King Size teardrop project in search of a good home

[MorganG]

I hung out on the T&TTT site for a couple of years, back when my name was Doug, learning from the collective wisdom and experiences before starting my own teardrop project. The design has a Grumman profile (pleasing to our eye and has good internal volume), built-up walls and the plan was for "woody" sides and aluminum skinning on the roof. The interior was going to be a bamboo motif and our working title became "The Big Bamboo."

I drew up my design and literally days before ordering a 5' wide trailer kit, my sweetie announced she wanted it to hold a king-size mattress. Well, 8' wide snowmobile trailers are plentiful, as are 6' wide heavyweights suitable for hauling your Hudson Hornet, but a lightweight 6' wide trailer was definitely a fox hunt. It took a year to find a suitable trailer, a 6'wide lightweight trailer from Magneta,which they modified to move the axle aft.

The motto on the site at the time was "the quality is remembered long after the price is forgotten" and I built accordingly. Building from Steve Frederick's design CD, I constructed the floor from marine ply atop 1"x2"s, all of which is sealed under 3 coats of marine epoxy. The floor is 77"W x 113"L and the underside is insulated with 1" styrofoam. I built a full-size profile pattern in corrugated plywood to check sizes and placement of doors, switches, etc, then transferred it to a plywood pattern. The wall uses an interior cleat to attach to the floor, as I felt it gave the best strength and seal. The wall framing is assembled and ready for insulation and skinning inside and out.

Unfortunately, working in an unheated garage means the progress has been seasonal, and as Newton's Law states, "objects at rest tend to remain at rest." I started this project shortly before we bought our van. That was 9 years ago, during which time my sweetie's health has gotten slowly worse. About a year ago she said she wasn't capable of using a teardrop even if it was finished, and it's taken about a year for me to let go of it.

So, it is time to bid adieu to the elephant in the garage. I would like to recover what I've put into it thus far, but am open to offers. I'm asking $2,500 for the project, which includes the trailer (WA state tabs just renewed), side wall framing, full-size pattern, design book, Steve Frederick CD, workbench (8' with a 2' drop-leaf extension), sink, remaining materials and epoxy. I live in the Seattle, WA area, and having downsized our vehicle to one which cannot tow, you would need to pick it up.

Please contact me via the forum or directly at [email protected]