How To Build A Teardrop Trailer/Before you start
Before you start edit
This book is not a set of plans in the sense of "paint by the numbers". It will not give you any measured drawings or dimensions and will it will not provide any absolute way of doing things. There are many ways to build a teardrop trailer, from simple to elaborate. This book focuses on a simple trailer design which can be built for around $1500 or less. Ideas for more elaborate construction will be presented; which you may or may not want to pursue.
The reader is also expected to be familiar with the tools needed to build the trailer, including power tools. Safety should be paramount when working on the project. Defend yourself against the unexpected. Wear safety goggles and always know where your fingers are and where the path of the tool is. Be aware that if you are holding on to a piece of material, a power tool can pull the material, along with your fingers, into the blade before you have time to let go. Power tools can also grab the material and throw it or spin it. Use pliers and pushsticks when necessary to control the material. Safety is the responsibility of the reader.
The other safety responsibility the reader has is in the construction of the trailer itself. You are building a trailer that will be pulled down a public roadway. You don't want it to fall apart and injure you or occupants of another vehicle. There are some common ideas and information out on the web which may or may not be safe. This book will point out a few of them so you can decide. For example, building a trailer without a steel frame (only a wood frame) is a risky thing to do and would probably be considered negligent in any court of law. The main safety guideline is common sense and it is your responsibility to decide if you have common sense or not.
The structure of this book is to proceed through the steps of building a simple teardrop trailer. Special notes and subsections along the way are included for more complex methods. Reference pages for each chapter exist to list web resources that are directly related to obtaining the parts needed for construction. In this way the book itself will remain free of hyperlinks and maintain a book form.