Tall Tails - an adventure into Teardropdom with an NT 5x8

[Scotter]

full strength GA sun today so i wheeled it out to finally test out the solar system and make sure its doing its photovoltaic thing before i seal it all up under insulation and wood.  you can see the 1.5" hard insulation getting run up the roof.  stuff's messy disaster to work with and to make matters worse, its highly static.  i'll be cleaning it up for years.


in order to get the rigid insulation to bend with the roofline, i'm cutting a series of table saw cuts through the length of the back that almost go through but not quite.  the resulting "kerf" the blade leaves allows a couple degrees of bend.  add 10 or 15 kerfs and you can easily get it to follow a round contour....yet another tip i learned from these forums.

roughly accurate panel position on the roof.  will mount it with a hinge system for a rough ability to tilt it to catch direct sun.


WOOOO IT WORKS!  after i realized i had my wires backwards, yellow went from blinky (fast charge) to solid which means its "floating" a constant incoming solar charge, just like it should on an already topped battery.


earlier work on the roof.  the black thing is the solar power wire "entry gland" for the external panel.  each insulation panel required a bunch of hacking, cutting, chipping, fitting, and then rinse repeat 5 times until just right.


the 2 tools of choice for cutting insulation panels and making wire channels.  my least favorite part of this by far.


then we got rain which kept me trapped in the garage, so i got the last of the insulation in the roof.  much easier on the more open radius at the top section of the roof but still not a job i want to do again soon.  

quick how-to guide
step 1: apply glue
step 2: tighten straps
step 3: throw your crap on the roof.  any crap will do.  



first roof panel getting adhered, second/last one went on yesterday.  screwed into the roof spars until the adhesive cures to help it contour. 


did a lot of this.  like, a lot.  probably 150 went in, and they all came back out.  took 2 battery swaps. far as i know, i didn't screw into anything i'm not supposed to...


laminate bit made short work of opening the roof vent back up again.  


varnished the sides and inside the cabin with "THE MIX" and need to do another coat on all of it.  

[Scotter]

roof's on and under 1 coat of poly so far.  90% there with the fine finishing.  dotted lines are where i'm reminding myself not to send screws into the wire loom, because i'd definitely do exactly that.


added a little brace on the floor behind where the water jugs will sit.  it'll keep them from skidding out of the cabinet and hitting the door but still allows enough room to tip them out and get water.  stereo's in and works properly now with the addition of a little antenna mounted above on the shelf.  the 3rd brake light/license plate lights are tucked into the pantry cabinets for now.


so the cabin, for various reasons, is 61" wide.  my birch panels are only 60.  i had to use my scrap birch to fab up some "filler strips" on the edges to not only fill out the width but also use them to smooth the transition from wall to roof.  the walls aren't perfect...they have some waves and dips.  the filler strips were built up in layers and then sanded down with a belt sander.  its a pretty blunt-force solution but i'm not a complicated man.

here's a before/after of building up the front radius with strips and then sanding to match the wall curve to the roof curve.  the holes are where i screwed the strip down to the curvature as the adhesive dried solid.


side view before grinding it down.  you can see the wall flattens out a bit instead of being a constant curve...that won't do.


sand, wipe down, wood putty, sand, cough, repeat ad nauseum.

here's a good shot of the strips built up to smooth the various dips and dives in the wall shape.  you'd never see it looking straight on but from this angle its clearly a great improvement. 


close detail of the final result.  


acquiring pricing for the 4x12 ft .032" aluminum skin from a local sign maker to get an order ready.  "Mill" Finish (plain brushed silver) on the roof/hatch and i'll leave you all guessing on the side wall color (here's a hint, its my avatar)

[Scotter]

TIP: IN HIND-SIGHT, I WAAAAY OVERBUILT THE HATCH. i'll show you what i did anyway, but just be aware you don't need NEARLY as many spars and support braces as i used. its still functional, but about 40 lbs. overweight. now i know....but learn from me.

used my hatch spar template to create about 12 identical spars.  thought i could speed it along by routing them out, but the router was skipping all over the place due to the various grain directions in the plywood so the first attempted spar went in the trash.  had to cut the rest out by jigsaw which took dang near forever and then fine routed after screwing each cutout spar to the template to shave off the slight overhang.

once they were all routed about equal, they got clamped and i did some freehand belt sanding to make them all exact matches.  again, took forever and afterwards i felt like i massaged my eyeballs with a rusty spoon....so much dust.



after sanding the ends exact i glued all of them together x2 for extra strength.  screwed together to make sure they stayed exactly lined up together + clamps on the ends.  then a test fit for giggles.


so far so good.  even wobbling all over a quick eyeball puts the "lip" above the edge just right so i have space to run weatherstrip.  somehow i cleared the counter by like 1/2".  as its stands i actually did my math right...trust me i'm as surprised as you are.

also shown are some self-etching primered up fenders.  got these in from etrailer.com and they should be perfect.  nice welds, good side protection.  once the temps come down again i'll get some 400grit on them and then a good coat of pewter colored paint.

[Scotter]

started off adding plenty of torsional support with pine 1x2's.  i found that during the initial framing, it shifted diagonally a bit so i used a ratchet strap to bring it back to square.  lots of Kreg pocket screws later....


time to go ham and add the final piece of 1/8" birch skin to an outer surface.  i was pretty nervous for 2 reasons, (1) being that the structure of the hatch would be easy to warp so if i glued the birch skin down wrong, i'd (2) be completely out of second chances because this was my last piece of birch.  the nearest lumber dealer that carries this is a 5 hour round trip away in Atlanta.

but it worked.  as usual, all clamps went to work, used every strap i could fit, and bolted the wood temporarily down every couple inches into an underlying spar to try to keep it steady while the construction adhesive dried.




another forum build gave me the idea to add the long wood support on each side to resist the frame wanting to "relax" or stretch out due to the force of the birch skin trying to straighten itself back out due to "springback.".  i'm very glad i added those as the adhesive cured.

that said none of my eyeballing was worth a darn if it didn't fit right so on to the moment of truth.  despite only weighing about 30 pounds it was a hot mess to position due to size/shape and just me lifting it.  from just a rough fit though, i could tell my seams all lined up and there was no diagonal warping or springback.  man what a relief.


a closer look at the edge. good and uniform.


so far so good.  as i mentioned, i'm out of birch skin but i still need to put a covering on the inside of the hatch.  for that, i'm just going to go to HD and buy some 1/8 Eucalyptus Hardboard.  its not as nice, or strong as the birch but thankfully for this part i don't care.  i'll run my wires for the overhead light, speakers, and 3rd brake light and then glue/screw it down to finish it out.  i think it'll add a little more rigidity too which is a nice bonus.

[Scotter]

essentially i was on a warpath to finish this in 2 more weeks.  we had a camping trip planned for Oct 10-13, and i wanted at least a week of shakedown time (telling this story now, we never got that time but things still worked out...there's never time when you need it).  its was an over-optimistic goal i needed to see this thing roll, if not for at least the sake of my sanity after all these years!

so after a 3 month wait, i got to pick up my aluminum sheetmetal.  i got everything from Finuf Sign Co Inc, in Grovetown GA. i tried everyone within hours of me and they were the only people that wanted to work with a small order like mine. Good people.

the color combo is going to be mill finish top/hatch and orange sides.  1 mill finish sheet was destroyed, in amazing fashion, in transit to the dealer and we had to wait for another which took an extra month.  we originally wanted blue, but then i bought a blue car, and we painted the house blue...starting to get a bit much.  can't do red because then we're UGA fans, wife didn't like yellow, green blended in with the woods too much, black would cook us, purple was out, etc etc.  orange felt fun, warm, and you can't beat the visibility on the road and when camping.  its loud and i'm cool with that.




unfortunately, even the new mill sheets had some blemishes.  the dealer was nice to give me half off of those.  mild creases, some scratches, and some tiny pock marks can be seen, but i just did my best to roll with it and try to be pragmatic about it.  if it was the painted side sheets, different story, but plain silver on the roof, you don't see it too bad.

the orange sheets were 4x10 and the mill finished silvers were 4x12.  the only way to get them home was via a huge double axle uhaul 6x12 utility trailer.  pretty beefy at about 1800 lbs dry and a good test on the soccer mom-mobile.  

so then i got it home, but what you guys can't gather from pictures is that our driveway is steeeep.  most people that visit us refuse to even drive up it.  i wasn't even going to attempt to drag the trailer up there for fear of dragging the tail all over the street on approach.  so i made a "sled" out of 2 tarps, and then proceeded to almost throw my back out getting it up the grass, and across the driveway.  



finally home.  between sourcing it, getting it delivered intact, and transporting it home, this was the most difficult material aspect of the build.  but here it was in my garage...oh crap, now what?


due to the only available sizes being limited to 48" wide, and my camper being 62" wide, i had to make multiple cuts to run sheet width wise to make it cover.  i was worried about how best to do this, and read a few people had success using a 24 tooth-per-inch jigsaw blade.  it seemed...i dunno, too easy maybe, or too easy to mess up, but i decided i had to try it since i already had a jigsaw and an old set of blades.  turns out it cut like butter.  not the straightest cuts you'll ever see, but once they're on and the edges are covered by the trim you'll never know!



took a step back and got a big shot of this circus


oh yeah, my doors came in too. These are from Vintage Technology on Amazon.  Made by Challenger, and the quality isn't great for the price IMO. some minor corner re-working on the camper and they fit right in though.  


currently already starting to dry-fit most of the trim and have made cuts to the roof panels for solar wiring, roof vent, and main wire loom conduit out to the tongue box.  getting there!

[Scotter]

all the trim and aluminum roof sheathing has been dry fitted.  i have to remove and re-drill all the places the aluminum is bolted down with a bigger hole, so that the aluminum can expand and contract under the screw head without ripping itself apart since metal and wood expand and contract differently depending on heat and humidity.  time consuming stuff.

first prep your work surface


hold your breath as you cut a massive sunroof into your otherwise nice sheet of aluminum.  also measure and drill for the solar panel wiring hole


next up, finishing the inside of the hatch.  i ran out of birch so i used this thin wall covering from Lowes (this was a BAD CHOICE. i should have left the structure open or covered in with a lighter, thinner material).  i hate working with the material (chipboard dust junk) but it bends nice.  threw a yard sale on it to weigh it down while the PL Premium adhesive cured to the curve of the structure.


added some left over cedar.  finished result.


one tricky bit was figuring out how to mount the speakers.  they're deeper than the hatch itself, so they had to be mounted proud of the surface.  i decided it would be fun to put them in some matching cigar boxes.  added some wooden bulkheads on the sides where the hatch props will fit, and be secured with 2" lynch pins for safety. the hatch props are 3/4" electrical conduit bolted to door stoppers. the rubber collars are used sway bar bushings from my old xterra that allow the props to rest on the surface and not scratch the wood.


ran into inference issues when i tested the hatch.  counter was still too far out and hitting the inside of the hatch when it closed.  because of the motion of the hinge, only being 1/8" off in the middle of the swing means 1/2" or more off at the bottom...so i had to grind it down and will re-stain.  in that shot that's also why the dome light got moved as i was trouble shooting what was interfering.  a lot of things bolted to the inside of the hatch share a very limited amount of empty space when its shut so i've been sweating my calculations.

needed to address my fenders next.  time for a test fit.  


love it.  this was a big motivator, just to see this on a day where i was feeling a lot of L's with the hatch issues.  it feels much more "right" and complete with the wheels covered.


started covering the outside of the hatch with aluminum.  this is a dry fit, no sealant involved, to make sure everything fits and lines up as well as running wires for the plate lights, 3rd brake light, and holes for the hatch door handles. its a hassle. i can understand the appeal of just spraying the trailer with rhino-liner and being done.


ran into some more hatch issues. the way i cut my hatch radius was too sloppy, and its not only too big a gap for my seal but also not consistent which you can kind of see in this shot.  currently stacking up some birch strips on that threshold to lessen the gap and then taking the belt sander too it to carefully smooth the bend and then hit it with some urethane.  i think they refer to this kind of screwup as "hand build charm"


and this is how she sits currently.  i've already removed the tongue box in prep for the final application of the roof sheathing this week.  today's goal is to cut out the fender overlap on the lower trim, shape/seal the hatch threshold, and then remove the hatch a final time tonight in prep for doing the final roof trim and also the final sheathing on the hatch.

[tony.latham]

The best photo in this photo-heavy thread is the one of your kid sticking his head out of the fan opening. I think he too is excited.

no kidding?

Maybe Victron has that problem solved. It should be in the manual.



Tony

[Scotter]

Maybe Victron has that problem solved. It should be in the manual.



Tony

if i understand the language right, i believe its mentioned and i just overlooked it....user error as they say. regardless the logic is sound. i'll add a disconnect for sure.

----------

onward!

devoted a full 18-20 hrs to construction the weekend coming down to the wire.  i think i still have metal filings in my teeth.



sharpie traced and jigsaw cut


i am running a bead of Loctite PL Marine sealant adhesive under the perimeter of every panel to assist in placement and water tightness, cinched down under trim from Frank Bear at teardroptrailerparts.com. it was a pretty intense hour of heaving sheetmetal, sweating, stressing alignments and i have no idea how it would be possible just doing it myself.  thanks wife!

on the roof, i'm using about a 3" overlap joint between the very topmost panel and the other panels running down the front and rear. this will assist in keeping water from penetrating. the overlap is sealed further with PL Marine.


as of last night we have the doors on as well as the roof vent, solar panel, and panel "gland" entry on the roof. the edge trim is easily bendable by hand, thankfully.


hatch got put together too!  i still need to drill and mount the latches but i can't do that until we can overhead press this 80 pound thing into its hinge.  its incredibly awkward and requires 2 people so i'm waiting on a buddy to assist since its more than my wife can help with.  the plate lights are built into the mounts, they're pretty trick and i think originally intended for motorcycles.

[Scotter]

almost there.  mounting fenders and then running a check on all the sealant caulk.  plan is to sleep in it tonight for the first time out in the driveway.

full air brake mode. you may be wondering about the weird vent in front of the door. that's a pop-out vent often used in utility trailers. i'm giving them a shot to provide ventilation in hard rainstorms where i would otherwise need to shut the screen windows. down here in the southeast we need all the airflow we can get.


conduit/junction box setup for the 2 runs of cables i had to split up.  i had planned on only one, but cable whips only come in 1" max size and it wasn't enough. i was able to fab this junction box up from electrical aisle parts found at home depot and secure it to the body with screws and construction adhesive. its surprisingly hidden and does not hang nearly as low as the picture suggests.


galley starting to get stocked up


about to carve up the foam mattress a bit to fit the headboard curve and then the interior's done.  had to get a little IKEA safety board to keep my son from rolling out and kneecapping us in our sleep if he lands on us!


last piece of the lights puzzle.  these LED "porch lights" throw some good light and i love how they match the silver/orange theme.

[Scotter]

finished at the stroke of midnight before we had to leave for our camping trip. cutting it close...but sometimes that's how life goes.  had a beer and stared at it a bit from the driveway on a perfectly still fall night.  worth it just for the excitement from the kiddo this morning.





2 excited campers


let's see if she holds together....

[Scotter]

SUCCESS. made it back in one piece.  pulled it about 350 total miles.  had a great time, amazing weather except for some rain packing up, and it was pretty much everything we hoped.  i did a lot of peeking in the rearview the whole time making sure i was really seeing what i was seeing.  after all these years i thought maybe i didn't have it in me to bring it all together.  this was a stupidly ambitious project for me, but in the end i wouldn't trade the late nights, anxiety, or frustrations.  i feel like i proved a lot of things to myself that i wasn't sure i was cut out to do.

when my wife and i decided on making the 2019 fall break a camping trip deadline we were too far behind the ball on reservations to actually find any openings at our favorite campgrounds.  October, as i found out, is the busiest month in the entire calendar year for that kind of thing so we should have known better and learned our lesson.  got to our 1st choice campground in the N. GA mountains at about 5pm and it was packed solid.  had to go straight to plan B, heck i figured maybe plan C.  thankfully i had a really good knowledge of the area from driving up there for fun back when i lived in ATL so we made a 45 min detour NW to the Cooper Creek WMA (wildlife management area) to try to find a spot in that campground.  had to drive some absolutely relentless curvy roads but the truck/trailer took it in stride.  pulled into the campground near dark and grabbed the last spot!  they had just rebuilt our site and laid down some really coarse gravel.  if we had tried to tent camp it like normal, we never could have made it work.  instead we could just park and start cooking dinner...perfect.

leaving Thursday afternoon, first time out of the driveway in like 3 years.  go figure we finished building a big orange camper right before Halloween.  i've never towed anything long distance before.  pretty nervous and it took a while to get used to the bumps and noises from the extra weight.


making our way to campground plan B.  couple bouncy miles on forest service roads to get to our spot.  i've never seen a utility trailer ride nice, so i expected it to bounce around a bit but nothing inside shifted or broke despite the unplanned shaker test.  i'm sure the car tires helped the ride too, they are set to about 28psi...a bit of squish but plenty of pressure to keep the rolling resistance down.


next morning, slept great.  4 souls fit inside pretty handily - me+wife on the queen size foam mattress, boy up on the loft and pupper slept next to my leg (he wanted his nose next to the screen for sniffs and such).  i really should have grabbed some pics but just forgot.  sounds like a disaster, i know,  but it was fine for us and we slept hard.  with the fan on low speed it still moved a lot of air and the first night i had a pretty cold arm from the 50 degree air coming through the screen right on it.  otherwise the insulation did its job and we stayed warm with nothing more than a comforter.  looking to install a resistor later on the fan motor to slow it down a bit.


solar panel worked great, and it actually turned out to be another unplanned test.  unbeknownst to me, this campground had NO electrical hookup which is rare for the area and i didn't see anything mentioned about it beforehand.  we ran power 100% off the sun and thankfully everything worked great.  we were able to charge about 1 to 1.5 amps throughout the day with heavy tree cover.  usually starting the morning at 12 to 12.5A and ending the day at 13.5.  our LED lights were super efficient and the fan barely made a dent.  we typically ran the stereo and reading lights inside too.  without the panel i'm not sure we would have made it 3 nights, might have been a seriously close call.  i'm not sure how much power my wife's APAP machine will pull, we didn't try it yet due to her allergies on the trip making breathing with a mask a no-go.

play "find the pumpkin"


worst campsite security ever. he'd roll over for any belly rub offers.


stuff everywhere, signs of a good time though.  steak slab a-cookin.


galley setup kinda in action.  propane Coleman for breakfast/sides.  stows in the lower left cabinet.  the top of the Yeti actually makes a great additional work surface.  plan is to eventually add side tables to the exterior of the camper for prep and wash stations.  water jugs travel next to the cabinet down low but we keep them on the picnic tables for actual use.  i'm glad i added a drain in that compartment - one jug had a leaky spigot that soaked the floor but most drained out.



heading back home in the rain.  no major leaks.  i need to address some sealant in a few places on the hatch but thankfully those were a couple drops being a nuisance and not full on seal failure.  you can see the license plate lights don't work with the lights on.  probably some stupid wire i crossed, i'll fix it over the winter.


what its all about.  gear drying out, sun shining, sound of the river in the background and a poppin fire to cook dinner on.


2020 upgrades:

• roof rack
• ARB awning on at least one side (that would have helped SO MUCH in the rain)
• fab/install side tables next to galley
• slow down the roof fan
• pretty-up the sides of the hatch frame
• fix the plate lights
• do some final detail work on the galley counter 

that's about it.  it'll get a wash and then backed into the corner of the garage for a while so i can park all my cars in there again and enjoy not breathing sawdust for a while.

[tony.latham]

after all these years i thought maybe i didn't have it in me to bring it all together. this was a stupidly ambitious project for me...

Sometimes I've felt that building a house would be cheaper.

Well done. Looks like a fantastic trip. Your kid will have this stuck in his brain for a long time. And he'll be looking for help building his in twenty years.

Tony

[Scotter]

EPILOGUE

i owe quite a bit to this forum. at the start of this project in 2015, i spent an entire year doing nothing but reading through the Build Journal section, hunting through YouTube, and finding every inspirational image I could of interesting builds on Instagram and just searching google. the advice of many of the veteran builders here was critical in understanding a number of things including hatch design and support systems, trim application, galley layout, wall construction, recommended adhesives and wiring schematics. i cannot stress enough, i had almost NO experience in any of these things when i started and the education you all provide here is priceless.

big thanks also to Ryan at teardropbuilder.com and his free plans available for his Wyoming Woody camper design. that is essentially what this trailer is based off of, with modifications of course. without them i would have had a very difficult, if not impossible time visualizing what my steps and calculations needed to be.

the Camp and Camera channel on Youtube is excellent. highly recommended for getting a good visual on adding the aluminum cladding.

i found them late, but there are tremendous resources on Facebook such as the DIY Teardrop Campers Community, DIY TearDrop Camper, Teardrop Trailer Design & Build, Teardrop Camper Adventures, and many others.

I will follow up on this thread with a full PDF document outlining my expenses. total cost was ~$8,000. I could have saved about $1500 by removing the solar panel setup, the inverter, aftermarket wheels/tires, doing an epoxy or rhinoliner instead of aluminum, and fabbing my own doors instead of buying pre-made. That said i'm very content with the choices we made.

lastly, if its helpful, i'll do a full video walkaround and post the Youtube link here. that may assist in showing some assembly details that got lost in translation/forgotten about, provide inspiration, and also allow me to show everyone the features that have been successful and the ones that have not.

[Scotter]

Sometimes I've felt that building a house would be cheaper.

Well done. Looks like a fantastic trip. Your kid will have this stuck in his brain for a long time. And he'll be looking for help building his in twenty years.

Tony

LOL, ain't that the truth. now that it's held together, i told my wife i'm ready to start a cabin next...half kidding.

thank you though. i truly hope he does. we have a number of trips planned this year and the years to come and he's already excited. he won't always want to hang out with us as he gets older, so i'm doing all i can to take him on these trips while he's still a little guy and the world is new and amazing with mom and dad. we're grateful to have the opportunity with this quirky little camper, its more fun than i ever thought.

[Jan-Willem]

i love the color!

looks like mine: