Teardrops n Tiny Travel Trailers

The time has come! I dragged the remnants of my "Honu" project that I gave up on out of the leaves and started work once again. This time, we decided to build a foamie because of the light weight, coolness, insulatedness, and just because. I took the frame down to the tag office along with my inspection paper from the cops, and now it's finally tagged and legal! I used the HF magnetic lights as a temporary measure to get all of that done.

So far I have made a floor out of tongue-n-groove 3/4" plywood on 1 x 3s, insulated it with 1" foam, and covered that in masonite coated with gobs and globs of the evil black goo. Made some wheel boxes out of farmer's market packing crates, glued them on, then tore them back off when the suspension bottomed out going down the driveway. Now I'm adding a few inches to make it all clear.

My plans? Got none. I'm not exactly using feng shui, but kinda; I'll let the trailer tell me what it wants to be, with adjustments along the way. All we want is a place to sleep and keep cool/warm/dry, cook some grub, and watch movies. A skylight might be cool to lay there and look at the stars when we go out west. Not worrying about 12 volts; if we go primitive, we'll make do. She has medical issues so primitive camping probably won't happen.

About the name? Well, I thought about Schlepp, The Decompression Chamber, and Fred. But this morning my wife asked me if I had the title, and I said all I had was a bill of sale. She started singing the song from the kid's movie "Pete's Dragon" and the name stuck. Draggin' Pete it is.

Pictures soon. I have to work the election polls all day tomorrow, then I have a court case Wednesday and Thursday (jury trial, trying to put away a murderer), then maybe some pics. Unless I get insomnia again, then I'll post up some.

Nice Big frame you have there Papi !! Great Start !!!

Welcome to the world of Foamies. Hope you have a blast. We are!!!

I was told in boot camp, "The maximum effective range of an excuse is zero" but I have a few any way. My grandmother died on her 96th birthday, my stepfather had heart attack #3, I worked 33 hours in a 48 hour period (yeah, overtime!), and I broke a tooth. All in a week! Still, I think I am making progress (instead of sleeping). Behold, a floor:


It's bolted down with a dozen and a half of 1/2" carriage bolts, through the C channel of the frame. And I also painted it red, because I was trying to use up 2 quarts of old paint I had:


And lastly, I filled the voids with 1" foam and covered that in masonite, held down with a bajillion wood screws and covered liberally with evil balck goo:

By the way, I flipped it over before I bolted it down. The Mrs. would not take kindly to sleeping on tar!

Cute name! Good luck with your build!

Ken glad you got started and sorry for your losses bud! Your on your way bud, give a hollar if ya need help sometime.

Cliff (& Sheri)

welcome! good job so far. you will have a blast with your foamie.

Using up old paint is such a Good idea!!! ... rather than letting it go bad.... you paid for it , might as well put it to work ... if you don’t like the color , you can always put a coat of another color over it , assured you have a good base coat ...
My humble little Foamie uses Leftover paint ... worked great and is not cluttering up my Studio with half filled cans ... "Use what you Got ! “

I agree. I was raised never to waste anything, so using old paint as a sealer coat made sense. Right now I'm making wheel wells out of old farmer's market packing crates. Free wood!

Got one of the wheel wells built and stained, then my stepdad had heart attack #3 and had his second triple bypass. So his bypasses have bypasses. His heart looks like a funnel cake now.

Sorry to hear about Sdad !!! Just keep building , take your mind off your troubles ...

yes sorry to hear about your stepdad. hope he is doing well.

Thanks for the kind words. Went to see him last night in ICU and he had a bevy of nurses around him; he kept them entertained with stories of how he had escaped death many times. His plane lost 2 engines over the Atlantic, he got thrown out of an Austin Healey and spent weeks in a coma, got shot, had 3 heart attacks, and dozens of car accidents. Tough old bird!

He had some setbacks today though, and will be in ICU a little longer. Gonna go see him and maybe I'll have a little foamie therapy tonight.

Not much to update; we've been pretty busy. But I still managed to carve some time out to make these wheel wells. The pics are not very good; the screws are brass, the stain is rosewood with a clear coat or three, and the wood was free. I knew if I hung onto that scrap wood long enough there'd be a use for it!