Teardrops n Tiny Travel Trailers

Hello,

Been reading a ton from all of you awesome, sharing, and knowledgeable people!

I have an aluminum trailer that is 63x96. So it's a 5+ x 8. Wondering how to handle the width components, given the widest ply I can buy nearby is 5ft. The tear is going to be a glassed wood shell. If I oriented the ply across the tear, I could overcome this, but I feel like I will have several sections to create the roof. How would I lap a thin skin layer? Any other suggestions for this kind of trailer?

thanks for the help.

"The higher the altitude, the better my attitude"
Darren

If it were me, I'd build it 60" wide and live with the 1.5" overhang.

There are ways of lapping aluminum but it would be easier to to buy it 5' wide and also Baltic birch plywood comes in 5' x 5' sheets and the 1/8" stuff is wonderful for ceilings and roofs.

Tony

Take a look at scarf joints (boat building) & see how it's done. There are simple & complex joints, skills vs. tools.

Despite the advice of those that were wiser and more experienced than me at the time, I was stubborn and built (am building) 64 inches wide. If I had it to do over I would have stuck with 60 inches. Take Tony's advice. It is good advice.

For joints on thin ply the easiest, by far, is to do a butt joint with a thin narrow backing strip of the same material. Scarf joints are good for maintaining absolute fairness in a bend (they make a joint that bends nearly the same as the base material), but I gave up trying to master them w/o having a rough edge.

I say plan your butt joints to where they land on flat or gentle curves, keep the width of your backer on curved joints relatively narrow (like 2 inches) and you will be fine with simple butt joints. (There is a lot of detail on how I did my ceiling panel in my build; I don't have time to search for it at the moment but if you have trouble finding it, let me know and I will look later.)

For thicker ply, such as for a non-built up floor, use biscuits or a spline joint.

Thanks for all the good advice as I think I may have some reconsidering to do.