Teardrops n Tiny Travel Trailers

Either profile should work as long as you take your time.....

I think whichever is appealing to YOUR eye is the one to go with.....

Oh yeah... Welcome to the forum and good luck on your build!





Mark and Pat

I think what you are talking about with the fold up counters is almost what we did as well. To the point of ready to cut them out, then when we saw Doug's "hitch receiver" tables, that sold us on that method since we already had a fold up table we could use until we got around to building them. Especially since when we actually looked at the dimensions, to go out and get past the curve of the back, the supporting leg would have to be really long and would have covered up the drawers we wanted. That made the galley much more attractive to us with closed doors on the two cabinets.

As for the ice chest, we carry it in the back of our RAV4. We actually take two smaller ones, one for drinks, one for food with block ice and more insulation. See sdtripper2's long discussion on how to keep ice colder for that whole concept. With the TD now what we throw in the back of the RAV is camp chairs, the fold up table (which will go when we have the hitch receiver tables, as they will store flat on the bed when traveling), some times the easy up, if there might be rain or lack of shade, dutch ovens, charcoal, firewood and my portable fold up shower and stove top hot water heater thinggy I rigged up from a metal weed sprayer. One of the tables we are building will actually be bottom-of-the-trailer height, and will come out the side, and the ice chest will go there while camping. That will bring it up to a nice off the ground height and be close to kitchen. If you are towing with a small car with limited trunk/back seat, then ice chest in the TD may be more important to you .

I wanted to put as much "ready to go" storage in the TD. We have so much storage space that we keep all our toiletries, untencils, pots, pans, linen, propane, some staples, misc supplies, air pump, fire extingusher, everthing but ice chest and perishable food stored in the TD all the times. All we load is clothes, what I said before in the RAV, ice chest and perishable dry food. We can be loaded and gone in 30 minutes.

Many people do keep at least a small ice chest or even a refrig in the galley, and love their set up, we just decided to go the other way. If you haven't checked out the various "do you cook in your galley" or "how important is a kitchen" threads, there are substantial arguments for any which way. Just have to think about how you cook and clean up. We didn't go with a sink, as we are used to the two dishpan wash and rinse method from our tent days, and a tiny sink just didn't seem worth it. JHB, who was also at the glyphs last year, has just about the same shape and size as ours, but has a pull out stove and oven, a Engel refrig/freezer, a small size sink with hot water heater, wouldn't change a thing with his layout. For them, the sink was a must and they love it. I'd love to have that refrig, but 600-700 $$ is out of our budget so ice chest in the Rav works for us. Doug Hodder's galleys are all set up the same, and he has a smallish vintage coleman pull out ice chest in each which looks great and meets his needs (or the folks he has now sold them to). He also has a pull out box where he puts his vintage coleman pump up stoves too.

Highly recommend going camping in your trailer before you finish designing and building your galley (yeah, I know you haven't even started yet). But get it campable then see how it works. We made a number of changes (including not puting in the ice chest) and more shelves in the cabinets, and my water drawer, after doing just that.) Doug would disagree, as nothing leaves his shop that isn't turnkey complete, but then again he has built either 4 or 5! For us first timers, there is nothing like trying it out.

If you want to stick with your cal king length (we are not over tall folks, but not short either, so I don't blame you), then you will sacrifice some cabinet space in your galley, although you can gain it back in the inside cabinets if you want.

As for hatch stability, we used the air shocks, and are very happy with them. Didn't have any problems with installation, only had to redo once! and very stable when up. Now, before we put them in and were using a stick, the hatch landed on my head first trip out cooking breakfast. Neck pain for 4 months. Made the decision then and there to go with the shocks!

I don't usually post like this, but you caught with an extra day off and avoiding laundry. I am actually working on making screens for the TD today. Hope this helps a little! See you next week.

Debbie

Gosh Debbie thank's for all the info! The fold up side cook table idea is really appealing to me so I'll try and come up with a few other ways to do it. I was planning on using the tow car just like you describe. When I looked at all the galley pictures there sure were a lot with coolers stowed in the galley. That's why I thought it was more 'traditional' TD camping...not any more. Those bad boys are destined for the minivan.

Hey Mark, your TD is very close to the same design, I like it a lot!!!

Here's version 4 with the galley revision.



Thanks to all who are helping to make our TD camping fun.

Cheers, Dave

A little late to the conversation, but I'm partial to your first design.

With a little coaxing, I installed 1/8" baltic birch to a 6" radius "roll pan" at the bottom front of my teardrop. The picture below shows my hatch. The lower radius is 10", and I didn't have any trouble bending the ply to install it.



The biggest issue I had with 1/8" baltic birch is fastening it until the adhesive set. I tried narrow crown staples but they "blew through" the plywood no matter how low I set my compressor or nail gun. I ended up using screws fastened through a temporary plywood backer plate.

Tom

Hi Tom, that radius looks about as tight as mine! The more I try to make the second design work, the more I feel the first is closer to the mark. The new galley fits right in the first curve too.

Thanks for the pictures! Dave

sid and aggie, those are both beautiful rigs! Love those cabin cars!

Hi again, here's the first design with the new galley ideas, struts and a spare instead of a tongue box. Thoughts?



Dave

Samn you're good with the design mock up stuff. ! If you want to keep the tongue box, You can always install the spare under the back end of the trailer, like we did (see our album)

You could discuss and think about this for months. But, I think you know what you want. So, it's time to make some sawdust.

CD

Tongue box will be there at some point, maybe after a few campin' trips.

No sawdust yet, we have to visit a few real life TD's first so we can learn from friends who have made their mobile dreamers.

At least the first step has been taken; the profile is possible.

Thanks again everyone, Dave

May I suggest a slight change to you inner cabinets. What I did was hinged the upper cabinets upward and the lower cabinet down and then it pulls out for a table.

DMcCam wrote:Is this sort of like the up-sweep that you mentioned Ageless? The curve still looks pretty good to me even though it's not as extreme...yes?



Dave

Dave, I really like the look of the second design.
Speaking from experience, make sure there is clearance between the inside edges galley lid and the shelves (counter top as well as upper counter) in the galley. I cut mine really close but I wish I had left 1/2" more. My lid shuts, but it's close.
It looks like you have room to make small adjustments.

Great looking design.

I like the third design, I would keep the tongue box though. You can mount the spare underneath the trailer or build a drop floor storage box that you could put the spare in. I like the drop floor idea because it gives you even more storage.

My trailer plan is different than yours, but here is a picture showing the spare tire storage box.


Dan

dhazard, I like your drop down idea. We left space in the middle for our flat screen tv, but I can see now if we had made a drop down like yours, wide enough for the depth of the TV and made the TV "hinge up",we could have added another cabinet, and who doesn't want more storage space in your TD? So many great ideas out there!!.



Dave, here is how we store our spare, but it was added this fall. For our first few trips we just threw it in the back of the RAV

We placed our spare tire on the outside behind the axle (passenger side), then covered it with an inexpensive vinyl cover to protect it from UV damage. This placed it behind the axle and lowered our tongue weight. We were then able to put a rack on the tongue for our battery, chock blocks, 5 lb propane tank, etc. Easy to get to the spare when you need to top it off and easier to remember to check it now and then.

This is the best pic that we have of it.

By the way, this is how we camped out of the TD for the first summer before we had the chance to build the galley cabinets. The tables all fold up against the plywood that happens to be the foot of the bed.

AJ