"TrailTop" modular trailer building components

[jscherb]

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 along way toward helping the customer get it right.

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

I think this will be pretty easy to assemble accurately on a garage floor with not much more than a framing square and a few heavy things to set against it once it's squared up (I often use cinder blocks to brace things like this while glue sets). The sides will line up very easily since the wooden cross-ribs fit snugly into the curved ribs, especially at the ends where the wooden cross-rib butts up against the fiberglass on three sides. All of that may not be obvious from my quick assembly sketches, but I really don't think any jigs will be required to get this right. I'm not saying the jigs you describe wouldn't be helpful, just saying I think it will be very possible to achieve accurate assembly without jigs.

[jscherb]

Good luck. Seems like a good idea.

Thank you very much .

[grant whipp]

Hey, Jeff!

If you don't mind, a little feedback on the hatch. IMHO, 1x3 for the cross beams is a bit overkill ... 1x2 would be better/easier and plenty strong.
As long as we're discussing cross beams, the ones at the top that the hinge attaches to should be at least 2x2, though you haven't mentioned what kind of galley lid hinge you have in mind.
Also, if the hatch is 5' long as you said, five cross beams would be a minimum ... and for ease of construction, two layers of 1/8" would be way easier to bend than one layer of 1/4" (that way you could offset any splice/but joints if using 4' wide material ... otherwise, two layers of 1/8" x 5' baltic birch, grain running side-to-side).

Grist for the mill, as they say. Looking forward to more updates! As always ...

CHEERS!

[123jay]

Why dont you find a poor boy's camper they did the same thing about 1983-5 about the time they where pushing the vw woody they did a truck camper sold the kit for $100 are so. They sold in Popuiar mechanics I think. Then there was a shed co that made sheds even lumber jack sold the kit

[jscherb]

Hey, Jeff!

If you don't mind, a little feedback on the hatch. IMHO, 1x3 for the cross beams is a bit overkill ... 1x2 would be better/easier and plenty strong.
As long as we're discussing cross beams, the ones at the top that the hinge attaches to should be at least 2x2, though you haven't mentioned what kind of galley lid hinge you have in mind.
Also, if the hatch is 5' long as you said, five cross beams would be a minimum ... and for ease of construction, two layers of 1/8" would be way easier to bend than one layer of 1/4" (that way you could offset any splice/but joints if using 4' wide material ... otherwise, two layers of 1/8" x 5' baltic birch, grain running side-to-side).

Grist for the mill, as they say. Looking forward to more updates! As always ...

CHEERS!

Grant,
Thanks for the input, everything you wrote makes perfect sense. I'll adjust the design accordingly.
Thank you!
Jeff

[jscherb]

I got a message from someone who was wondering whether or not the TrailTop parts could be used for shapes somewhat like the Sawtooth XL trailer (http://sawtoothent.com/?page_id=32), so I drew this for them. This concept isn't exactly identical to the Sawtooth (shown inset left below), but with the TrailTop 30, 60 and 90 degree parts you could do something similar. The side door is available on eBay, I grabbed the image from an auction for the door.

[danlott]

If you would add a 45 to your list of parts you could make just about any shape.

Dan

[jscherb]

If you would add a 45 to your list of parts you could make just about any shape.

Dan

Dan,

I agree, a good range of angles would make lots of different TrailTop designs and shapes possible.

Since the molds for the different angles would all be derived from the mold master for the 90-degree 12" curve, it's very easy to make a new mold for pretty much any angle desired. The decision on what angles to make and offer would be up to a company that might produce and market the TrailTop parts - if they thought there would be enough demand for a particular angle to make it worthwhile to make a new mold for it, they could very easily do it.

Jeff

[mikerueve]

I've been watching all of the posts and additions you've done to the thread and I can tell you that if these parts had been available to me, I would have jumped all over them instead of having my own built. Even with my LIMITED skills, I think I could have built a trailer with all of the angles covered. The hatch idea is the thing that would have sealed the deal for me.

One idea I did have was concerning the appearance of the pre-molded pieces after the build. I've had some dealings with modern print shops and what they can do as far as printing vinyl. I think it would be really neat to have them print a contrasting wood grain in sheets of vinyl that could be used to "wrap" the fiberglass pieces. I've done quite a lot with the material on various cars with just my hands and a blow dryer and the results you get can rival any paint job I've ever seen. The only issue is that it will fade some in the sun.

[jscherb]

I've been watching all of the posts and additions you've done to the thread and I can tell you that if these parts had been available to me, I would have jumped all over them instead of having my own built. Even with my LIMITED skills, I think I could have built a trailer with all of the angles covered. The hatch idea is the thing that would have sealed the deal for me.

Thanks for the comments. My goal is exactly that - people who might be intimidated by the thought of building a camper, especially a curvy teardrop, from scratch, hopefully will look at the TrailTop components and think "I could do that". I'm pretty confident the hatch design I recently posted will also rate an "I can do that" too, but when I get to that point in the project I'll post the assembly steps for the hatch and you guys can tell me if it's easy enough.

One idea I did have was concerning the appearance of the pre-molded pieces after the build. I've had some dealings with modern print shops and what they can do as far as printing vinyl. I think it would be really neat to have them print a contrasting wood grain in sheets of vinyl that could be used to "wrap" the fiberglass pieces. I've done quite a lot with the material on various cars with just my hands and a blow dryer and the results you get can rival any paint job I've ever seen. The only issue is that it will fade some in the sun.

That's a really interesting idea, I hadn't thought of that before.

I have thought about wraps for the exterior, the concept below was in the first post of this thread - it also had the TrailTop parts painted to match the Jeep's hardtop color. I even stopped by my favorite local decal shop and asked them how much they would charge to do a set like the ones below, just in case I decided to use them on my prototype...



Fiberglass takes paint really well, so when I did the animation below I showed the TrailTop parts painted in red to match the Harbor Freight frame:



It would be possible to mold the parts in gelcoat other than white; although that would cost a bit more depending on the volume of that color that could be sold because most fiberglass shops buy their gelcoat in fairly large quantities. Most shops have white and black gelcoat on hand, so there's typically no extra cost for either of those.

And now that you made me think of it, I'll have to check and see how much black gelcoat I have on hand... since I'm building the prototype on top of this black Jeep-tub trailer kit, maybe I should mold the first set of TrailTop parts in black.. hmmmmm....

[jscherb]

A while back I came across a camper that I thought would make a great candidate for implementing with TrailTop parts. It's called the Daytona.



Specs for this trailer includes a 2000-lb. capacity frame with 5-on-4.5 bolt circle hubs (basically the same specs as the Harbor Freight 94564 1720-lb. capacity frame). The sleeping area is 58-1/2" wide x 77" long x 44" tall, which would fit very nicely on either that Harbor Freight frame or on a "Double Dinoot" Jeep-tub trailer.

The Daytona seems to be discontinued by the manufacturer, but the I think the price was about $5800, which was pretty much for the bare trailer - no real outfitting included.

Here's a similar design using TrailTop parts... the front curve could easily be implemented with TrailTop 36" radius parts; the top rear corners would be the 3.5" radius 90-degree parts.

The first drawing is on a Jeep-tub trailer. This Jeep-tub trailer is 7'5" long, so it's a little shorter than the 8' Daytona (or an 8'3" Double Dinoot Jeep-tub trailer).



And this one is on a base frame without a Jeep-tub:



Built on a Harbor Freight frame, and depending on your choice of siding, windows and doors, I think you could build a similar camper for roughly 1/4 of what the Daytona/Venice cost when they were available.

---------

Project update: after a two-week unplanned delay, I'm now back at home, so tomorrow I plan to mold the first set of prototype TrailTop parts. I'll be making a 12" curve, a 36" curve and an 8' straight section, which is more than enough to do one side of a teardrop. Photos tomorrow.

[xadmx]

Hey, Jeff!

I just had a thought ... if you took this piece:

... and turned it inside out (you know, an inside 90º corner) and then turned one of the straight 3-1/2" radius pieces into an inside "cove", you could open this concept up to a DYI overhead pickup camper ... ... ...!

Like I keep saying ... possibilities!

CHEERS![/quote]


where did you get the corners from, do you make them. would you ship some 4 of them to the uk how much would you charge.

[jscherb]

where did you get the corners from, do you make them. would you ship some 4 of them to the uk how much would you charge.

Yes I made them, they're the first of the TrailTop parts I've molded. They're designed to mate up with the other TrailTop parts as shown below, so how would you intend to use them without the other parts? I'm not saying they couldn't have a use without the other parts, I'm just wondering how you'd use them.

[Hardryder56]

Jeff,
I am really liking what you have come up with and am waiting to see how the molding of the parts goes. Lots of great plans and ideas there.
Tom

[jscherb]

The other day, at the request of someone following this project, I drew this:



He got back to me this morning with the following:

Thanks very much for taking the time to draw that up... I'm thinking the rear with those angle options might not be a great use of space.. however turning the entire thing around might actually workout good and look decent. Would it be too much to ask to redraw flipped around? Once again I appreciate your time!

Sure, no problem:



I'm always happy to do concept drawings for people .