Cabin Car Creation

[Shrug53]

Feast your eyes on this! My latest creation. This was inspired first by the beautiful Cabin Car. I have shortened it by two feet and eased up the curve a bit to give me more usable space. The two-tone wood trim in the concept draing is inspired by Roly's 1/2 Nelson Tear. The interior was inspired by Mike's Baja Benroy. Let me know what you think!



The hatch will be only 5' wide like the original Cabin Car and on the non-lifting part of the rear I will be adding 1954 Chevy tail lights (to match my car). You will notice a 3 inch space at the bottom of the galley. This will hold my grey water tank and a deep cycle bettery will be set slighty down in each side making a nice mounting tray.
I am estimating this will weight about 1000# (fully loaded) with about a 225# tongue weight.

[Ross Wade]

It's a beautiful design. The traditional Woody panels really make a statement. And storage doesn't seam to be a problem either.

Ross

[dmb90260]

That is very nice looking. If you have plenty of storage, you might conside a small convenient feature that I have on my New Freedom Teardrop. It is their design, not something I would have thought up. The TV/DVD is mounted in the center cabin on the back. It is mounted on a "lazy susan" thing and I can turn it to watch inside or out the galley.

Since I have dogs and often go to hot areas, I had them install an A/C unit (which I have not tried yet) mainly for the dogs. It is in an upper cabinet and has an air panel access out the side. This panel is closed when not in use. For most effective use, the galley has to be open also. Drain is straight out the bottom. It cost some storage but I like cool puppies.

[Shrug53]

The lazy susan thing sounds interesting, I will have to give that some thought. I put my A/C in the bottom because that storage area stretches the whole width of the cabin which means I can put vents at either side and get a nice airflow without having to open anything. Also I do not need to be quite as concerned with the weight of it.
Also if you like camping with small dogs, check this out:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayI ... AMEWA%3AIT

The guy calls it a pet patio (he does nto have a website yet but I keep offering to build one). It will mount on the side of a trailer, and then you just use it with a regular doggy door. I am going to use it because my dogs will actually use an oversized litter box filled with pine bedding to go in. This is pretty useful if they have to go at night!

[dmb90260]

I like it but I would have to mount it on the side door I don't use. Any human passengers might complain. But I will pass this on to some of my dog friends with RV's and trailers.
If you do the web site he should pay you with at least one free unit.

[Shrug53]

Just another thought. If you take 6" of space away from the galley and add it to the front, you get an 18" deep closet which is actually big enough to hold clothes hangers (a hanger is typically 16.5")

[George T.]

Greetings from Colorado!

If you have the clothes bar run the depth of the closet, you wouldn't need to "steal " the space from the galley as the hangers will be sideways... I have two "hanging" closets [ one foot in depth] seperated by a 2 shelf bookcase in the nose of my teardrop. A storage self runs full width above the closet/bookshelves. Above this is a Lexan window that runs the full width of the trailer. It sures lets a lot of light into the trailer and is neat to lay in bed at night and star gaze....

George



The "Lost Teardrop" http://pages.prodigy.net/rfs2growup/lost%20teardrop%20web%20photos/exterior/index.htm

[Shrug53]

That is a really nice unit you have there. Do you have any interior photos? Would love to see the inside?
Also do you have any problem with the lexan getting scuffed or scratched while driving?

Thanks!

[Chip]

hey George ,,,high five on your door(s) is it one unit or two split in the middle??looks good

chip

[tdthinker]

I like your door, it has a cool double door look.

[George T.]

Grretings from Colorado!

The lexan does have fine "normal use" scratches as would be expected. I clean it using lots of water and then wash/dry with a SOFT cotton cloth.

No interior photos yet. I need a wide angle to accomplish these shots...

The doors are double, with the front closing over the back. The doors close against a 1" solid door stop that runs completely around the opening that has weatherstripping for the door to seal against. This way, if a door accidently gets left open, the wind will hold it closed. This happened during our maiden voyage. My daughter did not latch the right side door and we traveled over one hundred miles through snow/rain before I caught it. I was amazed at how little moisture was in the trailer. The design seemed to have worked!

The door design came more from function, rather than form. The single door was just too damned big! And once I decided to split the doors, the rounded tops envolved to fit the rest of the trailer. I can say that they were a labor of love and very time consuming to build [as was the entire trailer] . I am currently working on the latch system for the "vent" portion of the doors. If you look at the photos, each rectangular section on the bottom of the doors will hinge from the top and provide ventilation. The openings will be screend on the inside with brass window screen.

Thanks for the compliments!

George