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.

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