you had some traditional Tear Drop designs and a way to connect them to a platform on a frame that would take a ton of the guess work out of doing the basic build design. The hard part is the galley hatch so if you had a way of providing the hatch frame itself and the frame work around the hatch with hinges and locking mechanism that would be the ultimate in accomplishment. The rest of the construction should be easy. The molds could have inner and outer skin recesses so that insulation could be in between, a place to mount fenders and perhaps a frame for the door. These could be sold as inexpensive kits with most of the materials purchase locally. Modern building concepts and the traditional design, the possibilities are endless!

[jscherb]

What a great concept. If you had some traditional Tear Drop designs and a way to connect them to a platform on a frame that would take a ton of the guess work out of doing the basic build design. The hard part is the galley hatch so if you had a way of providing the hatch frame itself and the frame work around the hatch with hinges and locking mechanism that would be the ultimate in accomplishment. The rest of the construction should be easy. The molds could have inner and outer skin recesses so that insulation could be in between, a place to mount fenders and perhaps a frame for the door. These could be sold as inexpensive kits with most of the materials purchase locally. Modern building concepts and the traditional design, the possibilities are endless!

Thank you. I'm still working on hatch ideas; I'm trying to strike a balance between manufacturing cost, selling price, ease of DIY assembly and shipping cost. I've posted some of my thoughts on the subject earlier in this thread, but I'm also working on a few new ideas I haven't posted yet.

[jscherb]

I've gotten a few messages about using the TrailTop parts to build a slide-in camper for a pickup, so here's one more concept...



I've done the sides in paint to more-or-less match the pickup; presumably the TrailTop parts would also be painted that color to match but I've left the TrailTop parts colored differently in this drawing so which parts are used is more visible.

The one new TrailTop part I've drawn in this one is the inside 90-degree angle Grant and I were talking about the other day. This one has a sharp 90, not a radiused inside curve, so it doesn't need a companion cove-shaped cross-rail.

Now back to our regularly scheduled TrailTop trailer topic...

[jscherb]

Here's another assembly animation... this time it's a teardrop shell on a Harbor Freight frame.

The frame is a 4x8, but I've made the shell 8'7" long. I've done this for several reasons - by doing this I can round the corners of the floor framing and drop the curved TrailTop vertical pieces down so the side panels will hide the Harbor Freight frame (Grant, did this just for you - cheers!). Also it's nice to have an additional 7" to work with when planning the interior, and because of the 3.5" radius on the TrailTop framing pieces, the side panel inserts are still only 8' long for an 8'7" shell, so it's easy to add those inches and still use standard-sized 4x8 sheet material for the sides.

I've painted the TrailTop fiberglass side rail parts red on this one to complement the red of the Harbor Freight frame tongue. The side panels are aluminum-clad luan, which are available commercially. I painted one TrailTop part gray to
blend with the aluminum - the 12" radius roof/side transition piece.

[Rhino Ray]

Now that's what we are talking about. Where can I get one?
Obviously you know the toughest part is the galley hatch, insuring that it is water tight.
The roof can be one sheet of aluminum that will almost reach from the galley hinge to the front of the teardrop depending on the size. I used diamond plate on the front to make up the difference and it looks cool.
With your design the edge seams can be sealed quite nicely as long as there is enough lip to attach to, if using aluminum sides and roof they can be riveted like airplane skin with flat or flush rivets. A lot to think about

[jscherb]

Now that's what we are talking about. Where can I get one?

I wish there were one or two people within a reasonable distance from me that would like to build TrailTops using prototype parts. I could mold up the necessary sets of parts for people, and together we could work through assembling their prototypes. Unfortunately I'm pretty far from the rest of the world in my corner of the NY Finger Lakes reqion. I'm going to make up a proof-of-concept top for the Jeep-tub trailer that's sitting in my workshop right now, but it would be nice to do a couple of others as well.

Obviously you know the toughest part is the galley hatch, insuring that it is water tight.

I agree. I haven't posted any of these details yet, but I've already built the weather seal details into the design of the molds. There's a primary seal, a drip channel, and a main seal as part of the design, pretty similar to common automotive practice today. I can make reliable shapes and surfaces for weather seals in fiberglass probably easier than the DIY-er can do it in wood, so this will be one of the benefits of going with the TrailTop parts.

The roof can be one sheet of aluminum that will almost reach from the galley hinge to the front of the teardrop depending on the size. I used diamond plate on the front to make up the difference and it looks cool.
With your design the edge seams can be sealed quite nicely as long as there is enough lip to attach to, if using aluminum sides and roof they can be riveted like airplane skin with flat or flush rivets. A lot to think about

Agreed. Lots of options for using the TrailTop parts...

Jeff

[grant whipp]

Like I said before, Jeff ...

... wish we were closer ... I'd be all over working with you on this ... ...!

I'm trying to finish up a trailer for a customer (maybe by mid-March), but I can see doing two of these side-by-side ... one as a basic unit on the HF frame, and one done up full-on "to the nines" on a custom chassis with a couple of Vintage Technologies doors and epoxied wood sides. My mind has been cranking about this for weeks, now ... ...!

As always ...

CHEERS!

[mgb4tim]

I wish there were one or two people within a reasonable distance from me that would like to build TrailTops using prototype parts. I could mold up the necessary sets of parts for people, and together we could work through assembling their prototypes. Unfortunately I'm pretty far from the rest of the world in my corner of the NY Finger Lakes reqion. I'm going to make up a proof-of-concept top for the Jeep-tub trailer that's sitting in my workshop right now, but it would be nice to do a couple of others as well.

Jeff

I'm guessing Pittsburgh isn't a reasonable distance? (I do a little fiberglass, too - http://www.morspeedperformance.com/)

[jscherb]

I'm guessing Pittsburgh isn't a reasonable distance? (I do a little fiberglass, too - http://www.morspeedperformance.com/)

I checked out your web site - very nice work!

I'm thinking within an hour or so would be close enough so the builder could visit me for planning and parts and I could visit their TrailTop project to advise and help.

Jeff

[jscherb]

Most people I've talked to say the curved galley hatch is the hardest part of a teardrop to build, so I've been working on several potential designs to make it easier. On the easist end of the scale would be a full fiberglass hatch, but that would also be one of the most expensive ways to go due to manufacturing cost and shipping cost. I'm trying to balance the following:

- Cost to manufacture/selling price
- Shipping cost
- Easy of assembly

The goal is to come up with something that's very affordable and easy for an average DIY-er to assemble, something that takes the complexity out of making a hatch from scratch from wood.

Here's a design I think meets the goals... it uses two curved fiberglass ribs, several pieces of ordinary 1x3 lumber, and a piece of 1/4" plywood. In the drawings below, the ribs are shown in gray. They're curved in the proper radius to match the TrailTop curved side rail pieces, and they've got roughly a "Z" shaped cross section. The bottom of the Z provides a foot for bonding the plywood to, and the vertical and top of the Z provides a pocket for the 1x3 cross-ribs. Everything isn't necesarily to exact scale and proportion in these drawings, they're just quick sketches to convey the design concept.



Here's how it would go together. The first illustration shows just the fiberglass ribs:



Then the 1x3 wood cross-ribs are bonded/screwed in place. Epoxy would make an excellent bond between the wood and the fiberglass, and screws are added for extra strength. I've only showed screws on one side in this illustration, but they would be used on both sides.



Once the epoxy bonding the wooden cross-ribs to the fiberglass curved ribs had cured, the plywood skin is epoxied to the completed framework. Clamps are used to hold the plywood in place, but finishing nails can also be used through the plywood and into the wooden cross rails. The bead of epoxy is shown in yellow.



Because the curved outside of the hatch measures about 5' from the top edge to the bottom, two pieces of plywood would be needed to span the distance. The joint would be lined up with a cross-rib so nails could be put in along the joint line.

Summary for the DIY-er: the only operations he/she has to perform are cutting some 1x3 wooden ribs to length, epoxying/screwing the wooden cross ribs and the fiberglass curved ribs together, and epoxying/nailing/clamping the plywood to the frame. No curves to cut. Hopefully that's within the capabilities of the average DIY-er.

In production, the two fiberglass parts would actually be molded as one and cut in half along the center line, so there's only one fiberglass layup operation, which would make these parts very easy to mold and hopefully result in a very reasonable selling price.

I'd be interested in hearing what you guys think of this concept.

[cantsitstill]

Elmira!? You're close to me. For fiberglass parts, you might check out Empire Fiberglass in Little Falls. They might make your parts for you once you get your prototypes.

[KCStudly]

One thing you could also do to insure a successful outcome is to give instruction and dimensions on building a simple jig (I'm thinking a square frame of 2x4 or 1x4 screwed to a work bench). That way they could set the toes of the arches into the jig and hold it square and flat while doing the assembly. It wouldn't cost any more to sell, and would go a long way toward helping the customer get it right.

If you use this idea, I would like a small royalty for each one sold.

[jscherb]

Elmira!? You're close to me. For fiberglass parts, you might check out Empire Fiberglass in Little Falls. They might make your parts for you once you get your prototypes.

Thanks. I make all my own molds and parts, I've been doing fiberglass at home for some years now. I don't do production work though, so whenever a company licenses a fiberglass design from me, if they don't have fiberglass capabilities in house, there's an excellent company I've worked with in the past that I refer them to. I'll check out Empire Fiberglass, it's always good to be able to offer more options to companies, thanks for the info.

[cantsitstill]

Good luck. Seems like a good idea.