A tiny trailer for 3

[green1]

We have been enjoying our little Abeona for a couple of years now, and she has been really good to us. But we've discovered something shocking about young children, they grow , I know, who would ever have imagined? So the little bunk above our feet is getting a bit small for a rapidly enlarging 6 year old and the time has come for a replacement (I'm told we have to keep the 6 year old, so I think it's the trailer that needs replacing )

So if you look at my thread about Abeona, you'll see that she has a slideout for a crosswise double bed. I've been studying the work done to create it, and I don't see anything complicated about reproducing it. So with that in mind, the plan is for not 1, but 2 slideouts! The basic idea is to make a new trailer just like the old one, but with a second slideout bed in front of entry door, lengthening the trailer by about 2 feet (RV bunk width is 28 inches, but I can narrow the entryway by a few inches to compensate without it feeling too narrow due to the open space over the bed).

So in my plans the length of the trailer needs to be:
- Wall 2"
- RV Bunk with room for slideout rails 32"
- entryway 24"
- Double bed with room for slideout rails 58"
- wall 2"
- Cooler (limiting factor in depth of galley) 24"
- Galley hatch 2"
For a grand total of 144" or 12'
This should work well, as you can get plywood in up to 12' lengths making wall construction easier.

Height, again we'll stick to the plywood dimension, so 4' tall
Width, many people seem to be able to find all sorts of widths for roofing materials. I cannot. I have tried for ages, and nothing is wider than 4'. I don't want a seam in my roof, so 4' is the widest I can go (My current trailer has roof seams, it also has roof leaks. No, just no.) This is just over 4 inches narrower than my current trailer, but with the slideouts the only place that will be noticeable is in the galley, and the galley will already be deeper than before, so I think it will all even out.

So that's the basic plan. Next step, finding the base trailer...

[green1]

So in my first post I suggested that the end trailer dimensions would be 4'x12' (plus tongue). I've been searching all over the place, and 4'x12' is not a standard trailer size. lots of 4'x8' or 5'x10' or 6'x12', but none of that is what I need here.
Some people would just weld something up, and while I feel fairly confident with the woodworking Welding is not something I'm comfortable with, nor equipped for. I got a couple of quotes to make the base frame, very basic, no fenders or wiring or anything, and the quotes range from $2000-$3000 (keep in mind I'm in Canada, EVERYTHING is more expensive here). While I haven't completely ruled this out, I haven't given up on the used market yet, and it seems I may be able to find a boat trailer in about the right size, even though utility trailers don't seem to come in that size. Stay tuned!

[QueticoBill]

Sounds great. I look forward to you slide out details.

Woodbutcher used a tonneau material - like used for cars (1960's?) - and its 77" or so wide. You could also look at EPDM - rubber roofing. It comes very large - 20' wide in rolls - and a scrap is a possibility.

[green1]

So I found a used boat trailer which I think I can make work. The price was good, the condition, not so much:



I think I have my work cut out for me!

[bartek]

Any reason you don't want to go wider than 4ft? Ours is 6'4" x 10 and sleeps 4 comfortably by simply rotating the mattress sideways.
We've been camping in it all summer and so far are super happy with the layout.

Either way, looking forward to see your build and slide out details - I've been considering a slide out as well, but I was worried it would add cost/complexity outside of what I was prepared to handle.

[green1]

Any reason you don't want to go wider than 4ft?

Basically it boils down to the fact that building materials come in 4' widths which makes everything easier. To sleep crosswise in the trailer, for someone who is 6'2" tall, I either need a very wide trailer (6'6"?) or a slideout. the slideout in our current trailer (home made, but not by me) looks to be within my skillset to build, and has served us very well so far. If I'm building a slideout anyway. a narrower trailer will be lighter, more aerodynamic, and easier to find building materials for (especially if I end up trying to go for a metal roof, those do not come in any width wider than 4', I have tried extensively when I had a leak in my current 4'6" trailer and wanted to avoid seams. It didn't turn out to be possible, so I just had to seal the seams the best I could instead.)

[QueticoBill]

Just to share, not at big orange and similar, but Baltic Birch is commonly available 5' x 5'; and 4' x 10' ply is available.

[green1]

Well I hope nobody was expecting rapid progress in this journal, finding time to work is not my strong suit, Somehow I keep finding other things to do so this may take a while!

Today I did find some time for some disassembly:

and a few leftover pieces:

It actually went far smoother than I anticipated, I only had to grind off 3 bolts (Considering how rusted they were, I was expecting a lot more!) and I even had an excuse to buy an angle grinder (Tools don't count in the build budget right? at least we won't tell Mrs Green1, right? )

After some thought, I have decided that the one trailer I bought is actually going to become two trailers (I've never done this before, so why not make it harder eh? ) Basically this is due to a few points:
1) the axle, suspension, and wheels that this came with are a bit undersized for my plans (this was really designed for about half the weight I want to end up at)
2) I could really use a utility trailer anyway (ever tried to haul sheets of plywood in a Tesla Model S? they don't fit!)
3) There's a lot of leftover metal here anyway

So the new plan is that the big frame will get a new axle attached and become the base for my teardrop build, and the sub-frame with the existing axle will be combined with one of the old cross members as a new tongue and get a wood deck.

Next steps will be to clean up the metal, and then start building, I probably won't include much about the utility trailer in this journal as this is supposed to be about the teardrop.

I can't promise quick progress, but I'm sure I can get there!

[nsfr1206]

I went to your link up there.... neat trailer. How badly does it cut your range in the Tesla when you pull it?


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[green1]

I went to your link up there.... neat trailer. How badly does it cut your range in the Tesla when you pull it?

I generally count on the range halving, and then I'm pleasantly because it's not actually quite that bad

[green1]

Ok, I'm going to start with an apology. I planned to journal all of this as it happened, but then, well, I just didn't... The trailer is built, and we've been really enjoying it, but this journal is remarkably empty.

So It's time I got to work here, not just in my garage! it may take some time to get caught up, but I'll start now. When I last left you, I had pulled/cut/ground everything apart. Step one was a utility trailer, and I won't put too much detail here, but the finished utility trailer looked like this:


I then cleaned up the main frame from the original boat trailer with my new grinder equipped with flap disks, and then painted it tremclad black. I then cut one of the outriggers in half, and bolted a pair of torsion axles to it, and u-bolted it to the frame (u-bolts so that I can re-position it if my weight and balance aren't right.):

Nevermind the missing wheel, I wanted to discourage the trailer from joining stranger on a journey, and encourage it to stay in my back alley!

So that is basically the extent of the metal working, which, realistically, was the part that scared me the most!
Next post we can start dealing with wood!

[green1]

Exciting day!

And this is why I built a utility trailer first! that just wouldn't fit in the trunk of my car!

In this load we have 2 - 4x10 sheets of 3/4" ply, 4 - 4x8 sheets of 3/4" ply, and 3 sheets of "rubberply" for the roof. I REALLY wanted to find 4x12 sheets of plywood, but apparently they don't exist, so that put a bit of a damper on my plans. but we'll just have to make do with a join somewhere along the outside walls.

It wasn't until I got it all home that I discovered that 3/4" plywood isn't the same thickness as 3/4" plywood... and that just joining my 4x10 plywood to 4x8 plywood would be a whole lot harder than I thought!

so the next step was that I laid the sheets of plywood on the ground, and started drawing on them in pencil. I did take some pictures, but you can't actually see the pencil marks, so there's not much point to me posting them! but trust me, it was (or more likely it was an illegible scrawl, but it worked for me!)

I started drawing from the ends. So at the front I measured the thickness of the front wall I had planned, then the width of the kid's bed (with slide rails). From the back I started in the kitchen and drew the outline of the cooler that would need to fit under the counter, and the water jugs that would have to fit on the counter, remembering to account for thickness of materials. And I had measured up from the bottom to include the thickness of the metal frame, plus the floor thickness.
Basically, I drew the entire interior layout of the trailer on the plywood, so I could make sure everything fit. Once I was happy with the interior layout, I drew the curves of the exterior. I used a string compass to get round corners at the top and bottom of the front, and placed a string along the back adjusting the string until it had a pleasing curve and then traced along it in a somewhat freehand fashion. After lots of drawing, and erasing, and drawing again, (and probably a lot more of both of those!) I finally had a 2D layout I liked. Next came the really scary part cutting into that expensive plywood! no going back now!

No, those aren't windows! Those are the places the slideouts will be! That's the driver's side of the trailer, the passenger side is a mirror, but with a door cut out instead.

[green1]

And this is where things basically sat for the rest of the winter. You see I wanted to work on it in the garage, but Mrs. Green1 wanted to park in said garage, In the end, I decided that there was no point in a trailer built for 3, if I wasn't married anymore, so in the interest of staying married, things kinda stopped while
Then the glorious day came in the spring when I could kick my wife out of the garage, make her park on the street, and get to work!

The slidouts are actually pretty simple. They're just square... errr.... rectangle, boxes. top, outer wall (the piece cut out of the main sidewall) and 2 sides. leave the bottom, and inside completely open for now.


Then I started on the main assembly. At this point I'm building on top of the metal frame, but nothing is attached yet, this is a wooden box, separate from the frame, and I can position it precisely later.


All structural joints are glued with waterproof carpenters glue, and screwed with 2 1/2" deck screws (pre-drilled and countersunk)

What you're seeing here is the 2 side walls, and the back wall that will divide the "bedrooms" from the "kitchen", I've put in 2 cross pieces in the roof here (1x3) just to keep the shape (more to come later) lower down in the trailer we can see a piece of floor. I've only put a solid floor in between the 2 beds, under the beds is still open for now. The floor is 3/4" plywood, screwed through the wall from each side, and sitting directly on the frame. between the frame members I also have 2 lengths of 2x2 across the trailer to add extra rigidity to that section.You can also see 1x4 cross members at the inside edge of each bed, these will support part of the slideout and are the edges of the beds.the wood screwed to the wall under the slideout holes will support the bed slats and there are matching ones on the other wall for the other end of the slats. I've also put a 2x2 (actually it may be 2x3, seems bigger than a 2x2) crosspiece at the bottom of the front edge which will eventually attach to the frame.

At this time the kitchen doesn't exist yet, as the side walls don't extend that far.

[green1]

To get a better view of the prep for the slides here's a top down view:

At the top of the image you see the open area cut out of the side wall. to the left is the back wall dividing the kitchen from the bedroom, and to the right is the entry way (I labelled it "foyer" on the plywood while I was working and got incessantly teased by the family for it being too pretentious )
The horizontal 1x4s are what the slideout will actually rest on and slide, the one at the back of the trailer is screwed to the back wall, and the one at the front of the trailer is screwed/glued to the vertical 1x4 for rigidity/support. They sit on the pieces attached to the outside walls, and do not extend into the slideout opening, despite being above the bottom edge of the opening.

The front of the trailer doesn't have the same solid wall the back does, so for the front bed I've supported it with vertical 2x2s to transfer the weight down to the frames (see the red 2x2s in the picture here with my lovely assistant (yes, the cat ear headband is a critical piece of safety gear!)

[green1]

Now for some more cross pieces... lots more... The roof is 1x3s but when I got to the front wall, I realized I had only accounted for 2" in my initial measurements, so I switched to 2x2s as we went through the front upper radius, otherwise the front wall would have interfered with the edge of the front slideout.


At this point I also started work on the Galley.

Here I just cut 3" from the outer edge to make the hatch, and then put cross slats in the hatch


Attaching the galley walls to the main walls was a bigger hassle than I expected. and I apparently didn't get any good pictures. Basically the issue was that I cut the galley walls out of the 4x8 plywood which was a slightly different thickness than the 4x10 plywood I used for the rest of the side walls. The end result was that instead of just putting a 1x4 across the gap inside the trailer, I also had to add some very thin material on the one side to thicken the thinner plywood to avoid an ugly exterior seam. there was almost an 1/8" difference in thickness between 2 different plywoods that both claimed to be 3/4"!!!!