Teardrops n Tiny Travel Trailers

We have all been discussing the possibility of using drawer slides for a pop-up. I realized there is a problem though. My brother-in-law pointed out that the weight rating on these is at 90 degree angle from the slide. In other words these are meant to mount horizontally and the weight they support is from pushing down on the ends.
If you mount them vertically they will support the weight up and down still, but will easily flex side to side (along the flat part).
One way around this would be to mount the slide in a notch routed out of both the trailer and the pop-up wall.
If you look at a regular drawer you will see there is a space between the side of the drawer and the place it goes in. Using this notch will practically eliminate the space and also provide a great amount of structural strength.

as far as pop up devices,,why re invent the wheel,,pop up campers have for years successfully used cable and flex rod combinations,, they raise the top equally and are reliable,, ususlly,,,pop up trailers can be found for a song and have a lot of goodies you can scarf for a new tear,,not to mention a frame,,,I just trashed a whole lift assembly,,,total bout 40 to 50 lbs of scrap metal,,,just thinking,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

Chip wrote:I just trashed a whole lift assembly,,,total bout 40 to 50 lbs of scrap metal

Shameful, shameful,shameful. You should have kept it, somebody would have taken it off of your hands.

Shrug,
That's why I'm doing my own slides. BTW cables look like they might win out over a scissor lift idea that I'm working on. I will try everything I can think of and go with what works best before committing myself to it. Hey, I just posted one that is along the same lines of your B-17. (Look in my album) ....."And our friends are all aboard!"

Dean I posted a good while back and had no takers,,I would have given it to somebody if they could use it,,,they and a bunch of other trash went to the dump,,,OK one last time I got a pea green late 60s early 70s steel with porclene coating,, out of a pop-up,,its free just pay the postage,,,to tha dump next week,,

chip

Hey Chip,
I guess you didn't see my humor there. No Thanks, I'm a recovering pack rat. I learned my lesson with glass. I used to hold onto and save any old glass that I replaced in commercial buildings and all my cut-off from stock sheets. My thinking was, "Oh Yaa, I'll use that someday!" Well, someday never came and my shop ended up getting plugged up with glass, I could hardly move around. I bit the bullet one day and called for a dumpster. (The largest one they had) The man who delivered it showed me how high I could fill it, which I did. When they came to pick it up, the truck couldn't lift it up. I had to unload about one fourth of the stuff. When all the glass was finally hauled off, it only cost me $800.00. (That cured me.)

Well you could have build a stained glass teardrop!!! I don't know how you would have transported it, but that's besides the point. You'd have the only stained glass teardrop in the world!!!

Mike...

P.S. You could have probably sold it for $800 instead of having to pay $800 to have it hauled away.

The only takers were for the mirror cutoffs. People were interested in some of the tempered glass, if I delivered it for free.
Being a glazier, my tear will have some sort of trick glass in it somewhere.
Let's see... Mirrors are a must, I could do a stained glass ceiling under a sky light and the entry doors could have some cast laminated glass with cool things inserted into the interlayer. I recently did a entry door lite with a rice paper insert and wheat hulls encapsulated inside the resin interlayer.
Hey, has anyone ever used or considered using any type of specialty glass treatments in their teardrops. My neighbor goes to Arizona every winter in his motor home and he told me that stained glass door inserts are very popular down there. If I did one for an RV, I would use brass or zinc came for strentgh. Lead could be used, but you would need some sort of reinforcement, like rebars. I do have internally reinforced lead came, where a brass rebar is encapsulated in the heart of the came, but that doesn't leave very much room for glass coverage. Etched mirrors look nice too, if you carve them out on the back side. I don't like the double reflection you get carving mirror on the front side. I tend to shy away from sandblasting on mirrors though, because over time, the carved edges usually get "black edge" which ruins the piece in my opinion.

Dean, I like the skylight idea. You could lay in bed and watch the stars!!! Would also add more light to the trailer.

Cathy,
Yaa, The kids and I like to check the stars out when we're camping.
We usually see how many satlelites and shooting stars we can count.
You guys probably get to see the Northern Lights up that way too, eh?
I've only witnessed them one time in all my years down here. A buddy of mine from Alaska, told that you can also hear them, if you're far enough north at certain times. (That would be totally cool) I heard a shooting star once, it sounded like a flare streaking by as it was burning up in the atmosphere.

Dean,
The northern lights are cool to watch, but usually the best time of year to watch them is too cold for camping.

Cathy,

Build a Winter Warrior for catching all those northern sky events!!! Include a huge "sky roof" in place of the roof vent!!! You could call it your very own personal planetarium.

Mike...

Dean,, how about a custom fit stained glass insert to go under the vent lid, and attached to it so if you are venting it is raised,,,just thinking

chip

Do you guys realize that it gets to -40 up here. You can't build me a teardrop warm enough for that weather!!!

Chip, That wouldn't be a problem, but it would be a small stained glass panel. I've done some pretty interesting art glass jobs over the years.

Cathy, That's colder than a witches... Let's just say that's pretty darned cold! :coldcold: I climbed up to the top of Mt. Raineer once and it got below zero, but we all stayed warm, huddled in our down filled mummy bags.

Why not use actuators? Small electric lifts that are quite strong for there size, just a thought. bye