Trillium 13' Queen size bed.

[dleverton]

I'm repeating this because I forgot the topic name.

I have been following all these great topics since we bought a 1973 Trillium 13'.

Some time back there was a discussion about cutting away part of the sink and most of the closet in order to increase the bed width to 60" (queen). I can no longer find that discussion, but wanted to put out my thoughts to see if anyone had any ideas.

Here is a drawing of what I have in mind.



I have heard that the shell might be pretty loose without the stiffening of the closet and sink support, so I was planning on leaving about 2" of the closet sides and sink support side and "sistering" shaped plywood onto the remaining stubs for stiffening. I know from the lost thread that someone in Ontario did just this, but do not know how it worked out.



Also I have done a printed circuit board layout for tail, turn and license plate lights using modern very bright LEDs. If anyone is interested, I would be happy to share.

Doug


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Doug L

[Raz]

Hi Doug. Welcome to the forum. I toyed with the idea of widening the bed but decided to do the 90* rotation instead. Had I gone the route you are suggesting I would most likely have removed the fiberglass closet and kitchen and replaced them with wood similar to the Scamp deluxe. Raz

[dleverton]

Hi Raz and thanks for your comment. I will check out the Scamp.


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Doug L

[jokra]

Hi Raz,
I think you are going down a slippery "slope". The trillium needs the cupboards on both sides for torsional stiffness of the whole trailer. This is especially true of the side with kitchen cupboards where you often see the roof drooping, unless the upper cupboard is supported vertically. I have the 1978 T4500 which came with the queen bed from the factory. Mine is showing stress in the roof on the kitchen side and I have had to add a vertical support for that. My trailer had the benches cut open for drawers accessible from the front, which has also added to stress of the structure and I have had to add supports to rectify that. You may want to trade your for a T4500 and make your life easier. Good luck, George

[David Tilston]

Since the Trillium Sportsman uses as similar roof support, I suspect you will be OK with your plan. The plywood sheet between the bed, and the kitchen might be more then required. Maybe add a support post for the kitchen, instead of the plywood. Keep that open look.

Personally, I would just sell your Trillium 1300, and get a 4500. They almost have a queen bed, with lots less work.

[dleverton]

Jorka and David
Thank you both for your views. I admit I would prefer the 4500, but my tug is a Subaru Forrester and I'm not sure if the numbers work...I will recheck. Isn't the 4500 a rare beast?


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Doug L

[Jon in AZ]

I'd personally be inclined to do a full arch all the way across the top and down both sides, similar to what L'il Snoozy does for their front queen layout:


That ought to give better-than-original roof support, minimal weight, a finished appearance, and a nice place to hang a privacy curtain between the bed and the rest of the cabin.

How do you plan to access all that storage under the bed?

[David Tilston]

Doug,
Where you are seems to have a lot to do with how rare a 4500 is. They seem more common in Canada. Based on the Serial Number List:
http://www.fiberglassrv.com/forums/f...tml#post483603
I would say there are on the order of 7000 1300's, and 2000 4500's. I am the proud owner of 3 4500's and another 3 1300's.

There doesn't seem to much of a price delta between 1300's and 4500's.

[dleverton]

I rechecked the numbers and was quite surprised.
Trillium 4500 weighs 1700# (unloaded)
Subaru Forrester towing capacity 906Kg or 1997# (with trailer brakes).
I realize it is close and loaded it is closer or over capacity, but I have towed way way overcapacity in a previous life and am not too concerned with these numbers.

Jon, I do love your suggestion of the arch.
I know the boat people are always concerned with "hard points" when adding internal structures to fibreglass boats. I don't have a good feel for how stiff is too stiff, but I would guess that an arch of perhaps 1 1/2" deep by 3/4" or 5/8" marine ply might have enough flex to not cause a hard point and yet add significant structural rigidity. It's a delicious engineering problem and I'd like to pursue it even while looking at the Trillium 4500.



Some time back Dale did some similar work (see his photo above). I'd love to know how well it worked for him.


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Doug L

[dleverton]

As to storage under the bed, I thought about fabricating a light, hanging roller shelf that fully occupies the entire volume under the bed (approximately 30" X 60" X under bed height). I think it would have at least the volume of the lost closet on the curb side. Also I was going to move the port-a-pottie under the bed where the curb side closet used to be. That would liberate storage space under the front seating area.

I really appreciate all the collective wisdom from all of you.


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Doug L

[David Tilston]

A 4500 is a 1300 with ~18" of extra length. This 18" is added to the width of bed, closet, kitchen, and front gaucho. This doesn't add up to much extra weight. Maybe an additional 200 lbs?

If you want a wild goose chase, look for a front kitchen Surfside TM14.
http://www.fiberglassrv.com/forums/f...hen-64258.html
http://www.fiberglassrv.com/forums/f...hen-47627.html


They have a king sized bed.

[Raz]

Originally Posted by jokra

Hi Raz,
I think you are going down a slippery "slope". The trillium needs the cupboards on both sides for torsional stiffness of the whole trailer. This is especially true of the side with kitchen cupboards where you often see the roof drooping, unless the upper cupboard is supported vertically. I have the 1978 T4500 which came with the queen bed from the factory. Mine is showing stress in the roof on the kitchen side and I have had to add a vertical support for that. My trailer had the benches cut open for drawers accessible from the front, which has also added to stress of the structure and I have had to add supports to rectify that. You may want to trade your for a T4500 and make your life easier. Good luck, George

Hi George, no slippery slope for me, it's Doug that's doing the surgery. I did the 90* bed mod last summer. That's good enough for me.

I have never heard of a T4500 with a queen bed. When were they made and how many did they make? Raz

[Jon in AZ]

Originally Posted by dleverton

...I know the boat people are always concerned with "hard points" when adding internal structures to fibreglass boats. I don't have a good feel for how stiff is too stiff, but I would guess that an arch of perhaps 1 1/2" deep by 3/4" or 5/8" marine ply might have enough flex to not cause a hard point and yet add significant structural rigidity. It's a delicious engineering problem and I'd like to pursue it even while looking at the Trillium 4500...

I'm not a boat person, so I didn't think about that, but it makes sense. L'il Snoozy has a different kind of shell that is rigid without interior support, if I'm not mistaken, so the arch is probably decorative, not structural. Still, I don't think the upper structure of a fiberglass trailer is subject to anything like the stresses of a boat hull. Based on your spelling of "fibreglass," I'm guessing winter snow load might be one stress to manage.

The T4500 has a larger bed than a T1300, but at 54" it's not a true queen. There's a thread on http://www.fiberglassrv.com/forums/f...zes-29849.html (see post #9).

[dleverton]

The Surfside is really interesting. I quite like it. Particularly the big bed.

We live on Vancouver Island, and love to park on the beach in the summer and watch the boats go by. We generally spend most of our time outside, cook outside, but if we are not comfortable at night our ventures will be short. So my whole focus has been the larger bed. Our favourite spot is only about 20Km by road, but 2 ferries. I built a shelter for the Trillium and we get little snow here, so I'm not too worried about it structurally, but I know that the Trillium will be owned by someone else down the road and so I want to do the work such that it lasts. Look how many of them are around after 40 years, I'll bet there will still be a lot of them in another 40 years. Some years back we had a 24' Class B motor home and we did the same thing...removed what we had to to got a large comfortable bed. It was great and we loved it, but now whatever we camp in must go behind the Subaru Forrester.
So I'm about ready to start the surgery. I'm going to go ahead modifying the 1300, but I think down the road I may flip it for a 4500.
I'll post pictures.


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Doug L

[dleverton]

The shelter with the 1300 as it came.




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Doug L

[David Tilston]

Originally Posted by Jon in AZ

The T4500 has a larger bed than a T1300, but at 54" it's not a true queen. There's a thread on http://www.fiberglassrv.com/forums/f...zes-29849.html (see post #9).

According to this website, the dinette bed on a Trillium 4500 is 6" less wide then an RV queen mattress.
Mattress Sizes & Bed Size Dimensions | The Mattress & Sleep Company

[Ian G.]

I removed all the original structure from my Boler for my modifications. To provide support to the structure I added 4 curved structural members and epoxied these directly to the fiberglass shell. The result is the shell is now far stiffer that the original. This same technique would work for your design in a Trillium

The curved support before installation, it is made from laminated red cedar about 1.5' thick and 3" wide



This shows the installed supports during constriction, one on each side of the door. The liner is cut to allow the support to be epoxied directly to the fiberglass shell



This shows the 2 supports placed mid-way on both sides

[dleverton]

Ian
Very nice work. Is it art? Is it technology? It's both.


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Doug L

[dleverton]

Well we took it on its maiden voyage this weekend, parked overlooking the ocean and enjoyed ourselves.
All the major mods are done. It is quite blue and may get stuck with "Bluette" as all the other trailers and fifth wheels were white and we looked like a blueberry in a bowl of mushrooms.

The Queen bed was as we hoped, and Connie made a quilt for the occasion as well as great curtains. A collaboration.

The comfy chairs were a leap of faith and were quite a lot of work, but well worth the effort.

The work was mostly covering the roughness left by removing the front goucho. Getting the wainscotting around that compound curve was crazy and it ended up looking like it was done by a drunken sailer. Your hard pressed to find a right angle in a Trillium.

I'm totally happy and there were no structural integrity issues.
Doug


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Doug L

[David Tilston]

I am impressed! You have a queen bed, and still have some kitchen, and closet as well. You might not think the wainscoting looks good, but I disagree.