Outlast the Rest: Trailer Built to Last 40 EXTRA YEARS!

hey it's Drew and I'm taking you to the location where they've Rewritten the rules on Teardrop trailer longevity picture this while most small camper trailers are lucky to make it past their first decade on the road camping is crafting wooden teardrops with an astonishing projected lifespan of 40 to 50 years and if you're a teardrop manufacturer and you're watching this you better take notes welcome to camp in travel trailers my name is Craig edible and I'm Carrie winch we've been building our camping trailers now for 22 years and kind of getting to be considered kind of the grandfathers of the business a little bit let's go see how they're made everybody sees all the aluminum on a secure Drive camper like ours with all of the aluminum they assume it's an aluminum camper it's really a wooden trailer and we start back here with the CNC machine it's a computer-controlled router that we use to cut out the the majority of the parts we can load a full sheet of plywood on here and then the machine chooses a tool and the program runs and cuts the the parts out the wood even is is actually special made to our spec it's all marine grade wood we spec out the cores and the veneers and how they're glued together uh just so that we can maintain a consistent quality control you can see a couple trailers here that are in the process of being built the closest one here is already assembled it's ready to go to the varnishing area this is one of the Raindrop the 560 models the the whole trailer is made of either marine grade plywood or solid hardwood there's a few soft wood gussets to reinforce parts but there's no particle board no chipboard no Masonite we have grooves built in the sides here is where we run all of our wiring and then once the skin is put on here it captivates it and gives a very clean look on the inside all the major body joints are reinforced with a wood gusset uh makes for a very strong body makes it very resistant to uh to twisting and damage and they don't come apart easy even in a in an accident if you can have a little fun with the our wood shop too the finished trailer once the body's assembled comes into this area and gets fully sanded and then it goes into the next room which is our finishing area and here the trailer is mounted on a rotisserie that allows us to Pivot the trailer body and to move it into any position we need to in order to get the best quality finish on all surfaces it allows us to to Varnish it inside and out every surface of the the wood is varnished top and bottom inside the cabinets and we use a real high quality Marine urethane finish that we bring in from Italy one of the reasons we do that is because we're 100 formaldehyde free product and we have to go overseas to get our wood finishes one of the advantages of building it off the frame is we can actually undercoat the entire body not just the visible areas so the entire Underside is is undercoated before it's put on the frame so even the areas on top of the frame are totally sealed the RV industry tends to build stuff that has a design obsolescence so it's supposed to last so many years and we built to Marine standards so we're shooting for 40 to 50 years of life with constant exposure to moisture and water you have to constantly seal every bit of wood because people are going to use these in the most unimaginable hard ways that you can think of Yeah we actually have one customer who has lived in his trailer full time for 17 years and has actually wintered over in Minnesota and in Maine but he spent a lot of time out on the west coast in on Washington on an island in Washington state which of course is a very humid environment even though the the body panels and the aluminum them are sealed we want to seal the wood so if any water does happen to get in even from inside with the condensation from your your body on your your breath that that condensation does not find a way into the wood is no no a lot of them use pre-finished wood they cut and then they cut it to size so the edges are all raw the body is its own strength it's a monocoque body as you can see the whole trailer is being supported by two points and is doing just fine structurally that way so the the frame is basically added as a way to connect the axle and the tongue to the trailer and here you see an example of the framework that goes under the trailer now it looks fairly basic whereas a utility trailer might use you know you might be hauling an engine block or a garden tractor or a pile of leaves on a teardrop trailer you're hauling a bed so it doesn't need to be a huge robust frame and because our body is so strong we just have a frame that basically connects the axle to the body and connects the body to the hitch yeah most other travel trailers rely on the frame for all the support and then they put a somewhat flimsy body on top of that frame we kind of do the opposite we put a rigid body on top of a frame that's allowed to flex yeah it actually articulates a bit because of its ability to twist left and right but not Bend this way if you see here you'll see these support rods that's an upside down truss work that provides bending strength to the tongue of the trailer with very little weight so then once the the body gets married to the frame we start doing things like adding wiring into those side channels we also add solid foam insulation to the roof you want to have those cavities filled as as fully as possible because if moist air gets in there it will condense on the the aluminum skin and then that's in a lot of travel trailers that's what causes the the rot and the mold and the damage is water that condenses inside the walls or inside the ceiling on this one too you can also see there's a where the air can positioning goes we have a drain pan that goes in here and that that drain pan collects any rain water that happens to get in the vents it also any condensation that overflows in the air conditioner is collected there but then there's a drain that runs through the trailer and out the bottom as they progress along we add on to the axle now a couple things that we do differently you notice we have stainless steel fenders put on stainless fenders because they never need painting they're not going to chip they're not going to rust and they are a little pricey but they're there for the life of the trailer like you could say it right yeah I could jump on it which we do all the time is part of the demonstration so yeah they're they're 14 gauge stainless they're not going anywhere although they will lose in a fight over one of those posts at the gas pump and many have and then inside the trailer you notice there's these two holes in the floor that's for the basement stairs uh but we actually put in a storage tub in there that's made of plastic and we use the same plastic that is used on the the snowmobile skis it's made for high impact and for cold weather impact and that way they're going to hold up even if something goes under the trailer and hits that plastic tub and that's where we put the spare tire is in one of those storage compartments so originally we came up with the the Raindrop the 560 raindrop design to answer the question what do you do with the kids and so the Raindrop actually has a bunk bed system that converts into a couch we designed it so that you could sleep two adults and two children in a ten foot long teardrop so when we first started we we built just the the 550 teardrop and but now as you can see looking around our production floor the the 560 rain drop has become our most popular model probably about 75 percent yeah so you can see they just slowly progress along and the parts get added on as it goes down the line so for years we didn't like using the standard door hinges so we actually had to design our own door hinges and have them made for custom for us just so that we would get a hinge that we like the look of that was in keeping with the teardrop theme and the Vintage look of the trailer what's the philosophy behind that what is it seven gallons of water eight eight and a half what's the philosophy there so originally uh we only had a five gallon water tank built in and no gray water tank and no gray water and we got a request from a lot of customers there's a lot of national parks and parks that require that if you have a water system you need to have a way to collect the gray water and so when we looked at that we decided we would have to design our own water tanks and I don't know if you could see it on here but they're under the belly of the trailer and those water tanks are eight and a half gallons each and one of them is for the fresh water and one is for the gray water and by collecting the gray water then that's more environmentally friendly you don't have uh you're not attracting Bears or insects or you know we also offered the road shower units on the roof rack and that's been real popular for somebody who just wants to carry an extra 10 gallons of water this is one of the first we put the composite tables in we used to make them out of wood we now use an all-composite material and what that does is it allows us to leave these out in the rain without being affected by the water so you've got a dining table on one side you set up the cooler on the other side I've got this the fire extinguisher is out where it's uh accessible should you have a fire in the kitchen and then we take out the cooler and transfer it over to the cooler stand then we Slide the stove out and the kitchen is set up and your storage compartments underneath the mattress or underneath the countertop that have a little storage compartment Lids in there and you can see all of the storage they're deep and then you're ready to roll the couch has a few different modes this is the standard couch mode with an elevated knee on the front here you can drop it down flush which essentially extends the bed so if you're about six foot six or taller you can actually put your pillows up here and make the bed much longer you can take the cushions thank you and you can move them out of the way up sorry it's probably getting the way of the camera there but you can flip this down and put your cushions back and then you have a little bench area raised bench that you can sit on there's storage up in the front that's the front front bump on the Raindrop gives you added storage with AC and DC Outlets this is a very popular place that customers that have a CPAP they put their CPAP machine in here run the hose out here and uh gives them a good access there they can plug it into the AC or the DC to set this up in a bunk bed you move the cushions out of the way grab this framework bring it up set it on the windowsill and then where there's a couple latches that lock it in place then we're going to flip up a headboard that separates the main mattress from the lower bunk we've got a a cushion there a small pillow for that level then we put another cushion up in the upper level like that with its pillow and then at night when it's time to go to bed we slide in this little we call it the kid guard and that prevents the kids from rolling out of bed at night good place for you the kids it's a good place for extra cargo maybe your dog can sleep on the lower bunk keep them out of your bed although dog owners know that that won't last for too long they like to climb in with you and inside you see we have the air conditioning there's a furnace option there's a full stereo option in this one to kind of show it off there's a handicap access option the one thing that a lot of people forget about teardrop trailers is because you are ground level and the galley is external these teardrop trailers in general are handicap accessible we have an extra three foot wide door which allows for easier access for everybody but you know for somebody's transferring from a wheelchair you've got the handicap bars to transfer in when you you sit down you know that's something you can grab onto and then when you move up into the couch it can help you move up in and got plenty of Headroom here and a little reading light yep the lights all switched to red at night for night vision control and you can turn it down and just have a little night light glowing faintly there over here we have our 550 series which is a 5x8 you can it's eight foot long has the same queen size mattress in it all your Cabinetry air conditioning this has the lp furnace in it so you can camp off grid and cold weather and for you know people who are maybe doing some off-road Adventures or something like this is pretty ideally suited uh it is actually built as an off-road trailer with a forged forged trailings arm spindle independent suspension system uh flexible articulating frame mono strong rigid monocle body they're really made to be off-road trailers uh it's just that's not really well it's represented when people see that they don't they look at it go well that's it's the racy to Retro styling and all of that we have a lot of customers that tow them anywhere that a stock SUV even a stock Jeep Rubicon these trailers will go if a wood teardrop is not quite the right fit for you or the price of these trailers or the weight is just a little too high you have to check out the camping Road toad this lightweight composite Budget Trailer is just what the industry needed I have two videos for you here on the left one's a walk-through tour and the other is a great tour of Lynn's camper that she modified on a budget as usual stay safe on the road and we will see you in the next episode

Channel: Playing with Sticks

Views: 385,798

Keywords: teardrop trailer, trailer tour, teardrop camper, teardrop trailer with bunks, camp-inn teardrop trailer, camp-inn, factory tour, best teardrop trailer, trailer under 2000 lbs, small camper trailer, teardrop camper build, travel trailer, trailer walkthrough, playing with sticks, camping, alaska, teardrop trailer build, teardrop camper trailer, road toad, road toad campers, campinn, camp, 560 teardrop camper, 550 teardrop camper, custom teardrop trailer, micro camper, tiny camper

Id: YLZybJJ5R94

Length: 16min 17sec (977 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 07 2023