New to teardropping from houston/galveston tx

[Zac2Smart]

Hello Everyone! I've been lurking around in the background for a bit and I'm starting to design and put together a teardrop build for My stepfather, brother and myself to build together as a family. I'm hoping anyone that has some advice or information on some of the "worriesome" areas wouldn't mind helping a newbie out. There will only be two people sleeping in it so not looking for it to be huge. It will be built on a HF 1720 trailer (4'x8'). I was thinking either a benroy or cubby type TD but have since gone with a gruman(sp?) style profile. It needs to be under 1k lbs as it may be pulled witha 6spd nissan sentra. The only other requirement we want for it at the moment is an a/c unit that I'm thinking of putting under the galley by the feet inside sleeper. We saw a couple builds that had either swing out or slide outs inside the galley to pull out a 2 burner camp stove on one side and the sink pull out on the other so we dont have to bend over into the galley to use either. I know that may be alot of info but hopefully someone has something im missing. I will have more questions to come for certain. I have autocad and have been trying to learn it but that 3d modeling is something else haha!


Thanks for having me (or putting up with me!),
Zac

[Zac2Smart]

I'm planning on using sandwich insulated walls on the TD. Thinking 1/2" outer-wall, 1" x 2"s with 3/4" rigid foam with 1/4" interior cedar plywood. The Issue at hand is if I make the walls with the outside skin sitting lower than the inner wall (1 x 2 and 1/4" cedar) to cover the trailer (and I'm thinking add stability since the walls would then be bolted to the trailer as well as the "dance floor") then I will either lose height or make the tear use more than one sheet of material to make the walls. I hadn't considered the curves extending past my trailer frame would be larger than plywood sheet in My previous cad drawing (which I abandoned). It had the full 8' length encompassed by the front and back, which also added some much desired room for galley mods since it afforded the extra foot or so of length. I guess the questions are really these: Is it very difficult using two sheets of plywood instead of one for the walls, and approx. how much would that increase the budget? I'd be spending twice as much or at least 1.5 x as much for my plywood budget....

ramblings of ....3 AM...

[M C Toyer]

Welcome from another Texan.

As for the exterior walls overlapping the frame I did the same for both structural strength, appearance, and to avoid possible water seepage between the frame and floor. I would recommend making a full size cardboard mock-up to see if the loss in exterior height would warrant over 48" wide plywood on the exterior sidewalls. It will also make a difference if you plan to use aluminum for the outer skin. 4' x 10' and 5' x 10' aluminum should be easy to find in the Houston area and the up-price from 4' x 8' is not that much.

There are several threads on joining / splicing plywood. You'll will get better results using Google site search to find them.

https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=site:www.tnttt.com%2F+%22join+plywood%22

[Zac2Smart]

For the outer skin we will be using an aluminum sheeting My step dad found that they use at the chemical plants used for insulating pipes, i think with a ceramic material under it but we're just using the aluminum. Its got this neat orange peel texture to it. we can get it in 8' wide rolls if necessary so that's not the part i was worried about. Our floor sandwiched will only be 1.5" and the trailer is about 4"(not sure, haven't bought anything yet) so with mounting the 48" ply to the side of trailer we would only lose 5.5" and still have about 37" to sit up in the middle high point. The main reason I was considering using multiple sheets for the walls was to get the inside length to be the entire 8'. if i restrict the wall to one sheet the floor space will only be about 7', essentially losing a foot of galley space as the cabin will be kept at a short 6' regardless. I do like the cardboard cutout idea, time to go snag some refrigerator boxes!! Thanks!