2.5 Kampereen tent camper K2 prototype goes on a diet

The biggest problem with the Kampereen tent camper K2 design was the weight. At around 335 lbs. empty, I could tow it just fine with the truck. Behind the Indian, I could feel it, even though the Chief Vintage was over 800 lbs. Towable? Yes. But I was aiming for something much lighter than that. The other thing was the lack of standing room. That was something I really wanted in a camper design.

I decided that one way to shed at least 40 lbs. would be to eliminate the hard side walls, replacing them with tent material. This would get this version of the camper under the 300 lb. mark. That would be good enough for this build. Later, if I decided to do another one, I could find more ways to cut weight.

Challenge 1: Sewing

What that meant was, I’d be needing another tent. This was a crossroads in my prototyping. I decided that if I really wanted to build more campers and different designs, I would just need to commit to adding sewing skills to my repertoire. Doing so would give me considerable freedom to explore new ideas and designs. I got lucky and found a used walking foot sewing machine (a knock off of the Sailrite Ultrafeed) for $125 on Craigslist. This seemed to be a sign. It was a quirky little machine but it did sew well enough that I was able to start making tents to my own design.

Challenge 2: Tent Framework

To replace the hard sides with tent material, I also needed a framework to hang the tent on. Here again was another obstacle–tube bending. It would be expensive to get a couple of tubes custom bent, and if they weren’t exactly what I needed that could result in more $$$ spent.

As I have found many times, the answer to this challenge could be found on YouTube. It’s actually pretty easy to bend PVC pipe, and you can create almost any shape you can imagine. Following the “hot sand method” I was able to create a very light frame for the tent. Rather than use plumbing PVC, I used furniture grade. This plastic is harder and can bear more weight without sagging.

K2 Version 2

My second version of the Kampereen tent camper was definitely lighter, and functionally the soft tent set up just as easily and wore as well as the hard sided version of the camper. I got really ambitious and made an add-a-room for it, complete with floor. This add-on became known as the Poopatorium because its where we kept the PortaPotty on those occasions when camping included my wife and the dog.

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