Greetings from Alaska

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Greetings from Alaska

Postby chelseaz27 » Tue Sep 06, 2016 11:57 pm

Hi there!
My husband and I have admired teardrops for years. We have been building a cordwood home in Alaska (near Kenai) and now that we are finally closing in on the project we are of course itching for yet another project. My husband is a welder and would like to build a teardrop with as much aluminum as possible to save on weight. He is even considering using aluminum as not only the trailer frame but for the mainframe as well. He would like it to weigh as little as possible. Shooting for less than #650. Anyways we have been drawing sketches and need to start pricing out materials. If all goes well we will build one and travel around the contiguous 48 states this winter.
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Re: Greetings from Alaska

Postby alaska teardrop » Wed Sep 07, 2016 12:48 pm

Welcome aboard from a former Alaskan. :shake hands:

For ideas - this is a thread about my version of a light weight aluminum trailer on a light weight steel chassis:
viewtopic.php?f=27&t=51991

Fred
Northern Lite Traveler design: viewtopic.php?f=27&t=51991
Minimalist torsion axle frame: viewtopic.php?f=35&t=12220
Alaska Teardrop photo gallery: http://tnttt.com/gallery/album.php?album_id=2014
Glampette photo gallery; gallery/album.php?album_id=2983&sk=t&sd=d&st=0
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Thanks!

Postby chelseaz27 » Wed Sep 07, 2016 1:46 pm

Thanks Fred! I really like your teardrop. I am wondering about making the width of the trailer as wide as the tires. Is there an advantage to having the wheel wells outside of the trailer? Also with a width of 45.5 inside, is it comfortable with two?
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Re: Greetings from Alaska

Postby Roly Nelson » Wed Sep 07, 2016 6:58 pm

Welcome aboard Alaska, from way down south in California. Your plans to build an aluminum frame, and body is a very ambitious endeavor. This is Sept and your plans are to travel in the US during the winter? That doesn't give you a lot of time to construct a usable teardrop trailer. I may be wrong, I know it took me a half a year to build mine, and all I can say is, I wish you luck. Building up and over the tires greatly adds to the complexity of the project. Also, there will be fender wells within the sleeping area, which may only allow less than 4 feet between fender wells, which intrudes into the mattress area. An all aluminum trailer sounds interesting, and I hope you take progress pictures and post them as you proceed. This should be interesting. Good luck, and come on by and see me during your US travels. BTW, my 4ft wide tear has been plenty wide for two people, especially if they are in love!
:D 8) :applause: Roly, the woody td guy in sunny southern California
See the little 1/2 Nelson Woody constructions pics at: http://gages-56.com/roly.html
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Re: Thanks!

Postby alaska teardrop » Thu Sep 08, 2016 10:53 am

chelseaz27 wrote:Thanks Fred! I really like your teardrop. I am wondering about making the width of the trailer as wide as the tires. Is there an advantage to having the wheel wells outside of the trailer? Also with a width of 45.5 inside, is it comfortable with two?


Four wide is good for me, but that may depend on the size & sleeping habits of the occupants. Try sleeping together in a box at home. A five wide with enclosed wheel wells still leaves a four foot bed, more involved construction & weight.

He is even considering using aluminum as not only the trailer frame but for the mainframe as well. He would like it to weigh as little as possible. Shooting for less than #650.


My concern about an aluminum chassis is fatigue failure of the tongue & axle mounting, Andrew explains it in this thread: viewtopic.php?f=35&t=65130&p=1157563&hilit=aluminum+fatigue#p1157563

Aluminium is a fine material - if you have years of experience of building trailers from it, or you have a team of aeronautical stressers to design it. For everyone else, it is a bit of a gamble.

Most trailers don't fail on one-cycle strength (one enormous load) but on fatigue strength (many little jiggles) when cracking starts. Most aluminium alloys have the disadvantage, compared to steel, that they do not have a fatigue (or endurance) limit, so even if the jiggles are tiny, if it is jiggled for long enough, in the end the aluminium will fracture. This graph from Wikipedia shows the effect:

Image (couldn't get the image to copy & paste, but you can look it up on Wikipedia or Goggle).

So in steel as long as the jiggles are less than about half the maximum strength, it doesn't matter if there are one million or one billion of them, the steel won't start cracking. But with aluminium alloys, there is no such limit.

DC3s were built before the much stronger age-hardening aluminium alloys (Duralumin was the first, I think) had been discovered, which is why many DC3s are still flying when younger planes aren't. It says diddly squat about the long term strength of an aluminium trailer frame.

Welders often like to quote the 'stronger than the parent metal' claim, but they rarely say 'failure will occur in the parent material in the heat-affected zone right next to the weld', as that isn't such good advertising. And they are talking about one-cycle strength, not fatigue strength, which is often much lower for welds.

The Australian trailer rules go so far as to recommend that tongues/A-frames are not welded to the front cross member of the trailer at the point where they cross it, so that the lower fatigue strength of the welds do not start cracking - and the Aussies have a lot of washboard roads, which are the ideal 'jiggler' to cause fatigue failure, so they have more experience of this than most.

Clearly, it is possible to build a strong, long-lasting trailer frame from aluminium, but it isn't guaranteed.
Northern Lite Traveler design: viewtopic.php?f=27&t=51991
Minimalist torsion axle frame: viewtopic.php?f=35&t=12220
Alaska Teardrop photo gallery: http://tnttt.com/gallery/album.php?album_id=2014
Glampette photo gallery; gallery/album.php?album_id=2983&sk=t&sd=d&st=0
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Re: Greetings from Alaska

Postby AZ_Desert_Rat » Sun Oct 30, 2016 5:36 pm

Hi Chelseaz27,
Welcome to the Forum and to the world of tiny trailers... :thumbsup: :thumbsup:
I am a little over 200#'s and with my wife and I together, I really like the extra room of a wider trailer... If you haven't already, have the hubby set up temporary walls the size you want to build and crawl in for a nap... :) My Cargo Conversion is 6' wide with tires on the outside; it tracks well and there is a lot of room inside. I realize most TD's don't go that wide, but many have commented on their like of 5' wide, with wheels outside... :) :)
Good luck on your build and hope to see you folks at a fire ring sometime... :pictures: :pictures: :D :D
Happy Camping & Building,
John (JC)


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Re: Greetings from Alaska

Postby dancam » Sun Oct 30, 2016 11:50 pm

Welcome!
Winter is cold! Have you checked out the foamie section of this forum? Super light and insulated trailers!


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