Homebuilt Teardrop Trailer 2: Walls & Interior Skin

In our last post, we went over planning and outlining the TransPorter, our homebuilt teardrop trailer.

In this post, we’ll be going over installing the main floor, sidewall frames, and skinning the inside walls. Unfortunately, we’re missing some photos from parts of this build, so you’ll have to bear with the written descriptions.

We started with the flatbed utility trailer, which then needed a floor installed. The base is made from a single 5’x10′ sheet of 3/4″ plywood. It was attached to the trailer with a combination of carriage bolts and self-tapping screws.

For weatherproofing, the underside of the floor and trailer was painted with Henry Asphalt roofing sealant. Jamie also chose to build a storage box into the floor of the trailer; it measures about 2’x4′ and is about 14″ deep. The main concern is for it to be no deeper than the axle, if you decide to do this yourself. The lid of that box can be seen in the photo below, and will appear better it future posts.

The edge of the frame has a routed rabbet along the bottom, to get a tight fit to the floor. It’s attached to the trailer and the floor using the same self-tapping screws that we used to attach the floor.

The interior bulkhead wall is made with 3/4″ prefinished maple plywood, and it’s finished on both sides, since that’s also seen from the galley (it’s the back wall of the cabinets)

Interior walls are skinned with prefinished 1/8″ maple plywood. We chose to spend the extra for prefinished because finishing work isn’t nearly as fun as building, but you could easily do the finish (or paint) yourself and save a bit on the interior walls. 

Next post: Galley Counter & Flooring

Previous post: Planning & Framing

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