Teardrop build

rockdog57

rockdog57

Ghetto fab garage owner
Joined
May 21, 2020
Messages
651
Loc
Lindon, Utah
I thought I’d post the teardrop I’m building for my youngest son. I always wanted to build one and he has a small truck that’s not gonna pull a full size trailer. He likes to camp with his buddies and has had to sleep in his car or on the ground. I figured I’d built his older brother a crawler so I wanted to build him something. It isn’t finished yet, so I will post pics up to this point.
I wanted to fit this on a harbor freight 4x8 trailer. So the plan was to build a 4x8 teardrop. As I bought wood to build it I looked at a sheet of plywood and figured there’s no way two people are sleeping in that space comfortably. So I decided to make it 5x8 instead. This made it so the tires on the trailer couldn’t be on the sides of the trailer. So I modified the trailer so the tires are under the floor. I welded the thing together instead of bolting it. Then I welded extensions to the frame to stretch it to the five foot width. Okay, enough backstory. On with the pics.😜
 

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The side wall was built out of 1/8”
Inside and outside with 3/4” cdx skeletonizd with 3/4 insulation in the cutouts.
 
The walls were glued and screwed to the floor. The floor is also three ply’s. Bottom needed to be waterproof so I did it out of 1/2” concrete form ply. Next I ran 1/4 pine around the perimeter and threw the center and where the divider wall would rest between the sleeping quarters and kitchen. Then 5mm underlayment ply on top. I pre finished as much as possible before assembly.
 

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The dividing wall is 1/4” Baltic birch as is the inner 1/8”. They are coated in polyurethane. The stuff is hell to do in an inclosed garage.🤮
 

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I built all of the shelves in and finished them before closing it in.
 

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Next I made the inside ceiling out of two 1/8” Baltic birch sheets glued together. The ceiling rests on a ledge created by making the inner two ply’s 2 1/4”’s shorter than the outer 1/8” ply. That way the ceiling can be fully finished before assembly. Here are pics of us installing the ceiling.
 

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After the ceiling I move on to the rear hatch. This was made out of plywood glued together to following the outline of the rear of the trailer profile and 1 by 2 poplar spars screwed to them with pocket holes.
 

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Then we built the rear hatch all the way out. 2”’s of insulation is between the spars with 1/8” outer skin and 1/8” birch on the inside. The inside was a bitch to get to fit the curve. We used three of us and clamps to wrestle it into place and loads of narrow crown staples.
 

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Next came the roof spars. These were also 1 by 2 poplar.
 

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Door cutouts with the hinges attached. I buried t nuts inside the walls and doors so there wouldn’t be any exposed fasteners.
 

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Inside with the tv installed other pic is facing forward with the shelf for storage.
 

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Yea I know the clearance lights are backwards. It’s a teardrop so I put em on to resemble tears. The older brother wasn’t having it. But I told him I was building it so tuff ****. They’re staying that way.😎
 
I built this on a table I built level like you build a buggy on a level table so everything is square and plumb. That’s as far as I’ve got it so far. I’m gonna work on the slide out drawers for the fridge and stove tomorrow.
 
Frodo said:
How long is the interior?
Click to expand...
75” It’s pretty much the size of an rv queen mattress. Or a short queen is what they call em. Things are pretty tight when trying to get enough room for the iceco fridge. I had to cut part of the counter out in order to open the lid on the fridge. I’ll post pics when I get the kitchen area back together. I put the last coat of poly on a few minutes ago. It needs to dry overnight.
 
Not sure anyone here gives a ****, but I figured I might as well post a couple of pics finished.
 

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