Teardrops n Tiny Travel Trailers

Sorry for posting another thread but we are at a huge stall. I can't find any guides on building a hatch without having cut notches in the sidewalls. Should I still do that or can I get away without it? With the trailer being 48" and the outer walls are a quarter inch, can I still use a 48" hurricane hinge since there will be extra not covered?
I'm having problems conceptualizing how the door is going to work with t molding. Will that waterproof the hatch door ?
I'm realizing since I didn't notch down, the hatch is going to sit a bit higher I think bit hopefully not too much
Has anyone built their hatch completely inside of the side walls? Any advice is appreciated at this point.

Thanks!

Not sure if this is any help, but...

I didn't build mine, bought it from someone. My hatch is 99% inside the sidewalls, with only the exterior skin overlapping a slight notch in the sidewalls so it's more or less flush when closed.

If it is helpful, I'll take more pics of what you want / what I have, and post.

(And the steak and fried potatoes were WONDERFUL! LOL)

halfdome, Danny wrote:I think you need to do some searching on the forum.
In my opinion, 1/4" walls seems awfully flimsy to hold against the torque of a galley lid.
I always screw the lid rail to 3/4" walls and into the 3/4" rear bulkhead.
If your TD is 48" wide then you need a 50" hurricane hinge so water will migrate away from the lid (1" overhang) otherwise you'll end up with a wet galley interior. Danny

I've been searching the for relentlessly since we've started over a month ago and can't find anything that fits our scenario. Or mentions exact step by step for this part of the project. (Even the big hatch thread had no information to help me through this phase) I'm regretting doing our own design right now. Our walls are sandwich with quarter inch on either side of 3/4" 1x3 as framing. The frame sits on the trailer so the exterior skin is overhanging the trailer which makes it 48 1/2" .
The 50" hurricane hinge makes sense.
It's sort of coming together as I referenced the generic benroy plan .. it just accounts for notches in the rear which I don't have so any of these guides don't work as well as I'd hoped.

shootr wrote:Not sure if this is any help, but...

I didn't build mine, bought it from someone. My hatch is 99% inside the sidewalls, with only the exterior skin overlapping a slight notch in the sidewalls so it's more or less flush when closed.

If it is helpful, I'll take more pics of what you want / what I have, and post.

(And the steak and fried potatoes were WONDERFUL! LOL)

Thanks!
Is it notched on the side? I didn't cut anything out of the walls so it's a fluid curve all the way down. I should've notched it

shootr wrote:Not sure if this is any help, but...

I didn't build mine, bought it from someone. My hatch is 99% inside the sidewalls, with only the exterior skin overlapping a slight notch in the sidewalls so it's more or less flush when closed.

If it is helpful, I'll take more pics of what you want / what I have, and post.

(And the steak and fried potatoes were WONDERFUL! LOL)

All of the ones I built look like this. Did you cut down a quarter of an inch from hinge to bottom? Otherwise you need a hurricane hinge that is offset for the weather strip

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halfdome, Danny wrote:Here's a picture before the hatch skin is applied up to the edge of the teardrop.
Danny

After skinning. I now go for a 3/16" final gap or less.

I'm just throwing stuff out there, but looking at Danny's here with the skin overlapping the side walls...

What are you skinning yours with? Wondering if it's aluminum, perhaps it could be laid flush to the sidewall, and the weatherstripping could be inlaid into a slot cut into the upward facing edge of the sidewall, so it barely rises above the level of the sidewall. ("KERF" Weatherstripping)



https://www.google.com/search?q=kerf+weatherstripping&client=firefox-b-1-ab&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwimkrTNnI7bAhUSR6wKHdbHBfgQ_AUICygC&biw=1536&bih=766

Mine also has the "L" trim to cover the sidewall / roof joint:


Perhaps that could cover the edge gap, and if used from the bottom front, all the way up and around the edge/wall joint, to the bottom rear (with a cut where the hinge is), maybe it'd look kind of cohesive.

shootr wrote:

halfdome, Danny wrote:Here's a picture before the hatch skin is applied up to the edge of the teardrop.
Danny

After skinning. I now go for a 3/16" final gap or less.

I'm just throwing stuff out there, but looking at Danny's here with the skin overlapping the side walls...

What are you skinning yours with? Wondering if it's aluminum, perhaps it could be laid flush to the sidewall, and the weatherstripping could be inlaid into a slot cut into the upward facing edge of the sidewall, so it barely rises above the level of the sidewall. ("KERF" Weatherstripping)



https://www.google.com/search?q=kerf+weatherstripping&client=firefox-b-1-ab&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwimkrTNnI7bAhUSR6wKHdbHBfgQ_AUICygC&biw=1536&bih=766

Mine also has the "L" trim to cover the sidewall / roof joint:


Perhaps that could cover the edge gap, and if used from the bottom front, all the way up and around the edge/wall joint, to the bottom rear (with a cut where the hinge is), maybe it'd look kind of cohesive.

It looks like my problem is that I didn't cut down that 3/8 of an inch into the sidewall to give room. But an offset hurricane hinge should fix that problem?
We aren't skinning the side walls with anything it's a painted mural. We would like to do the top and aluminum but our router is junk and I'm nervous to try to cut aluminum so it might just be a painted roof as well with aluminum trim.
I'm having issues trying to get images into this post so if you go to my build Journal you'll see what I'm talking about.
Thank you so much for your help I'm going to look into the offset hinges because I'm not thinking it will be easy to make that 3/8 of an inch cut after it's all assembled.

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