Lovely site you have here! I have spent only a few hours here but I can see I will be investing a lot more time in the future.
My name is Vern and I first thought of building a teardrop when I encountered a homemade one at a campground on the Blue Ridge Parkway during a motorcycle-camping trip last summer. It was just a passing fancy, though -- I like ogling homemade stuff. Months go by, I'm recovering from a motorcycle crash, and I see a few teardrops for sale on Ebay while looking for a cargo trailer for my Civil War reenacting hobby. I started googling teardrops, lights and bells and whistles went off, and I wound up here.
My tentative plan is to build a teardrop that can double as a light cargo trailer I will pull with a 6-cylinder Chevy S-10. I will park it outside, perhaps under a shed roof, and store my Civil War cooking gear and heavy canvas tents in it. I am the "mess supervisor" for our little club and have several wooden chests full of cast- and wrought-iron implements that I take on weekend outings, plus tents and food and usually a couple of coolers. I want to store this stuff, minus the food, in a trailer so my brother and I can just throw our uniforms, sleeping gear and firearms in the back of the truck (camper top, natch), hit the grocery on the way out of town and be on the road. When I go on a modern-camping trip the 19-century stuff can simply be offloaded into the garage while I'm gone.
My long-term teardrop fantasy is to build a teardrop that can transport a sport-touring bike like my Kawasaki Concours or a big Harley like a Road King, and still function as a sleeper after I roll the bike out. This is for post-retirement, when I'm too old for the infantry and too creaky to spend all day on a bike. I'm only 51 now, so that gives me at least 16 years of fantasy/planning. I may build a smaller cargo/sleeper in the meantime to pull behind a bike.
My background is as a professional cook, but I spent a couple years as an interior-trim carpenter and grew up immersed in constant home-improvement projects (Dad was an engineer and incurable do-it-yourselfer). I have a pretty well-equipped woodshop out back and I can cut and drill metal, but don't have a welder. I taught myself wiring and soldering while wiring boats, boat trailers and motorcycles. I used to build house-sized skateboard ramps back in the 80s, so bending ply and working with luan is no problem. I also have a fishing/shrimping buddy who builds Stickley-style furniture and cabinets, so I'll tap him for help and try to inspire him to build his own (he doesn't care about "living history" and his wife doesn't want him on a bike, but they both camp!). As an Eagle Scout, I've always enjoyed camping, and I see teardrops as a nice middle ground between the bulk of reenactment camping and the minimalism of motorcycle camping.
My main research interest at the moment is composites. I searched on the site and found some mentions, but may start a thread on this general topic if I don't find one. I am comfortable with wood, but the one I saw on the Parkway was skinned with some sort of aircraft composite and I like that idea since I'll be storing mine outside. Either that or I may go with aluminum, at least for the "roof."
I want to explore the site some more, then I'll try to post some photos of the Parkway composite teardrop, and maybe one of me in case anyone needs to scare the rats out of their camper!
Happy (tiny) Trails!
Vern
