RAISING THE BAR! A New Standard for TEARDROP Trailers

[Music] what's going to surprise you about this trailer is the price this trailer is what I consider to be the Rolls-Royce of teardrop trailers I'm bold enough to actually say it's right up there with the widely popular vestibule trailer and it's about seven to eight thousand dollars less than the vestibule once you add all the additional components on top of vestibule's base price and unlike the majority of trailer manufacturers that bait you with a low base price and then they send you out the door with an additional seven to ten thousand dollars added to the bill the high camp teardrop trailer actually comes with virtually everything you need at base so today I'll be taking Atlas Romero teardrops down to Portland to meet up with Dennis and show you this one-of-a-kind piece of art but as usual it's not all sunshine and roses with this camper make sure you stick around to see the three things I like about this teardrop and the three things I think can be improved all right Drew so I'm just going to walk you through the exterior of the trailer you should know that all of the aluminum siding the roofing all the materials and clear anodized aluminum so this this is a very durable finish down below we've got a gravel guard strip that goes all the way around the trailer reduces the the road rash that you get from from picking up rocks as you're going down the road the fenders here are fully Rhino lined fenders again the front front of the fenders will take quite a beating on gravel roads and so we want to protect them fully you know other options powder coating that sort of thing really is not going to stand up to to the type of off-road conditions that a lot of people will will take this trailer through and I'm seeing this Birch how thick it is here yeah so good point all all of our components and all of our structural pieces in the trailer is made from a three-quarter inch multi-ply and it's a it's a birch multiply even even on the exterior sheets it's even pre-finished on the outside so it's even beautiful where you cannot see it and on a typical trailer this is kind of the weak point this is with the vibrations over time absolutely I was very into vintage trailers uh for quite some time and this is an air area that trailers tend to um to die because the the moldings that that screw into these uh these side walls need a very dense material to screw into the vibrations and expansion and contraction over the years those screws will loosen up and that's where water will get into those screw holes that will rot and then that molding will start to come off traditionally what are most teardrops built with sure so so traditionally most Teardrops are built with either a half inch ply of plywood here or maybe a three-quarter but we'll see a plywood that has maybe five Plies or seven Plies instead of a multiply plywood like this that has up to 13 Plies and the importance of that is a seven ply ply is not going to have the density that this will you'll also tend to see lots of voids places where there's actually no wood that a screw could go in and not have the the ability to hold in place and then you get water into that screw hole and then we get rot in the side wall we've got 15 inch uh Ultra 62 aluminum rims with some General Grabber tires our axle below is a torsion axle it's a 2500 pound rated torsion axle the weight of the trailer is 1650 with the propane tanks filled so we've got good excess capacity for any type of cargo that you're going to bring and it's also properly rated so you're going to get a good off-road ride and a good ride as well this trailer just started construction yesterday and before it gets its roof skin this is a great thing to look at the the front curve of this trailer traditionally is formed with individual thin wood spars that go across to form some structure between the walls and for the roof we took a different approach to it from the very beginning we actually form this is three quarter inch solid plywood that we form here in the shop We Lay It Up over a form and then we vacuum press the it into this exact shape of our radius here and what that really does for us is instead of having these thin strips of spars we've got continuous support all the way across the the front of the trailer from the sidewall to side wall it makes for a very strong Roof System so we're not not depending on an inch and a half spars to keep us safe if something were to fall on the trailer standard this year we've got a Rhino Rack heavy duty roof rack on every build I should mention everything that you're seeing on the trailer is standard so there's no upgrade options you're going to see here that is not in our package with the exception of in the cabin there is a on-demand heater so we've got heat in the in the cabin here so that would be the only option on this trailer that is not standard so moving on from the roof rack our doors are entirely designed and built in-house so we're not using an off-the-shelf RV style door they have some significant problems that we ran into using them a lot of rework so we decided that we Could Build a Better Door in-house and have the control over quality and the materials that we're using our exterior doors we designed for first of all significantly wider than the standard door we use two HVAC compression latches here you'll also notice that we don't use a centered slam latch like most RV doors which can't be adjusted or create any sort of mechanical advantage on the the door itself on the seals and the door opens up here you can see the interior Hardware so we have a we have an aluminum door jamb that runs the perimeter of both doors and you can see the the width of this door is 32 inches versus 28 inches which is a significant difference in width you know if you're if you're sitting you've got quite a bit of room to to get in and out of the trailer and these these latches further can be adjusted in the future so if in a few years the seals flatten out or you know the latches need to be adjusted we can tighten them up doors and windows by the way are an issue in the teardrop industry and the you know the RV industry in general so further our our windows are actually built by a marine boat door and window manufacturer in Vancouver Washington and these these windows are horizontal slider with a sliding screen as well you'll notice that the even the glass is quarter inch tempered glass so this is not something you could just bust out with a you know a Rock that's probably thicker than your windshield glass this door latch operates as a deadbolt and this even this latch has a bevel on it so when that when that bevel engages the door jamb on the inside it as well will draw that door down onto the seals so all of our all of our latches even aren't on our our hatch have this mechanical advantage moving forward up to the front of the trailer here we've got a storage box this is an aluminum storage box we cut the parts for the storage box here on our CNC so this gives us a really lightweight box it gives us good a good amount of storage for all the things that you want up front here for your dirty items your wheel chocks and your extension cords uh it's also the latch is also lockable here and then behind that we have two 20 pound composite propane cylinders so these are quite different because these are spun fiberglass tanks here you can see the spun fiberglass here these are about the third the weight of Steel tanks so again this whole this whole component set up here saves about two-thirds of the weight of a steel comparison and this is quite a bit of propane for this trailer I mean we're talking maybe you know a fill up at the end of the year or maybe next year so a year or two of propane I've got an automatic switch over regulator so you can open both of these and that's particularly helpful if you've got the cabin heater which this one does it runs off of propane so in the middle of the night if this tank runs dry that tank will automatically kick in and service the heater so it's not going to die in the middle of night and you have to get out and switch tanks coming back we'll probably come around to the hatch here a couple other things we've got porch light outside here gives you a little bit of light if you're getting out at night we've got a 12 volt SAE plug here we put these in because this roof rack is you know particularly popular for awnings and that sort of thing and so a lot of those awnings have led strips so you can plug those right into the side here even if you don't have an awning if you want some 12 volt decorative lights outside that's a nice place to put it so you're not running wires in into the hatch or into the cabin we've got a your Shore power hookup a NOCO sure power so this feeds into the charger converter which is what is going to run everything on the trailer and also charge the battery below that we've got a solar hookup so this trailer is wired pre-wired for solar so if you have portable solar panels and they don't need to be big panels you can plug that directly into this and you'll be feeding your battery anytime you've got Sun uh below that is just a air vent because this is our battery box back here and by code you should have a vent in that box so our Galley is really kind of our centerpiece another one of our differentiating uh parts to the trailer as you can see we've got just a beautiful Birchwood finish uh in the galley I mean throughout the trailer but it's a Hallmark for for our trailers for sure the other very important feature is that we're so picky about the Aesthetics of the wood the Grain and the wood that we actually buy this directly from the mill with a whole what's called a whole rotary cut veneer so this is a solid uh piece of veneer on here there are no patches in this veneer there are no seams in the veneer so we get a whole a beautiful grain all the way across the wood and that translates into all of our components in the trailer so like this right here yeah so this piece is just right beautiful right so so you know traditionally you might have a a little seam here in the veneer we've got a nice LED light bar a warm light bar back here so this is not in your in your eyes if you're sitting out in the back here on our dashboard we've got a nice little classic dashboard clock so you can keep track of what time it is back here we've got two 12 volt Outlets here which are direct wire to the battery so one is usually going to be be used in Camp to run the 12 volt fridge low amp draw probably an amp or amp and a quarter on average we've got a renegade battery monitor so it's going to tell you your exact state of charge of the battery which is important to know particularly for AGM batteries you can see here all the information is on this screen it's 170 amp hour battery so it's a large one of the largest batteries put into a teardrop this size we've got a GFCI outlet this Outlet is a direct plug to the shore power so this is going to be live if you've got a Shore power in Camp or in storage for instance dry storage on the left here we traditionally use this for uh plates and bowls all nested we've got a couple saute pans with the handles that that fold off this cabinet here is dry storage these are usually the things I want first thing in the morning coffee coffee mugs tea we've got a Shelf with shelf pins so that can be moved up or down or come out entirely and then further storage long storage space under the counter here so right now we've got some Dometic Jerry cans here which they've just come out with these are 2.3 gallon cans I believe and they cut it comes with a very cool electric spigot so this actually just plugs right into the Jerry can and then you can start it up from here this cubby over here is our battery compartment and all our wiring this has got our NOCO charger here our latest Improvement is our cooktop so this is a slide out three burner cooktop we used to use a Dometic three burner there was a traditional RV cooktop we wanted to upgrade that to something that was more a residential style this is a really nice three burner furion it's got a fully sealed top so if you spill anything in there there's no getting anything into the inside of the you just wipe the the top up if you've seen the two burner stoves a lot of times one burner becomes useless they're so close together that one burner if you've got a nine or ten inch pan on this burner your second burner becomes useless so a stove like this you can have a 10 12 inch pan on here still have room on on this burner we can use a griddle across all three and be able to cook griddle style as well at the rear we've got a rear receiver which is standard all the lights obviously LED so now we're in the cabin here and our cabin is a we'll start with the bed our bed is a 60 inch by 80 inch queen size mattress so now not an RV queen that's been cut down this trailer I mentioned has our cabin heater so this is a propex cabin heater it's actually mounted underneath the trailer so it's not taking up storage space in the trailer very simple thermostat just like your thermostat at home you set the temperature two 12 volt Outlets left and right so if you want to charge any phones or iPads that sort of thing you can put them up in the cubby here water bottle holders left and right that fold down out of the way if you need them the headboard here you'll notice goes storage goes all the way through the headboard so there's no divider in the headboard so duffel bags shoes that sort of thing that's a great spot for them and essentially extends the length of the trailer the storage capacity of the trailer but it keeps the body to eight feet so we don't need to get to a nine foot or a ten foot body to achieve the same amount of storage so it keeps our Footprints smaller our overall length shorter up top we've got a Max fan 12 speed fan it's got a remote control it's a really nice fan moves a lot of air in or out um and this is a this is a fan that you can even run at night when you're sleeping so for condensation management you can run this on its lowest setting it's very quiet but it moves enough air out out of the trailer a couple hooks um and then we've got storage uh top here left and right so usually the way we work it is we've got our duffel bag of clothing or our clothing bags here the night before we'll take out what we're going to wear the next day put them up into these smaller Cubbies so that we're not wrestling out a duffel bag in the morning and you'll notice that every Builder has a formula for storage space versus open space and we tend to air we tend to to side with a little bit less storage but we would have like to have a little bit more Headroom in the trailer a little bit more room to be able to move around so we don't have heavy big long or deep cupboards that come down here we've got lots of room for your knees if you want to bring your knees up you're not hitting your knees on here now the three things I really like about this trailer number one the spun fiberglass propane tanks I've never seen them on a small camper trailer ever period and for us small tow vehicle owners anything to keep that tongue weight down is priceless number two the three burner cooktop Dennis had some very valid points in this video and when Mae and I design our custom Teardrop trailer one of our must-have items was a three burner stove as well like he said they just make sense and number three the manufacturing process and the fine details the custom sealable doors to multiply construction pre-drilled pilot holes the leather the metal trim this is one of those trailers that I couldn't do it justice through the video you really need to take a tour through their manufacturing process and see one in person to see why I call it the Rolls-Royce now for the three things I dislike or would change about this trailer and this really hurts me to say because I absolutely loved my time with Dennis him and I really hit it off and he's just one of those guys who gets it and because of that I know Dennis is aware of the limitations of his trailer it isn't that they were oversights he chose to prioritize space and aesthetic design over other common teardrop priorities that many of us hold one of those being number one here is his three-quarter Galley Hatch as I've mentioned with other teardrops notice how Dennis here when standing in the kitchen area is not protected by the hatch from the Sun or inclement weather a three-quarter hatch is not long enough to properly cover the cooking and prep area there are solutions such as awnings and Tents and I'm not against using these I just believe you would benefit to have the ability to quickly use the Galley Hatch for coverage when you don't have the time or good weather to set up additional awnings and Tents to me this is probably the main reason no small camper trailer can compete with a teardrop and by eliminating one quarter of the galley it's not just rain and sun you're impacted by you also eliminate all that nice slide out storage in the bottom portion of the galley this Arrangement may look tidy and clean to the eye as you see here but it also means you have to reach into a hole from above to grab items and in my opinion this isn't ergonomically Superior to any other traditional teardrop design and then we have one more trade-off by giving the high camp Teardrop trailer that unique clean rich and open feel that Dennis loves you're going to sacrifice storage space you know I'm a big aesthetic guy just like Dennis and I love a craftsman style trailer but for me that aesthetic usually comes second to storage most Teardrop trailer owners will tell you that storage is king So what this basically means and it won't be an issue for many of you is that your organizational systems will need to be split between your teardrop and your tow vehicle and if you're an extreme minimalist you wouldn't even have any issues with this design now I've created a new playlist of all our teardrop trailer walkthroughs to help train your eye to know what to look for during your Teardrop trailer search each of these videos have Little Gems in them that you won't find anywhere else and I found that the more trailers I see the less I realize I know if that makes sense the best thing we can do is increase our knowledge around best practices to see through the market getting hype and get the best trailer for our buck so as usual stay safe on the road and we will see you in the next episode

Channel: Playing with Sticks

Views: 276,234

Keywords: teardrop trailer, small camper, travel trailer, overland trailer, small camper trailer, high camp teardrop trailer, teaardrop camper, camper, trailer, best teardrop trailer, best small camper trailer, custom teardrop trailer, craftsman trailer, overland, off road teardrop trailer, camping, playing with sticks, alaska, high camp, teardrop camping, teardrop galley, camp cooking, propex heater, off road, off road trailer camper, trailers 2023, micro camper, teardrop trailer tour

Id: Pn-KoyiJ7Qc

Length: 19min 6sec (1146 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 19 2023