Hello from a South African living in South Wales, UK.

[saguy]

Been camping since I can remember, however I have found that the UK has limited weather to enjoy your time under canvas!
My wife and I were actually looking at caravans for sale on Ebay, and saw someone selling plans for Teardrops. While websurfing Teardrops, we became more and more interested...and then came upon T&TTT!!

We took a shine to the Benroy and the farthest we've gone is planning, mainly finding alternatives to compensate for things the US find so easy to get hold of. One of the biggest hold-ups until recently is to find a trailer. I've managed to source a caravan breakers near us and can pick up a shell with full base for £50 (is that $100?). Only problem is the base will need some trimming, or I can rope my brother-in-law in to weld a base for us and we can remove working parts from the caravan base to install on our base.

Are there any brits who can advise an alternative to CPES to treat the birch plywood? Is there an epoxy we can get in the UK that will do the job?

Many thanks,
Craig

[Bristol Delica]

Hi Saguy

I'm building just over the water from you, just south of Bristol. We are nearing completion and also used a an old caravan as a starting point. We are building our own design inspired by the Weekender. Rather than extending or modifying the chassis we built up from the existing floor panel once we had cut it down to size and added a perimeter frame on which to construct the walls. It required no extra metalwork.

Have fun with your new obsession!

By the way, if you click on the link to TearJerkers at the top of the page you will find a section for UK builders.

Cheers

IanJ

[saguy]

Hey IanJ, thanks for the advise about the Tearjerkers section...just waiting on the administrator to allow access now.

What size caravan base was your start off point? I have been told that I can expect to pick one up measuring 6ft 6inches X 10ft/12ft. Is that about average? I dont think I want it longer than 10ft.
I will probably only start building early next year, but preparing/researching/dreaming about the finished product in the interim. I was reading into towing regulations and it's enough to boggle the mind!

Cheers,Craig

[BillandMarijo]

Welcome Craig. Hope you will enjoy this forum. Lots od helpful hints and good people.
Good luck,
Bill and Marijo

[Bristol Delica]

Craig

We bought a 1980 Trophy two berth and cut it down to the width between the inside edge of the existing wheel wells, which makes 145cm wide (plus the width of the wheels). We also cut of the back part of the floor panel to about 1 metre from the axle and took of about 40cm from the front. In old money the trailer body is just under 9ft long and 4ft 10 in wide. Adding the length of the draw bar makes it about 13ft 8in in overall length.

Some pictures to show what I mean:

This shows the original length:



This shows how much we cut off the rear:



Front and rear views of our starting point for the build:





Hope that clarifies things.

Cheers

IanJ

[jackdaw]

Hi Saguy.
Welcome to the forum.

I built my teardrop on a caravan chassis. I shortened it by bolting the tongue closer to the axle and trimming the rear end.
Our trailer is 5'6" wide, so quite big for a tear. The width has given us a good size galley, and plenty of room in the cabin for the dog to join us.
We bought a donor caravan that we stripped of everything useful.

I've had so much fun with my first build, I've decided I'm going to build a second one next year .

Hope to see you around

Dave

[Miriam C.]

to the playground Saguy. I built mine on a pop-up frame and it is 76 inches wide and 10 feet long. Bigggg. I put the bed across and have lots of room for a "porta potty". It rains here a lot too. Good luck with your build. We have lots of Europeans here so ask and someone is sure to answer.

[bgordon]

Hi Craig,

Welcome to the forum from sunny South Africa!


Hope you enjoy it here!