Pull outs for tiny travel trailer

[chukles]

I have browsed these forms for well over a year studying the fantastic wealth of information provided within these pages. Thank you for the knowledge!

I am getting closer to starting a build and a question came to mind.

Has anyone ever built a tiny trailer with a bed slide out (pop-out) similar to pop up trailers? I have a couple of ideas and wonder of it is feasible?

[jstrubberg]

It can be done. I have a couple of things against slides myself.

1. Unless they are hard sided, they lose the biggest advantage of a teardrop over a pop up...noise reduction. I get very tired of listening to the entire campground all night, especially on the weekends.

2. Weight- if the pop out is hard sided, you add almost as much weight building the double wall and slide mechanism as you would just enlarging the trailer. Really, there's no gain.

3. Complexity- Sealing a hard sided slide against water intrusion on the highway is a pain in the rear. Not saying it can't be done, but again, it's much easier and just about as cost effective to add more space.


Having said all that, here's good thread on possibilities for a slide out bunk. Good luck and let us see what you decide to do!

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=26161

[Nobody]

Charles Modisette (CocaCola Teardrop) built & used one for a couple of years back around 2007. Charles has built, used & sold several TD's, often incorporating unique designs. He told me the slide-out was pretty heavy but didn't mention any problem with sealing. He did say that designing & building the slide-out mechanism was harder than building the rest. Dunno if he sold it or just quit using it. I do know he's built & used at least a couple of different ones since. Sorry I don't have any better pix but here's a couple from our gathering at Petit Jean SP, AR in Jul 2007 -

[angib]

Yes, the thing with slide-outs is that they are complex to design/build and replacing the missing strength means that they will be heavier than a fixed structure. So the one benefit (apart from impressing others, which may not be unimportant) is reducing the towing size. Now if you just can't get comfortable in a 40ft x 8ft motorhome, slide-outs are about the only way to go, but with a teardrop it seems easier to just build it bigger. Building wider would mean more drag when towing but building longer is no problem.

[chukles]

Thanks for the great input! The more I look at it the more cumbersome it looks. I have some thinking to do.