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Final cost depends largely on how you decide to finish and outfit your trailer. My relatively simple teardrop, the one featured in the plans, set me back about $2000 when it was all said and done. Some of that cost was based on my design choice to try to make a retro looking teardrop, which added retro fenders and taillights. Costs go up when you add air conditioning, kitchen appliances, custom cabinetry, flat screen plasma televisions and DVD players and the like. If you choose to go five feet wide you should expect to spend between $500 and $800 additional. Teardrops can be added onto just like upgrades to your home. You may build your trailer now and add luxury items later. Adding on is made easier if you plan for the upgrade when you wire and construct the trailer.

I met a man at a car show pulling a teardrop with a thirties vintage DeSoto. It was the third trailer he'd built, having sold the first two simply by bringing them to the car show. He told me it took him 100 hours to build his first one, 80 to build the second, and 60 to build the third. It took me almost exactly 100 hours to build the trailer in the plans and I guess that's about what it will take you.

Well, first off if you choose to go with the Harbor Freight bolt-together trailer you won't need a welder. You will need to have a good saber saw and a bunch of blades, a skil saw, some saw horses, a way to drive screws, and a typical household set of hand tools that includes wrenches, screwdrivers and the like. That's the minimum set. If you want to have an easier time of it you will enjoy having a table saw, cordless scredriver/drill, staple gun. Trailers are pretty low technology machines.

The teardrop has a couple of things going for it. The aluminum skin reflects heat rather than absorbing it. Windows provide for a cross draft. Modern insulation helps. Fans driven off the 12volt or 120 volt power blow the air around, albeit sometimes it's hot air. Many people vent heat through the roof via the sort of vent used on more modern travel trailers. All that aside, if it's miserably hot outside after the sun goes down you're not going to get a good night's sleep without air conditioning. To air condition a teardrop people do a lot of low tech and traditional things. One customer installed a small 120volt A/C unit in the kitchen area, installed a drip pan under it to catch and channel off condensation, and blew cold air into the cabin. Another customer made up a folding portable stand and placed a conventional 120volt A/C unit on it next to one of his two doors and connected it to the window with a naugahyde boot. When near electricity he just plugged in, and when he was roughing it he used one of those very quiet Honda generators. I talked to a guy last week who built a version of the old air conditioners that used to hang in the windows of cars in the fifties that basically just blew air through ice. He used an ice chest, some three inch tubing, and a 12volt in-line fan sold by a boat supply house. Air conditioning, like so many other aspects of the teardrop experience, hangs on how you intend to use your trailer, where you intend to camp in it, and what power is available to you. Remember that you must have a source of fresh air coming into the trailer throughout the night. The interior volume of air in a closed up teardrop is not enough to sustain life until morning.

When I first began selling my plans I offered them in either black and white or color. The difference in price between the two versions was $10. When offered the choice, people were not willing to spend the extra $10 for color, especially when the plan set comes with a CD containing all the photos in the plans for viewing on the computer. For about the last year I've offered the plans only in color because I am proud of my product and I thought the color set simply looked better. Over this last year, though, I've had to look for ways to cut costs in order to be able to keep my price low and still make enough money to have this all be worth the effort. I have seen nearly all of the other plan sets offered out there and I really believe my low cost and the quality of the plans make mine the best value on the market. In that year, while I'm trying to hold the line on my price, many of the costs of producing the plan sets kept climbing. As gas prices rose at the pump the cost of shipping (which I include in the $77 price) has risen as well. When I first started I was printing the sets on an ink jet printer, and the cost of ink cartridges has continued to climb. Paper, like anything else that has to be trucked, costs more. All things considered printing in black and white was the thing the customers seemed to care least about. I cut costs there to be able to keep up he value overall.

I am notified by PayPal as soon as you order. I make up plan sets ahead of time and always have some on the shelf. Usually I put your plans in the mail the next business day. I ship priority mail with the US Postal Service. In many locations that means you will have your plans in 2-3 business days. The USPS advertises that but does not guarantee it. Oddly enough, addresses a long way from Michigan often make the two day target, while addresses near Michigan can take, in rare instances, up to five days. The difference is that orders out west are often flown while packages closer to Michigan travel in trucks and make several stops at distribution centers.

To add length without losing the distinctive teardrop shape, place the extra two feet at the highest point of the curve that forms the front just where the profile begins to break out of the circle. Where the circle that forms the leading shape of the teardrop breaks into a sweeping arc toward the rear that's a place you can add some length. Generally speaking, if you draw a line straight up over top of the door hinge in the plans the place where it crosses the profile is the place to add.

No, not in this case. The Harbor Freight trailer in these plans weighs in at about 260 lb. The total weight when finished was 650 lb. That leaves a margin of about 400 lb. In other words, the total weight is about 60%, give or take, of the rated capacity. The springs on the lighter trailer will flex when the trailer hits bumps and you will get a smooth pull. If you choose a trailer with stiffer springs sized to carry a greater load you can expect it to not flex but rather to bounce through the bumps, stiffly banging around behind your vehicle.

By the way, the tongue weight on my trailer is about 65lb, or about 10% of the total weight, which is right on the money for balance.