My homemade overland teardrop

[Frusteri4]

A “built” thread. In no particular order.


Ive been pretty into teardrop trailers for maybe 15 years now. Ive been following the TNTTT page for almost as long. Finally got to the point in my life where I felt I was ready to move from an RTT to a camper And when shopping around for campers realized that most all of the campers either didn’t have the features I wanted, were far to expensive, or I could just do it better myself. once my daughter showed up in our life I realized that I was going to be spending a lot more time around the house and could use a project. So two years worth of naps later I’ve got something that I think I can finally show off.

some of the things that I wanted out of my camper were:

- not a lot of mini camping things like thin mattress, water jugs, cute little stoves and cooking equipment. If I’m dragging a trailer I want to be able to store my big cast iron, sleep on a balling memory foam mattress, and have enough water to take a shower after a dirt bike race.

- ability to have my daughter sleep inside comfortably

- window on all four sides

- not having a porch light blasting me in the face

- off road and off grid capable. LIVE comfortably in remote locations

- some architectural/artistic coolness as seen in vestibule teardrops, and airstreams

- pass through window between galley and cabin

- enough power storage, solar, lights, outlets and ports to be able to add a reading light, fridge, or hot water heater if I wanted.

so it’s not completely done but here’s some more pictures:





I have a lot more pictures on an Instagram page

Race Haus (@racehausteardrop) • Instagram photos and videos

2,708 Followers, 250 Following, 52 Posts - See Instagram photos and videos from Race Haus (@racehausteardrop)

www.instagram.com

 

[Frusteri4]

I was originally looking to buy a base trailer or even do a 5x8 cargo conversion, but after minimal success finding an adequate base trailer, and when an unused 3500# dexter torsion axle came across facebook marketplace. I decided to build my own. The majority of the frame is 2x2 .120 steel tube which hindsight 2020 is probably a bit on the smaller side. I have since doubled up the tongue with a 2x2 .180 piece of square tube.

 

[billiebob]

when shopping around for campers realized that most all of the campers either didn’t have the features I wanted, were far to expensive, or I could just do it better myself

exactly

I think I see lots of Baltic Birch ??
very cool to see a trailer frame which actually appears not overbilt

 

[Teardropper]

Damn cool!

Tony

 

[beanco]

Great job !!!
post all the pictures you want. I like seeing people build amazing things out of a one car garage.

Ben

 

[Frusteri4]

Lots of baltic birch for sure…..like a lot. I laminated some extra as ribs behind my cabin and galley cabinet frames because they are right under where my roof top tent will be going. Very solid anchor point to plow some lags into to attach my roof rack.
The walls are also baltic birch heavy. A total width of 1.5” thick. Doubled up .5” baltic birch and skeletonized for fill with xps foam insulation, then used .25” birch on inside and outside as the skin.
Without a full cooler,mattress, RTT, or water tank, but with a tongue box full of camping things, and cabinets being used as storage (including a 105#, 160 AH agm) it weighed in at 1700#. Im thinking were going to be sitting at right around a hefty 2000-2100# wet when things are all said and done.

 

[stomperxj]

Nice work

 

[Frusteri4]

Made some simple plywood cabinet doors the other day to clean the galley up a little bit.

 

[billiebob]

I love Baltic Birch, definitely the best wood product for a trailer, cabinets etc.

Just curious how much and what thickness you used in total, and did you use 5x5 or are there other sizes available.

 

[Redline61]

Love it! I like the planning and building it inside out.

 

[Frusteri4]

The trailer is 5x9 so i used two spliced pieces of 5x5x.75” for the floor and roof. Walls were a conglomeration of 4x8x.5” double thickness with a foot extra spliced on the back to give the inside ribs a 1” thickness for 1” foam and then sided with 5x5x.25” and routed to the correct shape. All exterior curves are 1/8” birch, 4 layers thick on the front curve and 2 thick on the hatch. I just bought my first sheet of 4x8x.375 to make cabinet doors. So ive used just about every size of baltic birch plywood that my local wood store offers. In total I think ive got about 10 sheets of 3/4 5’x5’, 5 sheets of 1/2 4’x8’, 11 sheets of 1/4 5’x5’, 3 sheets of 1/8 5’x5’, and im working on my first 4’x8’ of 3/8”. Shout-out to Mastercraft hardwoods in Sparks Nevada, what a great store and holy cow do they have all kinds of cool wood in there.

 

[jwiereng]

Even in the specialty shop baltic birch only seems to be available in 5 x 5 sheets. Check out the boat building techniques for scarf jointing

 

[Frusteri4]

Where i needed to splice pieces i used finger joints for the most part.

 

[jwiereng]

finger joint is a great idea, one that I did not consider. It would work very well for flat sections, unlike boat builders where they need to bend a fair curves

 

[Frusteri4]

finally welded another crossbar into the roof rack and mounted the RTT. Have begun working on the water system. Shown here is the quick connect spray port, which will be fed by a little 1.3 GPM pump, which will be fed by a 25 gallon tank that I have ordered from Ronco plastics.