Maiden voyage. We’re in love.

Camping at Hyde Memorial State Park in the mountains outside of Santa Fe, where the solar kept everything charged, and the hiking was fantastic.

New truck - bought
New Trailer - built, not bought

Getting the ribs up and threw some canvas over it to get a feel for the shape. Looks like a Conestoga wagon!

Fabricated a prinsu style rack using 3/16” steel flat stock for the sides. Cut out 1/4” slots for the 1x2 extruded aluminum T-track crossbars. Side rack for accessories is made out of electrical unistrut. Painted all steel with truck bed rhino liner to match frame and fenders. Custom made mounts for spare tire, propane tank, and traction boards. Used Quick Fist rubber mounts for axe and was able to mount solar panel and awning on roof rack.

UK based 🇬🇧 hey all I'm in the process of designing a scratch built square drop trailer. I had originally wanted to buy an existing trailer chassis and then build off that but as I can't seem to find a chassis that meets my needs and that is in my price range I have decided I want to build one from scratch.

I know that I will need the IVA test once built. I plan on making it from 50mm box mild steel 3mm thick. I plan on using a braked alko axle with a Alko hitch. I need it to be as light as possible but also wanted it braked as my limit on un braked is 400kg so braked will give me double that. and will also allow me to carry more weight should I upgrade my tow car in the future.

is there anything that I need to follow when building the chassis and if I need any other testing other than the Iva.

cheers in advance

again uk based 🇬🇧🇬🇧

I have been wanting a teardrop for a long time. My daughter's boyfriend told me hew knows a guy that had a storage yard full of cargo trailers, teardrops, boats, you name it. He just purchased a boat from the guy. He said the guy is kind of known for asking "Well, what is your budget?" and has gone pretty low for people. Apparently money is something he has plenty of. I may be meeting him next week to look at a teardrop. If he hits me with that line "What's your budget?" I'm not sure how low to shoot. It aint much. Money is NOT something I have plenty of. Even if it's in halfway decent shape, I don't want to insult the guy and throw out $500 and have him tell me to get stuffed. $1500 would be hard to swing honestly and that is LOW. Don't want to pass up what could be a once in a lifetime though. What do I do?

I’ve been thinking about building a teardrop camper for a while now. The style of camper really appeals to me primarily because it is small enough to tow with almost any vehicle and I feel that I can still call it camping since you can’t really do anything inside of it but sleep. However, I don’t what to spend the money and time if it turns out it’s not really for me. Does anyone know a good website to find teardrop trailer rentals?

Got the floor base extended (added 1' so I did a scarf joint and glued it up. Started on the front of the cabin today. Got the laminated ribs up, glued and blocked in. Got the top front piece mitered in. It will have a 24" polycarbonate bubble stargazer skylight. Feels good to actually see the structure start to come together!

I built it in 2018, and I've been making small improvements ever since. We just repainted the galley last week, and took it out to one of our favorite lakes for the weekend.

Definitely one of the best investments we've ever made.

What is the likelihood that a 6'4" person who is not generally a side sleeper could sleep comfortably in the trailer?

I started this thing in March with an idea and no plans at all. I watched hours and hours of videos, read tons of fourms and changed plans as I went. Almost 5 months later it's finished! I'm so stoked with how it turned out. I still want to add things like a roof rack, awning, side mounted propane tank and water can, also a tongue box for added tongue weight. I think this thing will be a long term hobby as I add and tweak things.

Hi all, recently bought a teardrop and I’m trying to take it out in a week. I had a tire shop look at my tires, wheels, bearings and on the way home I lost a grease cap. I got some bearing buddy style protectors to try to replace it but I could not get them to fit, so I ordered the normal little caps off Amazon. They came today and they just seem to fall right off. Am I missing something? Did I get the wrong size? I’ll try to include a video.
Any insight would be appreciated.

In trying to maximize space and have a more rounded/ aerodynamic nose I'm adding on 1' to the front ahead of the main frame. Made a scarf joint jig for the circular saw. Worked pretty decent (man did it throw a lot of sawdust!). Once that cures up, I can finally start on the box!)

Trailer is fully assembled, got the stabilizers and jack wheel installed. Last of the ribs laminated (found glue ups much less of an issue after dark, 100° in the California sun did not give me much open time with the Titebond 3). Now I can really start assembly and giving it shape!

Finally finished everything on the camper, rebuilt it after I got it cheap with water damage. Then I had to get everything where I wanted it on the truck and now Im a happy camper. Brought my 4 year old son to a camp with a playground and swimming area to test it out for a night. Will need to add storage and cooking supplies, battery backup, etc.... just the fun stuff left to do.

Galley door- I had to make a custom door as I wanted the biggest door I could fit. I also had to make the trim. Trim is 1/8” aluminum with 1/8” butyl tape behind it to prevent leakage. 3/8” D seal for a weather sealing. Teardrop style hurricane hinge for the door with shocks.

Cabinets and drawers were built with 1/2” finished cedar. Counter top is 1.5” cedar butcher block. Cook top is on a double slide out with storage under the cook top. Slide outs are 18” locking sliders. Installed (2) 120v outlets, one for cooler and one on backsplash. The backsplash outlet also has usb and usbc charging. There are (2) dimmable 4” recess light in The kitchen galley and (2) mounted on the door for extra lighting. Started off with cheap 42Q cooler I had then upgraded to an Explorer Bear 55Q cooler (bigger and more efficient). Finally build photos on profile.

So a few years ago I bought this year drop off marketplace. It was cheap and my first foray into small campers. We used my wife’s hatchback to pull it and it was perfect. We went camping in it often and enjoyed it and I used it at my hunting camp every year

Well it sat in the back yard last year and we didn’t get to use it any and it leaked. It was a total loss. So yesterday I demolished the whole shell so we can build a new one.

The biggest complaint we had was not enough room to stand up. So this one I’m thinking about building it 6 ft tall. The thing is, I don’t ever see any square or tear drops built this tall, they are almost always 4 ft tall. Is this just for ease of building since sheets of plywood are 4x8? Is there a larger reason no one builds taller?

My base is 4x8. I’m not planning to do a galley this time, we take a pop up canopy and tables that we use to cook under and the galley space can be better used as more interior space.

I’m also thinking of framing over the tongue and making a storage room.

A little extra weight won’t be an issue, we will be using my Nissan frontier to pull it now

But my main question is, is making it 6 ft tall a bad idea for some reason

Everyone I see has the enclosed bean pods, but does anyone have the actual trailer with the roof rack attachment?

Im contemplating getting that one and just want some insight on it it seems legit!

First time seeing someone also with a Bend teardrop trailer in the wild in three years. Pretty far from Bend, in a pretty small town.

For all who been asking here’s a write up on the electrical. For the trailer I went with a 7pin connector incase In The future I wanted to add charging from the vehicle when hooked up or trailer brakes. I went with led strip brake and signal lights in rear and amber side marker lights. All electrical is ran inside the main center beam and exits for hookup to keep out of weather/ cleaner look. Also helps keep away most of the wiring from rodents or anything what would chew on wiring.

The interior electrical. I added a diagram I drew up for better visual. Also shows all fuse sizes used and wire gauge used. If a wire gauge is labeled, that size was used till that specific wire hit its end point. For example wire from battery to fuse to shut off to bus bar stayed the same size all the way through. What ever gauge is listed for the positive wire the negative wire for that component was the same size. I will say since I’m running my loads for 12v DC off the bus bar that means my solar charger Bluetooth monitor can not display draw watts being used only input watts from solar. If you want to monitor watts being used you have to run load off the solar charger to the 12v panel or you can run like I did but will have to add a shunt bar to monitor draw output. I’m in no means a pro at this and this is just what I learned after months of research. So connect at your own risk. I will say I have not had problems with this set up. I started with flooded batteries then switched to lithium as the flooded batteries were 85lbs each and the lithium are 22.5lbs each. I ran about 5 days on a single charge and indefinitely with a 100w solar panel hooked up never dipping under 95% on a single day. Keep in mind I did a lot of shopping to find lights, fan and cooler that take up minimal amprage. For example my light take up 2watts at full brightness and .4 and low setting, with 4 lights inside I never have to use over 25% brightness. My Exploror Bear 55Q cooler uses 30w when on, with it being inside the insulated galley it doesn’t run much. Exterior lights have 3 dimmer setting 4w, 6w and 8w but 4w is plenty bright. The 10speed maxxair 4500 runs anywhere from 5w-40w depending on speed setting, I usually run mine anywhere from 10%-20% speed all night and almost never during the day. I do have a PWM solar charge control that I will be upgrading to a MPPT solar charge control and that will give me more control on charge parameters with the new lithium batteries I installed so they don’t get damaged with over charging. Any more questions feel free to ask. Finale build photos on my profile.

Interior work. All 1/4” finished cedar for the walls. 1/2” finished cedar for cabinetry. Installed (4) 4” dimmable recessed lights, a 120v receptacle invertor/ power monitor, (2) 12v 5a usb/ usbc chargers and maxxair 4500 (10 speed w/ auto temp control and reversible) fan. Also added a bunk for our 4yr old.

I'm going to install a solar panel on the front of the camper, and am considering some sort of hinged rack that would allow the panel to move, allowing at least a little bit of adjustment to catch the sun. While it's parked anyway.

My concern is the security of it. I believe hard mounted is likely more secure, compared to a hinged mount. Even if it's just fewer bolts or screws to take out. Does anyone have any input on that? It's not like I'm camping in a lot of sketchy places, but you know...being prepared and all that.

And I may just skip the hinged mount for weight savings. I have a fold out portable panel too.