Journal

2023

• Kampereen K4 Test Camp Debrief and Future

  I finished the Kampereen K4 build just about the same time that I got involved in another project last year. We bought a farmette up in the Virginia hills and I’ve been caught up in getting that place into shape. If you’d like to see pics and the story of that place, it’s on Instagram […]

2022

• Last steps of the K4 Camper Build

  After a burst of activity last week, I’m reaching the last steps of the K4 camper build. My first log entry was just seven weeks ago on May 11th. It seems like I’ve been working on it a lot longer than that. If I’d worked on it uninterrupted, I probably could’ve finished it in half […]
  
• Taking a Better Measure for the Tent Trailer Tent

  One of the things I’m determined to do on this build is to make it easier to make the tent trailer tent, and to get a better result. (Okay, that’s two things.) On previous builds, I started taking good measurements then kind of went from measuring to the quarter inch, to the half, then to […]
  
• Making support bows for a tent camper lid and entry step

  In the latest build, I shot some video that shows how I make the support bows for a tent camper lid and the entry step using aluminum tubing and a tube bender. I have found through trial and error that it’s easier to make the bows in two pieces and rivet them together. I can […]
  
• Use Shim Trim to Improve Your DIY Camper Results

  If you’re building your own tent camper or cargo trailer and you plan to trim it out, here’s something to keep in mind as you make your plans and start your cuts. Using shim trim will help you significantly improve your DIY camper results. After making about a dozen adjustment cuts to the entry door […]
  
• K4 Lower Box Assembly Complete

  If I wanted a motorcycle cargo trailer, I’d be about done. But with the K4 lower box assembly done, I can start thinking about what it will take to make it a tent camper. After attaching the fold down entry and the main lid, I wanted to get a feel for the layout. I attached […]
  
• Kampereen K4 Tent Camper Build

  Last week I started the Kampereen K4 tent camper build following the design changes I mentioned in the previous post. Turning the opening 90 degrees counterclockwise will resolve the last couple of issues with the design. Easier to build I’ve already found that this model is easier to build. One of the complicating factors with […]
  
• Kampereen Build 4: What’s Next

  It’s been a little while since I’ve done anything new on my camper projects, but that’s not for a lack for interest. First, I had to clear some space, which meant finding a home for the latest build. Through the DIY Motorcycle Camper group on Facebook, I met Sammy Groover from Georgia who is taking […]
  
• K3 Tent Camper For Sale

  If I could, I’d keep everything I build. But I don’t have the room for that. So to make room for the next project, I’m selling build 2 of the K3 tent camper. It is located in Fort Myers, FL. It is brand new. I’m asking $2,500 The camper has an empty weight of 265 […]
  
• What’s Next: The Kampereen K4 Utility Trailer Camper

  I like the K3 design enough that I’ve built a couple of them and it checks all the boxes for weight, ease of setup and roominess. But there’s still room for improvement! For one, I’ve found that the camper tows well behind four wheel vehicles, but behind a two wheeler it can be tippy when […]
  
• Camper leveling leg design feedback sought

  I created a lightweight leveling leg design to use on the Kampereen because the only commercially available, usable options is a heavy, clunky, spring loaded design that is hard to use on a small camper that is close to the ground. For the most part I really like how this design works. It is strong […]
  
• Kampereen K3 Build 2

  I started the Kampereen build 2 project in late January after making a lot of notes about build 1. I didn’t plan to change anything about the design, but I did plan to go about the build differently. The first thing I did was to go through  the bill of materials and order everything on […]
  
• Trailer Camper Trim Chop Saw Comparo

  The real finishing touch on any trailer camper build is the trim. It’s amazing how much the look improves when you clap on the final pieces of trim. This gives the camper a final, pro-built look. I didn’t have a lot of experience with metal cutting when I started the camper builds. I had a […]
  
• Trailer lighting

  Trailer lighting is a topic that raises more questions than almost any other aspect of operating a motorcycle camper. Over the years, I’ve done many videos on the tow vehicle side of this question, i.e. motorcycle trailer wiring. In this post, I’m going to discuss it from the trailer side. To be legal in the […]
  
• Tiny camper vinyl wrap trials

  I thought vinyl wrap would be the ideal exterior for my camper project but I first wanted to test its ability to stick to plywood. To get an answer, I bought a small 1′ x 5′ roll of satin black vinyl wrap from Amazon and cut several panels of scrap plywood to a similar size. […]
  
• Why I like vinyl wrap for mini campers

  When I first started building mini campers, I had to consider how the exterior would be finished. I use marine grade plywood in all my builds which is solid, but even the “A” face has patches. Marine plywood is not built for show. As far as I could figure, I had only a couple of […]
  
• Kampereen K3 First Test Setup

  There were a lot of things that were new about the Kampereen K3 design. Many more parts moving and folding in different ways and directions. Would the tent fold, would the bows stow and would the lid close? Plus, this was a totally new tent design with new patterns that I had only recently made. […]
  
• What goes into a mini tent camper? A lot, actually.

  As I’ve built each version of the Kampereen mini tent camper, I’ve tried to keep a running list of the parts I’ve used. I started that mostly because I thought I might build a few more of these over time, and if so, it would be handy to have a full bill of materials (BOM). […]
  
• 3.0 This is it. The Kampereen K3 design

  Finally, after four years of prototype building and experimenting, I got to the Kampereen K3 design. This is a lightweight tent trailer that does everything I wanted my camper to do. It is light, weighing in at between 210 and 250, depending on how I have it configured. The tent sets up in under 1 […]
  
• 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. […]
  
• 2.6 K2 tent camper prototype lessons learned

  There were a lot of things I liked this tent camper prototype, but it STILL did not meet my vision for a super light, fully functional camper. Among the pros: It hit all the marks for set up speed, cargo access and bed storage. The cons: The 82 x 48 footprint just took up too […]
  
• 2.4 Kampereen K2 Tent Trailer Field Test

  Sometime around mid October 2020 I finished the K2 and it was time for the first tent trailer field test for this design. There was a lot I liked about this camper. To begin with, setup was super fast and easy. After removing the soft top, all I had to do was flip up the […]
  
• Offroad Camper Towing Test

  The places I like to camp are better suited to an offroad camper than a pavement-only trailer. It’s gotta be remote, it’s gotta be quiet, it’s gotta be the hell away from leaf blowers, air conditioning units, pool heaters, pool pumps, trucks with train horns, bikes with straight pipes, cars with no pipes, construction, air […]
  
• 2.3 Kampereen Tent Camper Frame Build

  The K2 tent camper offered me many new learning opportunities. Many, many. First, I knew the idea of this popup camper was going to be too long to go without some kind of support under the base of the cargo box. The footprint of the camper would equal the sleeping area and the sleeping area […]
  
• Tent Camper Road Test

  This is a short video showing the first Kampereen K3 tent camper road test. It’s always an anxious moment when I take a new design out for the first time to see if it will behave well at speed. The first tow is done with an empty camper. Weight seems to hide some handling problems […]
  
• DIY camper wheel well tips

  One of the biggest unknowns to me in designing a camper was the suspension. In particular, I’ve never been quite sure how tall to build the camper wheel wells. Since they occupy room inside the camper, I wanted to keep them as short as possible. Usually I followed a conservative path by making the wells […]
  
• 2.2 K2 folding teardrop camper prototype demo

  When developing this folding teardrop camper prototype, I shot a quick phone video to show a friend how the fold/unfold action worked. I was handling this carefully because the plastic was held to the sides with thumbtacks and it wasn’t hard to pull through the material or pop a tack. Self-opening pop up teardrop camper […]
  
• 2.1 K2: The folding teardrop design

  The idea for my next camper design came while I was sitting in camp, enjoying an afternoon with K1. I was intent on finding a way to overcome some of the limitations of the first prototype but the inability to do my own sewing was proving to be a big stumbling block. Every design I […]
  
• Corner clamps

  Many of my first building projects were cabinet-type constructions that required square corners. I struggled with this for a long time until I finally invested in some specialized braces and clamps. Not only did this improve the quality of my work, it also cut my setup time by more than half; not to mention the […]
  
• 1.3 K1 tent camper design lessons learned

  Okay, let’s review the stated original goals for the camper and how this current tent camper design measured up: Light weight. Check. Safe towing dimensions. Check. Decent cargo capacity. Yes. Roadworthy. Yes. Fast, easy setup. Eh. Standing area for easy ingress/dressing. No. Easy access to cargo. No. I had a decent, working pop up camper […]
  
• 1.2 A Usable Motorcycle Camper

  It took me about a year and a half to get from the start of Prototype Zero to the finish of Prototype One. What I got in the end was a usable motorcycle camper. The cargo box kept the same footprint as the old camper so I could reuse the tent, but it was more […]
  
• 1.1 Progress on Prototype Tent Camper

  After settling into our new place and spending about six months building out garage cabinets, I started looking again at the Kampereen prototype tent camper. I wanted to get this thing done. Requirement #1: Whatever I did would need to fit the footprint of the tent because I didn’t want to drop another $600 on […]
  
• 0.4 Final analysis of Camper Prototype Zero

  Maybe “camper prototype post mortem” is a better term. When I got the box done, I needed a frame and a tent. The frame on this prototype was done with electrical conduit. I didn’t like the outcome and I went through a few yards of tubing trying to get good bends for the corners using […]
  
• 0.3 Just a few tent trailer”must haves”

  Where to start on this tent trailer thing? After Rod dropped that PVC form on my desk, I really started thinking about this project. Over a week or two I’d roughed out some sketches of the camper I wanted to build and had some tentative dimensions in mind but nothing concrete. This was going to […]
  
• 0.2 Designing a DIY motorcycle camper

  So the first thing I learned about designing and prototyping a DIY motorcycle camper (I already knew this instinctively, but hadn’t experienced it firsthand), the first thing I learned is that you follow a lot of paths that lead to a lot of dead ends. Some quickly. Others, you follow for a long time, enduring […]
  
• 0.1 Tent Camper DIY: How it all starts

  This whole tent camper DIY journey started when a buddy of mine, a master carpenter, walked into my office one afternoon and tossed something on my desk. Two pieces of what felt like plastic, joined together at a right angle tumbled in front of me. “What’s this? A new puzzle?,” I asked as I picked […]