FOUND Teardrop Template

[bwilly8917]

Hello everybody, well I have been wanting and planning my first teardrop trailer build for what seems like an eternity. I am fairly decent when it comes to woodworking but the first stages of the teardrop build seem especially daunting. When I say first stages of the build I am referring to cutting out the sides of my trailer. So I opted to seek out a little help by way of plans, but it seemed like every teardrop trailer plan ive bought/obtained so far was absolutely , especially the digital plans I have purchased . But all I really needed was something reliable and physical that I could actually work on. Well after more searching Im pretty sure I finally found what I was looking for on eBay http://r.ebay.com/fcKwnN. It's a legit 5ft x 10ft tall template on one side, and 4ft x 8ft teardrop template on the other side (so you have a choice of which one you want to make). It's made by a company named Juno Custom Teardrops (JCT). Anyone here used it to make their own teardrop trailer? Was it difficult to do?

I contacted them to ask more about the Template Package and to see if it was in fact what I thought it was, and they confirmed it is life-sized and said that every template comes with a set of instructions that gave you indepth steps, tools needed, the jigsaw/routing/cutting process, how to make sure your sides will perfectly match, even gives measurements for shelves and galley options, etc. I looked at their website and was very impressed with their work so I will for sure be getting their template. The whole thing is only like $50 bucks and it already seems a for sure better bang-for-my-buck than the "plans" i have purchased previously. It is just what I have been looking for. I searched the forum and did not see any mention of this so I had to share my find and ask if anyone else has tried the this JCT Template out and what kind of results it has generated for them.

Feedback would be GREATLY appreciated. - bwilly8917

PS. Apologies in advance for any error to the post format, its my first one

[Jack55]

Looks good. Nice profile. Be sure to give us a "full report" when you get it! Welcome to the forum!!!!

[razorback]

I bought my plans from Kuffle Creek. I chose the Comet version which is 4' X 10'. I expanded it to 5 wide. I did not do the fancy drawers or water tank. merely shelves. There are instructions to easily draw the profile on a 4 x 10 sheet of plywood. you simply drive a few nails at various points shown in the instructions. I used very small dowels to bend to the nail profile. These plans are the profile from a September 1947 article in Mechanics Illustrated.
The profile in the article is called "A teardrop for two" by a man from California. The plans are excellent.
"We give you five pages of material lists, down to the last screw, and suppliers to find it all." The materials list is detailed and allowed me to closely estimate the $ required to finish the TD
"You wanted details? We got your details. With 90 pages and over 150 full-color photos, drawings and illustrations", I started in late October of 2006 and finished in May of 2007. I did not discover this forum until April of 2007. The plans may seem expensive at 60.00 but for me, a guy with few building skills, they proved to be the confidence builder I needed to tackle my build. I bought a trailer from a manufacturer and started the odeyssey.
We have pulled our TD over 37000 miles from our home in Arkansas to Norther California and as far east as Pennsylvania.
Larry
http://www.kuffelcreek.com/

[Dale M.]

Excuse me please but there is no reason to blow up the font to such large size, it just makes it hard to read, and makes me want to just ignore any posting that are written in such large fonts... I hope you understand and are not offended by this..

Dale

[tony.latham]

I don't mean to start a debate (this might), but I wouldn't want a 5' tall teardrop cabin (some do). To me, it's a lot of wasted space (and a materials problem) and a great place for your heat to go.

Being in the same park you're at, (back-when) I bought a full sized paper profile from Frank at Vintage and then modified it. http://teardroptrailerparts.com/Teardro ... Plans.html

If I were ever to build teardrop #4, I'd probably join-up a 10' piece of 1/4" ply and work out the profile using bendable laths or something along that line. But... I do like my existing profile and I've still got the 10' long wooden pattern.

Did you check the "Design Resources" drop down on the top of the page?

Tony

p.s.... and I highly recommend Steve Fredrick's Teardrop Shop Manual. It'll solve a ton of problems: http://www.campingclassics.com/shopman05.html
Even on build #3 I found myself consulting it.

[bwilly8917]

Thanks for the warm welcome guys, I appreciate it. & no offense taken Dale, thanks for letting me know, ill be more careful from now on.

@razorback 37k miles?! Man, that sounds like the life! I agree the kufflekreek plans are better than average, he put a lot of work and time into that walk through, so major kudos to him. The pop mechanic plans are excellent also, you are right. I saw a lot of things I liked between the two of them, and I will definitely be using other elements of the plans you recommended in other areas of my build. But in all honesty if they give me that much freedom in the teardrop profile creation it wont matter how great those plans are, I will STILL inevitably mess up those sides beyond saving at least 2x before I get it semi-correct lol. Since making the trailer sides dictates every step after in the build, I have to make sure the process is as straight forward as possible to minimize my unintentional sabotage. When you said:
"The plans may seem expensive at 60.00 but for me, a guy with few building skills, they proved to be the confidence builder I needed to tackle my build" , you summed up my thought exactly!!
So, you can totally understand as to why I am going the JCT Template direction. Also because of all the investigation I've done relating to the side creation I had decided that I would be striving for more of a sexy, curvy "hot rod style" in my profile. Which is yet another reason why I really do love the JCT design, the way their nose and tail curves continue uninterrupted past the trailer frame just make it soo darn pretty IMO. And @Jack55 I will absolutely give you guys the full disclosure of the JCT Template when it gets here

Again, thanks for the warm welcome. What help I've received since joining has already made a huge impact. Being a member here is going to be great!!

[bwilly8917]

You are right Tony, if I had to recreate the side profiles multiple times over I would make a 1/4" hard template as well. Assuming of course I can count on my skills to reproduce multiple sides The Rondack plans sound like they could do the trick as well. I've got to find out how to get a sneak peek of the content before I hit that buy button. I just saw the digital mountain of design associated content on the home page... I don't know how I missed that yesterday. Now I HAVE GOT to check it all out. The amount of information on here is incredible, almost intimidating haha. Thanks for the heads up and the great info.

PS I never thought about the extra space and heat loss. Honestly I was planning on putting a 12V cigarette lighter at my feet for a 12v electric blanket, so hopefully w/ the roof insulation + electric blanket the heat in a 5ft tall cabin wont be too big of an issue

[tony.latham]

There's more than one way to skin a cat... some use sandwiched walls and some don't. I'm a sandwich guy. Sandwich guys really like templates.

You are right Tony, if I had to recreate the side profiles multiple times over I would make a 1/4" hard template as well.

When I build a teardrop, I cut out two exterior 1/4" ply pieces, two 1/4" ply interior pieces and two 3/4" pieces (that will be skeletonized). All using my template. I then put it away until I get my aluminum, and then I drag it out again and use it to mark out the aluminum sides.

I also use the template to mark out my dados for my bulkheads and my door cutouts (and it's marked with all the skeltonization for those pieces too). It's one more thing I have to make, but a damn handy tool to have. The teardrop plan is drawn on it (at least the side view) and it's great to look at and measure.



Tony

[mahai217]

Hi Tony -- I am a long way off from getting a trailer so I thought I might use my time to develop a great template. Do you have a picture of yours? What about any more wisdom to add to the building of a reusable template?

Thanks!

John

[aggie79]

There's more than one way to skin a cat... some use sandwiched walls and some don't. I'm a sandwich guy. Sandwich guys really like templates.

When I build a teardrop, I cut out two exterior 1/4" ply pieces, two 1/4" ply interior pieces and two 3/4" pieces (that will be skeletonized). All using my template. I then put it away until I get my aluminum, and then I drag it out again and use it to mark out the aluminum sides.

I also use the template to mark out my dados for my bulkheads and my door cutouts (and it's marked with all the skeltonization for those pieces too). It's one more thing I have to make, but a damn handy tool to have. The teardrop plan is drawn on it (at least the side view) and it's great to look at and measure.



Tony

Although I used slightly different materials, I'll give another "thumbs up" on insulated sandwich walls and the use of a template.