FULL TOUR | How To Build an AFFORDABLE CAMPER in 4 Weeks!

bring them with this trailer uh can you just talk about how you even came up with the concept of it yeah for sure i was going to utah state i just graduated i was in their outdoor product design and development program it's pretty much a program where they pretty much make students ready for this type of an industry and i've always been into off-roading and stuff and the overland type of stuff and i really wanted a trailer that i could use as kind of a base camp because i've got the rooftop 10 on the truck but when you're just staying somewhere for a while it's really annoying to set it up every day and then i've got a wife and a small kid and it's just kind of nice to to have a place to put them where they can chill and it's a relaxing place and so i wanted to build one of these for a while and for my senior project i decided you know it'd be a great opportunity to to get one built so i had the chance of meeting you and talking to you the other day and you told me this came in your whole build at around two thousand yep yep two thousand dollars two thousand dollars so how did you keep the cost down on this i think this is something people would love to know so this may be the bit of information that might convince you to build your own trailer and that is brigham built this trailer in less than four weeks and he did all this while going to school full time with a job and while raising a family and and that two thousand dollars is with crappy wood prices right now and so the biggest thing i had to do is a lot of this stuff you're really going to have to hit up like your local classifieds your facebook marketplace and just be looking and be prepared to kind of wait and find the stuff that you need so the trailer i actually i was planning on building this a couple years ago so i found the trailer frame itself for 50 bucks on a local classifieds it was just in an old farmer's backyard i had to clean it up a ton do a bunch of stuff to it i actually ended up welding in a lot of support cross braces inside there just so the the floor of the trailer is nice and stout and then i added on the entire front box that we'll look at in a second as well as like a telescoping tongue on the trailer and just a couple things like that so that saved me a ton of money because trailer frames are super expensive and even if you're going to build it yourself metal is expensive also wheels and tires those i found on local classifieds as well the wheels mounted on the tires 50 bucks for four of them so i've got two spares that makes sense so yeah give us a walk through this thing yeah hey guys my name is drew i'm the guy behind the camera in this video but typically my family is out taking small camper trailers throughout the state of alaska helping you to you know just some tips and tricks to have a more simple and gratifying camping experience please subscribe if you want to see more of these videos but let's get right back into brigham's build i just wanted to say hi to all the new folks out there so a couple other things i did to really save money was windows i went around to a bunch of local rv places rv repair repair shops and was just asking if they had used windows and so i was able to find get both of my windows and this is an emergency window so this one all this one will pop up like this to give me air flow and then my other window is a 50 50 split so it just slides halfway open and i think i paid like 80 bucks for both where they're normally about like 300 bucks each so that's another big money saver the door doors are like 300 bucks and so being able to build my own that was just a big cost saver so and it just kind of depends like if you're comfortable doing it then great and if not you know buying a pre-made door is a good option too and then i would say kind of one of the last big money saving things i did is i actually work for a local garage door company and the whole entire trailer is insulated with recycled garage door insulation so it's literally like that it's the perfect width for a 2x2 because this the whole frame construction is built out of two by twos and it fits literally perfect in between them so makes it nice and solid inside those and what kind of surprised me too so you build this with sticks but yet the weight came out surprisingly low so how much did this trailer weigh in at yeah so it's only about 800 pounds i was honestly kind of surprised because i thought it was going to be a lot heavier than that i mean one day we were goofing around and my brother went up to this corner right here and just i mean he just lifted the trailer up and i was like holy crap it's got to be lighter than i thought um and so weighing it and stuff yeah it's about 800 pounds you know without adding everything else into it and that's impressive for an overland build like this like this is a pretty beefy setup yeah and what's it coming in it's a 5x8 or what is the yeah so it's the trailer itself is about five feet wide the bed's slightly smaller just because of wall thickness and then the length of the bed itself it's a seven foot long bed the box itself is eight foot to the rear and then if you add this section you're just under you know 10 feet total length for the box so that's great so not super long and i'm seeing you got a fridge in here huh yeah so i guess this was this was another one of those um money saving things so um drawer sliders are like heavy duty drawer sliders are kind of expensive as well um and so because i work for a garage door company i just use some garage door track and rollers and like that stuff is made to hold thousands of pounds so it's plenty strong enough and that's something you can actually i mean you could find that from like a local garage door company if you wanted honestly that'd be something they'd have on in stock so but yeah this this front box i really wanted the integrated box um up front just because it gives me the storage for the cooler the other side is all storage and it's where i have my battery set up and so it just kind of gives me a place to tuck stuff you know that's pretty big so there's a whole other side when we go around there holding stuff oh that's great yep so yeah so that's this side um and then we kind of come back to the kitchen area this is one of my favorite spots um again like the reason i built this trailer is i love going off-roading and if you have a huge trailer you can't really take it the places you want to go and the main reason you go out into the outdoors is to spend time outside and so i kind of wanted this incorporated you know outdoor kitchen area but also trying to do it on a budget and save money and i made it to where everything i do can be upgraded in the future so for right now i've got a really basic water system you've kind of got this this little spot right here where you can have all the counter space you want and if you pull that down you've got some storage down in that area um and i've got a collapsible sink that fits down in there and your sink can go right there i've got a big seven gallon water tank that's got a spout on it right here and you can just run your water off that well that's i've never seen anybody do this that's a really neat design because typically you're seeing the water down here coming into something lower yep but this makes sense from like uh like it's yeah it it's comfortable yeah and then this design i don't know if you guys can see this on the video it's like uh he's how would you explain this this has some angle to it yeah so when i was designing the rear kitchen um i really tried to put a lot of thought into it because the biggest thing is i i wanted to be able to fit full size plates and pans if i wanted and to just take and build a shelf straight across it really kind of eliminates a lot of this usable space yeah um and so i kind of figured this out just try kind of doing it on my own just working through it and i figured you know if i put angles in on each side it gives me a lot of space in here to be able to put large round objects um you know and then obviously i don't need as much right here yep and so this kind of just opens up this entire area i think it kind of gives it a cool look i think it does too it's like something i can tell i'm not going to be able to capture in video but like in real life this is really i mean this is something i could see big brands integrating into their build because you've basically reclaimed a ton of space here this just feels so open and airy and that's kind of the neat thing about building your own teardrop or square drop you're building it for you like everything about this is designed around who you are yep you're not having to step into somebody else's design yeah it's true and then another thing so with the water if you pull it out now you've got a pass-through window oh i love it into the cab you know so if you want to wake up early and cook your wife some breakfast you know breakfast in bed hand it across you know oh that's good i love the pass-through so it's kind of nice um but yeah and then that just slides right in there um yeah and then kind of other things i wanted to have 110 power back here as well as usbs and so i've got a couple of these little fans that i can just kind of run and they're they're actually pretty strong and super efficient and so just kind of gives you a little bit more utility in this area so another thing i really wanted just because it gives you more space um is i kind of wanted to build obviously you see these a lot on a lot of people's vehicles and stuff and trailers but just a little easy super simple fold down table that just gives you a little bit of extra real estate to be able to you know put a cutting board on it or a single burner stove or something like that and it gives you a little bit more space that way i guess another feature that might be useful if people are thinking about building one so originally i was going to do a one-piece door and i kind of decided when you're building a wood framed trailer it's kind of hard you could get some really beefy hinges but it puts a lot of stress on hinges to have a door that large okay um and so i decided to do the two-piece and you can actually find these locks on amazon they're for like two-piece household doors and they go down into the floor and up into the ceiling but essentially if you're building one of these you can have your flange right here that that door will hook into but these just tighten really well and they make that door super sturdy so it gives it a really good um like foundation for this door to latch in and it's not going to go anywhere yeah just if people are maybe thinking of ways to do that so and then i'm seeing on here yeah what is what did you put for the coating so i'm noticing like paint in the inside of the interior yep but then once i'm hitting your exterior the paint is changing into something else what am i seeing here yeah so it's like i said the trailer is a two by two frame construction um fully insulated and then it's got quarter inch of plywood on each side of that on the inside and outside of the trailer and then i really wanted the trailer to be super waterproof so i just didn't have to worry about it because aluminum panels are really expensive and so what i ended up doing is just looking into a lot of research on like people that build their own teardrops and i found something called poor man's fiberglass it's something that a lot of ship builders have used in the past so you know it's really waterproof in that aspect if they're out on a boat using it you know but essentially it's tight bond two wood glue and you coat the trailer in that and then right after you apply it you put canvas over it and then you apply the wood glue on top and you squeegee it all in and it's it's really similar to the way you do a fiberglass lay-up just one layer obviously of canvas um and i mean it's turned out it's given the trailer kind of a cool rough texture on the outside and yeah it looks really good it's held up super good so far and then obviously you coat it with a bunch of paint afterwards but and then how about ease of use like was that a hard process so honestly i was a little bit worried at first doing it because something i have noticed on a lot of the trailers that i saw when they do poor man's fiberglass they will do the sides first and then they'll do their top pieces and they'll wrap them over and you kind of get like this kind of ugly line that you see along the side i really really didn't want that and so trying to figure out how to do it without getting that line i wrapped the sides and took them about two to three inches over the top and then this top piece comes right to this edge and if you just keep it right on the edge and you can take a razor blade and just cut it and then kind of work it and kind of smash it down with the glue yeah the edge almost kind of becomes invisible and you still have a ton of overlap on it yeah it looks great really clean and then we've got the box up here my batteries right there i just kept the power system really simple and i could easily upgrade it at any point i think so my whole entire power system i probably only have like 100 bucks into it it's a super deep cycle let acid battery i was able to find it again on like a local classifieds being able to get that at a good price the inverter up in the box just keeping it simple and there's not really a whole lot in this trailer i really need to run yeah besides lights and charging phones and cameras and stuff like that and so so far it's been really good i haven't felt any need to to upgrade any of it and like you said there's room to expand so if you wanted to put a charge controller in there and you could throw solar panels up here and yep yeah and the plan is eventually you know i didn't really want to jump the gun on things because i i've kind of wanted to test it out see what works what i want to add i know eventually i'm going to build a roof rack for it and throw the rooftop tent up there eventually it's going to get solar just so it's a little more self-contained but like us i can tell you've realized quick you don't use much power out there and a simple teardrop like this is really all you need yeah unless you're running like an ac unit or something like that that pulls a lot yeah like uh this thing on one battery charge will probably last me like three full weekend trips you know so like perfect yeah probably a whole week you know just out doing stuff so we've got a trip coming up and we want to bring the bikes and so i'm kind of experimenting still so what i'm thinking i'm going to do i've just got this bolted on with u-bolts right now but what i'm thinking i'll do is weld on a hitch receiver mount right here and then when this folds up i can just slide my bike rack in there and put the pin through it oh yeah and then the bike rack i can either put it on the truck or on the trailer and then obviously you can't use the telescoping tongue right now with it on there but when the bike rack is off the tongue will shorten and it'll lengthen you can pull it out if you're worried about you know if you want to put it in a garage and you want to save as much space as possible i'm making him hop in just so we can get an idea of size here yeah so it's actually pretty spacious in here um and that's something i wanted so right now me and my wife's sleeping here and then our little 18 month old girl and it's been plenty good some of the things i wanted to do is like i said earlier it's a seven foot long bed so it's pretty long i kind of made it i needed to make the kitchen area so that i'd have room for my feet down here and then back in there i split that rear 45 degree angled spot so i've got kind of an opening where you can put blankets or whatever just tuck them up in there and they're out of the way and then with the shelf kind of my theory behind this because it comes at an angle is obviously i had to do that because this window goes all the way to that spot but it's been really nice to have this because a lot of people have cupboards in theirs but most the time when we go out we just fill a duffel bag with clothes and so when we hop in here we just throw our duffel bags in here when we're driving and then we just throw them up on here you know and then we can just pull close out of them or whatever access and it looks cool too like the slope on that it's really neat yeah and so it you know gives you a smaller area over there for charging phones or whatever small stuff and then you can just stack bags over here it's got a vent um your 110 power and then i've got three usbs over in that corner for charging cameras phones you know whatever how about the tiny lip at the top are you using it for anything yeah so this is this is also just a little tiny shelf i wanted to incorporate in here um part of it helps hold the water up right here and then the rest of it is just for phones you know little stuff like that where you can just throw them up there when you're sleepy um and then for to make cheap curtains um i just got a little bit of a metal cable and just crimp the ends and then i actually found it a lot cheaper i was going to go buy fabric and make them my curtains and it's actually it's way cheaper just go to walmart and buy blackout curtains and then just customize them too that's how we do ours as well yeah it's because fabric's so expensive nowadays and then in here something i really wanted um i've got a cutoff switch for the inverter on the battery so when i flip this off i get no draw at night off the inverter because the inverters will have draw if they're on even if nothing's being powered but my usbs never turn off because they're directly wired to the battery itself and this is a little battery monitor you can get on amazon they're like i think like 14 bucks but this is i mean this is kind of a game changer you kind of have to have it and it just gives you battery percentage voltage because with those deep cycle batteries you don't really want to go below 50 percent yep or it starts hurting them so and then yeah it's just got lighting in here you've got your interior light switch my exterior one is up there exterior bright out here so but yeah it's been it's been nice in here um like i said having the inch and a half insulation it stays plenty warm in here you know when it's cold outside and honestly stays a little cool in here when it's warm you know so well thanks for sharing this build with us brigham and i probably should where are we at today what is this yeah so this is the outdoor adventure expo in salt lake city utah there's a lot of sweet trailers here vehicle builds um all sorts of cool stuff

Channel: Playing with Sticks

Views: 880,834

Keywords: small camper trailer, home built trailer, diy camper, diy camper trailer, small camper, home built trailer camper, home built off road camper trailer, off road trailer, off road trailer camper, diy off road trailer camper, diy off road camper trailer build, diy off road trailer, how to, teardrop trailer build, teardrop trailer, squaredrop trailer, micro camper trailer, micro camper trailer build, micro camper trailer diy, playing with sticks, alaska, camping, trailer, diy

Id: JMkfg5bJ1Bk

Length: 19min 59sec (1199 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 29 2021