Teardrops n Tiny Travel Trailers

Nice

^+1, Nice joint and I agree about power tools vs. hand tools in this case.
I often catch myself thinking about how to machine or powertool something, while manual tool actualy works the fastest.

Moving along now. I'm concerned that the canvas will adhere to the foam. I'm going to do more testing. But I think that the tailfeathers will be functional.

I scrounged some 1/4" polycarbonate lexan for windows, and I thought you might like to see a safe way to cut it. The waxed Asian style saw (Vaughan Bear Saw BS250D) cuts it very cleanly and straight, and a handplane will clean it up further. The 66" cut took about 15-20 minutes. I definitely recommend these saws for all kinds of work. They're efficient and give a high quality cut.

Here's the setup: The lexan was placed on two 2x12 planks spaced with a 1/2" gap to saw through. A candle or paste wax lubricated the blade. It was not difficult to split the pencil line.



Here's the sawn edge. You can see that the saw was drawn through the material at a shallow angle of ~25 degrees. This eases the sawing and helps keep the cut straight.



After shooting it with the handplane, the edge looks like it was done with a jointer or router.

What a Nice shape , and different too ... still nice and roomy and the rain rolls off !!!

The canvas for the sides went on easily. After sanding the spackled spots and radiusing the edges, I corduroy-scored the surface with the ripsaw. Then I dampened the canvas, and rollered on the 80:20 glue:water to the entire side, which held nicely in the scoring. With a person at either end of the 5x10ft pieced canvas, with just laid it on, and the 11.5oz Big Duck canvas immediately settled down on to the surface. It was easy to smooth it with hands and a light touch with a squeegee. The dark streak that you see is a little dirt that was picked up from the driveway, but I'm sure that primer & paint will disguise it perfectly.

I recommend the heavier Big Duck canvas; it covers surface imperfections much better than the painter's canvas from the box stores. Also, scoring the styrofoam surface with the ripsaw is much better than a sanded surface for adhering the canvas to the foam, in my opinion.

Here's an idea for windows across the front wall. The two 9x28 windows will tilt on pivots placed in the vertical jambs, and tilt to the drip rail and the sill (i.e. upper half inwards, lower half outwards. The pivots will be halfway from the upper and lower edges of the window (approx 4.5" here) and offset, thus giving good protection from rain. Both the drip rail and sill have a 20 degree slope to shed water, and were cut from a single 1x6 cedar deck board. The glazing will be 6mm polycarbonate, and of course, there will be weatherstripping.


"Closed Position"

"Open Position"

Having thought about it for a few minutes, there is a 'problem' with this design. Although it would be easy to set the opening with thumbnuts on the pivot bolts, it would be difficult to fit bug screens on this design.

I'm going leave the pics and posts up for now, but I have an alternative idea that will make it easy to include screens. It will take a little bit of time to make one and show you, Basically, I'll move the pivots to the top edge (a basement sash window style?), and work on a way to open/close the window without disturbing the screen.

Here's the revised design, with the pivots moved to the top edge. I'll take it apart, varnish it, put it back together and reinstall it, then close up the front. Then it's time to get the doors done.



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Neat idea for a window -- plexiglass and wood frame. I hope you are going to add some sort of seal that the window will sit on, especially the bottom edge and have a mechanism to secure the window closed. Since it appears to be the leading edge of the trailer, one might expect 60+ mph wind (and rain/sleet/snow ) hitting that window. You really do no need that much water in your TD when you stop. Even just the wind getting in could create issues -- moving things around. Even affecting the rear hatch if there is a way to pass through.

Don't worry; they're polycarbonate, and few more framing pieces will be added, and then they'll be weatherstripped, and fitted with latches. I wonder how much the wind pressure will actually be, considering that the trailer will be in the 'shadow' of my Subaru Forester. If it does show leakage, i'll make a weatherstripped travel cover for it.

Here's the current status.

1.I had to redo the front windows, and they came out ok.



2. I remembered that I had a trouble light on a retractable SJT cord reel that I had never installed in the garage. So I removed the light and mounted the reel inside the galley. At West Marine, I found an AC power port for $14 and fitted it. Next I'll add a circuitbreaker box, and then the receptacles as desired.

Looking Good Bob !!!

The side doors are nearly done. They are panel and frame constructions with mortise & tenon joints, and the large openings will be planked vertically with 1/2 x 6" cedar boards set into grooves. They will have polycarbonate Wiley windows at the top (one is fitted now - still covered with the protective white plastic film).