November Rain

It's been just over a month since I've posted progress. This is mainly due to the fact that several weeks passed by without any actual activity. The Teardrop project has not halted though, viva la teardrop! Despite a biz trip to Massachusetts for a week, and staging a Halloween party and all the other ramifications of life, there has been a little progress. Behold, the bullets:

• Build operation has migrated to the barn, after taking a day off from work to make some space


• The floor is now finally bolted on the trailer frame, complete with counter-sunk bolt heads and wood filler to make it smooth


• Edges of floor have been treated with CPES from the Rot Doctor


• Surface of floor has been stained cherry, and awaits polyurethane


• Began working on the doors, more sanding and CPES, polyurethane and stain to come

The cold November rain is no longer an obstruction, since I have a roof and four drafty walls. It may not be paradise, but I did commission the propane heater, which works pretty well in forty-degree temperatures, with further cold weather testing sure to follow.

If the cold is too bitter at times, I have work I can do in the basement to bide the time. For example, the doors are being prepped down there currently. I'm trying to run this show such that I always have something I can work on. Check out a few photos taken this past weekend below.

The floor is finally bolted down, 14 bolts total, countersunk with some wood filler drying above

From the inside of the barn looking out

Another view from inside the barn toward the rear

Door refinishing in the basement, which isn't as creepy as it looks in this photo.

All I need is some time. The way the economy is working, maybe I'll be granted a respite from work, who knows.

[g]

One month of building

It's been a month since the start of this crazy idea, and how could you guess that the temperature's been exceeding 70 degrees in recent days, despite it being halfway through October. Last weekend, there were more trips to Home Depot, as usual, and some more work on the walls and the floor.

Above, I'm marking the walls with the locations of the horizontal spars that will make the skeleton of the roof. I used a bit of 1"x2" to draw the lines. A sheet from the "plan binder" and a cup of coffee are necessary build materials.

Drawing the lines. Here, I'm marking both interior sides with the layout for the shelves, bulkhead and cabinets. This was mostly tedious, with a lot of measuring and square work.

Floor alignment and bolt-down. Finally, I broke my mental block on bolting the floor to the frame. I'm using four bolts on each side, and three on the front and rear rails. For each of the corners, the there's a depression sunk for each bolt head on the trailer frame. I'm using two unoccupied holes on the top of the frame near the front and rear on the side rails. For the other two side-rail bolts, I'm using the holes just forward and aft the axle on each rail. These were occupied by bolts that were part of the trailer build that were connecting the chunk of crossmember to the side rails in order to make the folding trailer a rigid trailer.

There are three unused holes in the crossmembers in the front and rear of the trailer, and those are unquestionably used, as I've mentioned before.

Another bit of work this past week has been wiring the trailer for the taillights and turn signals. The motivation is to register the trailer as a flatbed, which is reportedly an easy process. In Pennsylvania, you can apparently register it this way, and whatever else you do to it doesn't change the status of the registration. That definitely simplifies the situation.

We've been working this build completely outside so far, as you'd do when you don't have a garage. Sure, the weather has been great this far into October, but it's time to move this operation to "the barn" for the winter, while it's still pleasant to do some organization and setup. We'll have to move the trailer to the barn along with some sawhorses and install a few lights above.

I was considering packing this all in for the winter at some point, but use of the barn will allow some continued building under some shelter. It may be cold, but I might fire up a propane heater to cut the edge a bit. I might take off work Wednesday to work on the barn space and watch out for the epoxy sealant that UPS is supposed to deliver that day.

[g]

Taking sides, and chopping 'em up

I got the roofing tar applied to the floor and and 3/4" EPS insulation pressed into it during the week last week and began working on the sides of the camper last weekend.

The floor portion ended with 12 screws with fender washers secured each of the four panels. I spent some hard cash on 1 1/4" stainless steel screws and aforementioned fender washers, but the screws were just a bit too long and broke through the floor too often, so I switched to some 1" screws I had on hand. Below are two photos of the insulated and tarred floor.

We didn't get a lot of time this past weekend to work on the project - you can't devote every weekend to the build, after all. There's always drinking that needs to get done, and there were some wedding tasks that needed to be accomplished. However, we did get a trip to Home Depot in on Saturday for two sheets of 4'x8' sheets of 3/4" thick birch plywood and some 1"x2"s that will be used as spars. And whatever-the-hell-else we threw on the cart as we rolled it around the store.

We cut a few corners off the sheets of plywood, and we finally have a definite side profile to behold.

The sides each have a matching door with a window, which we laid out and marked down on the walls Saturday/Sunday. Today, the door of one side was cut out along with its windows. The cut-out from the window is discarded, so I drilled a starting hole for the jigsaw wherever I wished. The door cut-out must be saved, as it's the door, so I placed a starting hole on each corner toward the front of the wall and took the jigsaw from there.

I used the completed wall as a template to trace the door outline for the other wall, as well as the door with window cut-out to trace the window for the second wall. A few related photos follow, note that the window is easier to cut once the door is separated, which I did for the second window.

We see the freshly-cut door slid to the side above, and below, my fiancee models the raw product. I still need to take a belt sander to it.

I need to apply the belt sander to a number of things. One thing is the outline of the walls. I'll sandwich them together and hit the top, sides and curved junctions so that we'll at least end up with uniform walls. I'll straighten up the cut-out for the doors a bit with some sanding, as well as a little bit of the window cut-outs. Those aren't critical though, since some form of pre-fabricated window with molding will be installed in the spaces.

I'll finish this update with a photo of the left-side wall, with the dress side facing us. The inside is intended to be the "nice" side of the plywood, since the outside will be covered and the interior space will be stained and treated with polyurethane.

[g]

Moving at the speed of... turtle

This past weekend was mostly washed out. This is part of the problem of building this thing without a garage. It's like guerrilla warfare: build and run, duck and hammer. There was threatening rain both Saturday and Sunday, but the rain held off all day Saturday. Sunday made up for that.

As I'd mentioned last Thursday, the wheels are on, which means the thing is now sitting upright. Note the photo below, describing where I had to relocated holes for the springs to rest on.

Here, the trailer sits in its final configuration on Thursday evening. The next step for the weekend was to build the floor and get that mounted to the frame.

Saturday meant yet another trip to Home Depot for 1/2" plywood and a cache of 1"x2" beams. I've been spending a lot of time at the 'Depot these days. So much so that they gave me a comp card and I get complimentary cocktails while I'm there.

No, it's true. Just tonight I was there after getting back from NJ on business, looking for stainless steel hardware for the bottom of the floor. The large things, like 4'x8' sheets of plywood are the big, obvious trips, but there are sundry items that could fit in your (cargo pants) pockets that require so many of these quick "in-and-out" trips that they collectively consume more time than the big trips.

After all these trips that lead up to, and including, Saturday, we have the floor assembly coming together.

More progress was made Monday, but was limited to finishing the gluing and screwing of the remainder of the 1"x2" strips to the floor and cutting more of the 3/4" insulation that you see above to fit in the recesses between the 1"x2" framing. Tomorrow night looks like favorable enough weather to lay a coat of roofing tar on the bottom of the floor and press the sheets of insulation into it, adding a few screws for insurance.

Of course, I need to make another trip to the hardware store.

[g]

Just a Teardrop in the bucket

It's close to two weeks since the official start of the build. This is the first progress report, and the title gives you an idea of where I'm at. It's actually not that bad, the title was just too convenient to not use.

As usual, I started things out-of-order. I had the 5' x 8' trailer kit, model SJ-8531, paid for - signed, sealed and, well... not delivered. I had to pick it up from the Quakertown, PA warehouse of RedTrailers.com. My first attempt to do this came on a day that I was working in Philadelphia, and I planned to stop at the warehouse on the way home. A phone conversation with them informed me that I'd have to give a day's notice before pickup, and the warehouse was temporarily located in Nazereth, PA.

Nice, that's even closer to home. Yet, a second attempt failed as well, as I forgot to note that I could only pick up the thing between 9AM and 1PM. I crashed into last weekend, deciding that I'd start with the second part of the build: the interior and galley cabinets. I didn't need the trailer for that, as this was an assembly that's built separately and installed. Anyway, this fit into my overall idea that there'd be some work I could do while stuck inside, and other tasks that required friendly weather.

I cut a small pile of cabinet panels by the end of the first weekend and left it at that. I finally picked up the trailer that Tuesday morning, driving to Nazereth and pretending to work. Besides unpacking the 260 pounds of trailer parts, nothing else got done all week.

That's OK, because this past Saturday and Sunday was wall-to-wall trailer assembly. It began with what you see in the photo just above. The instructions for the trailer indicate a three hour assembly time, but that time gets bloated by the customization the teardrop plans call for. In reality, that number gets obliterated. That's why I'm sitting here on my couch at 9:00PM Thursday night with still some trailer frame assembly left to do, even after putting in a full workday last Saturday and Sunday and adding about four more hours after work this week.

The first major change is that the trailer width is shortened by two inches. This allows the walls to hang down and conceal the trailer frame. This obviously requires that all horizontal cross-members be trimmed, and then new holes have to be drilled into trimmed ends. This was a recurring theme last weekend. I really underestimated the amount of time it'd take to drill new holes, cut off unnecessary caster mounts and generally just massage bolt holes and angles so everything got square.

I'm close with phase one though. Just this evening, I finally slapped the two wheels on, so it's finally sitting on some rubber. The hitch coupler is bolted on and I'm about halfway through the final bolt tightening and straightening of the frame. I thought I'd be finished last weekend with the other part of the frame stage, cutting and bolting the plywood deck to the top of the frame, but no dice. I have the materials, so hopefully I can bang that out quickly this weekend. So far, things have been taking longer than usual, which is always the case, right? I was looking forward to getting past the frame portion of the project, and into some different areas, but that's just the way the ball bounces, g.

After all, I do have to work on my grad thesis and I haven't been out on my mountain bike for a while. Take a peek at some photos below showing progress so far. Note the photo above that's officially the first photo of the build, with just a few frame rails scattered about on the driveway. I need to take a few more to show this evening's progress, that'll be an edit to this posting shortly.

Again, first photographic evidence of a teardrop build. The cross-members have already been trimmed here, and I'm just dropping the layout down.

As I've said, drilling new holes is a common endeavor. This is one of the trimmed ends that I'm fashioning with a new hole. Dickie's pants and Alice in Chains hat required.

Extreme close-up. Put on your goggles. The 12-volt cordless got swapped out for an AC drill after burning through two batteries in less than two hours.

That would be the front triangle. There were several point of trimming on this, including new holes on the front-most cross-member and matching holes for the diagonal rails. The diagonal rails were also trimmed off at the side rails, which meant more new holes there. The center, "spine" that leads to the tongue was touchy, and fit only with additional adjustments to holes on the diagonals and front cross-member and diagonals.

Tara, my fiancee, drills some hole. Keep your eyes to yourself.

Wow, this is close. Axle still needs attached, then wheels, hitch coupler and tightening of all the bolts. Also note that it's friggin' upside down.

[g]

Beginning of a teardrop camper build

That's exactly what I'd started out on last weekend. The idea began out six months ago with the discovery of a company by the name of Little Guy, that commercially produces these things, and proceeded to a forum dedicated to the homegrown building of these campers. Understandably, some description is in order of what, exactly, a teardrop camper or trailer is.

These small trailers were devised in the 1940s as a cheap, easily built travel trailer, with plans showing up in Popular Mechanics, to name one magazine as an example. That's right, they weren't a commercially produced item in the beginning. In fact, the motivation behind some of the layouts was that people struggling through the depression could live in it temporarily while looking for work. The economy may be bad, but I'm not at that point yet.

The teardrop name is derived from the side profile resembling that of a teardrop. The example photo just above is that of the "Benroy" style, which has the essence of the teardrop shape, but slightly more square. This happens to be the style I'm building, with plans from the aforementioned forum, but I'm looking to do a stainless steel or aluminum skin. Think old school Airstream. As I've said, magazines in the 1940's began publishing plans for tiny trailers of teardrop-shaped and also other geometries - but it's the teardrop trailers that are making a renaissance of sorts. These trailers typically have a floor dimension of 4' by 8' to 5' by 10' and even bigger in some custom designs.

These are certainly not rolling hotels, which is just fine by me. Frankly, I'm scared to hell of those 50-foot motorhomes careening down the highway while being piloted by a long-time member of AARP. No, these are simplistic designs that mean you get more mileage for your gas buck and you get to spend more time thinking about your trip and less about whether the next gas station is within 40 miles away and if that was a subcompact you just ran over.

The gas mileage is attractive because I want to use this thing on a cross-country road trip for my honeymoon next spring. We don't want luxury, we want to really feel the continent, with just a little more comfort and convenience than a tent. OK, I'll admit - it has more to do with bear protection.

The small form-factor and simplicity is also good because this will be the largest thing I've built up besides a whopping case of self-defeatism. Which leads me to the next thing: I'll never be able to do this.

No, those thoughts have been, so far, drowned out by some unknown-til-now source of enthusiasm, confidence and bravado. It's surprising me, since work is still grinding me, I've begun officially working on my graduate thesis that's due next spring, I'm getting married in less than six months and winter is sneaking up, taking away all the good outdoor work with it. In any case, it's good to get your hands dirty, and I'll post of the wee progress so far in another post.

[g]