Teardrops n Tiny Travel Trailers

Any body have any pics or ideas ? Thinking of something I can sit in my pickup bed and slide off with folding legs. I want to use galley area for more storage rather than cooking. Roughly 48 wide by 24 deep and 18 high.

the boyscouts have a great design that is redily available. called a patrol box.
<http://www.troop168.net/forms/patrolboxa.htm> or <http://www.netwoods.com/document2/patrol%20bx.htm> they are usually made of one sheet of plywood and have handles built in. if they are big enough to cook for 8 hungry boys they should be large enough for the typical family.

There are lots of plans out there that I've seen.

Here's a pretty neat prebuilt one. Holds the food, stove and everything, and folds into a box.

Should give some ideas...

http://www.blueskykitchen.com/Work_Top_Box.html

Ben

...there are several on this page that might give you some ideas
madjack

I thought of building one for my canoe and did a search and found several boy scout sites that made them. I never did make one though.

Here is a Aussie site, some nice idea's for chuck boxs and slide out kitchens.

http://www.drifta.com.au/product.htm

poolking

http://tnttt.com/album_ ... ic_id=2154[/img]
Iv'e used one just like this one for many years,a little small for you though...It's made of metal...REI sells a great metal kitchen box for around 100.00 bucks..Hope the pic comes through,If not...WOOPS!

I put one together just this spring. It's pictured on my photo site (link in signature - then click on the 'kitchen box' folder). Mine's about 36" wide by 18" tall by 18" deep.

That height works well since the fold down front & back have just enough room for the stove and wash basins. I COULD have made it a little narrower front-to-back. As it is, I have to carry it in the back of the van since it's too fat to fit through the trailer door.

For a stand, I'm using a Coleman collapsable stand I got at the local hardware store for about $25.

If I were to do it all over again (and I might), I'd make it smaller. Narrow it out so I can fit it through the door of my trailer. Not as wide (It'll store less stuff - but I can manage that). I'd leave the height alone for the reasons mentioned above.

Main reason to make it smaller is to make it lighter. Between the box itself and everything I've loaded into it - it's freakin' heavy! Considering I'm usually camping with me and one of the kids (they aren't that great at lifting up their ends) - something lighter would be better.

One of my favorite elements of the box is being able to hang the drying rack off the side. I just used a pair of fairly heavy duty picture hangers on the side of the box for that. The wire of the rack then fits onto the hooks. Hangs at an angle - but that's no big deal.

I don't have any shots of it actually -in-use-, but I tended to do most of the prep work on the small space next to the stove, and the top of the box became the place to store assorted junk (it's a flat surface - what'd ya expect?).

Mike

I've got one that I built nearly 20 years ago that came from plans out of a Mechanix Illustrated out of the 50's. I think I got them from the old encyclopedia collection that they put together....since I'm robbing parts to put into my tear....I'll dig it out and shoot a couple of pictures of it. It really got a lot of comments when I used it....It isn't as wide as you would like though....they get heavy pretty quickly....Doug Hodder

Thanks folks. Now I have a lot of ideas and references to work with.

O I C now ... hmm. Both my sons built 'chuck boxes' for group camping using ideas from Scouting. Started with a $19.95 kitchen cabinet (no interior shelves) from HD/Lowes, then mounted hinges to the corners and added 2x2 legs, sanded smooth and finished.

If you make your own plywood box (it's good practice for tear construction) and buy hinges and framing materials you can probably duplicate the whole thing for $15 or less.

You want one sheet of plywood (we used quarter inch sanded one side), four pieces of 2x2 8' long, and 2 pieces of 1 x 3 8' long, two sturdy hinges, some sandpaper, some wood screws and your choice of finish.

I like making mitred corners on the framing; I use the 1x3 for 'face frames' and have found that I can handily operate a 'lift-lid' with finger grooves.

I asked something simaler to you and a guy showed a swing out BBQ from texas.

http://www.coolbbq.com/aw.html

and from downunder is

http://www.drifta.com.au/product.html

Food for thought

Ben, thanks for the link on the camp box. I ordered a set of plans so I can make my own.

Heres a link to a scan I made from an old Popular Mechanix Mag.

http://www.teardrops.us/userfiles/len19 ... %20big.JPG

And heres 2 from a Box I made.

http://www.teardrops.us/userfiles/len19 ... Closed.JPG

http://www.teardrops.us/userfiles/len19 ... 20Open.JPG
Happy Trails

Len

I haven't built a teardrop yet, but I've built a kitchen box. Here are two old pix:



and



It was based on a design I got off the web, but no longer can access, well, through archive.org it's http://web.archive.org/web/20011221005956/http://www2.angen.net/~dibble/T21_Kitchen_Box.html
Tho it didn't preserve any associated pictures.

The one modification I've made to the box, since these pictures, is to put two handles on each side. The now 1.5"dia x 4' dowel legs slide through. This gets rid of the need of wing nuts and other loose hardware. I put another 4 holes on the top of the box so that it can be carried stretcher style.

rob