Self-Build Overland Camper Shells and Components
This is the Big Day. We brought the camper out of the basement and mounted it on the truck for the first time. Fit-up was perfect and I couldn’t be happier. We’ll finish up the last of the interior details and then share a few inside pictures.
Overall dimensions are 16.5′ x 7′ x 7′. Production models will be semi-custom to fit your truck and flatbed dimensions. Door and window placement will also be up to the customer.
The camper is structurally complete. We’re putting the finishing touches on the camper now – just a bit more sealant then windows and doors.
Here’s a bit more detail of the steps I glossed over last time.
I’ll show more details later but just wanted to show everyone that we’ve made some nice progress.
Progress slowed down for a bit because we’ve been moving to the Palouse wheat country of Washington State but we’ve reached a major milestone!
We got the wall panels up and now it’s starting to look like a camper.
We’ve finished the first pass cutting panels and glued up the first piece.
We’ve started to cut out the panels for the first T-Shell camper. A CNC router table is on my wish list but we’ll be cutting them manually for now.
Production has begun! Well, we have panels for the prototype.
Keep an eye out for updates as we proceed to take this from CAD to reality.
I had been aware of the growing camper van scene but finally took a look up close at one last summer. I saw a gentleman in Walla Walla loading up his Sprinter and asked if he minded if I looked a bit closer. We talked for a while and he referred to the van he started with as a “shell”. I’m sure he put a lot of thought into the choice at the time but I was struck by how little emphasis he put on it compared to the all he had done to fit it out. The ready availability of cargo vans has opened up all kinds of possibilities to hands-on types that would never consider building a vehicle from scratch.
I’m more of a 4×4 truck guy and I realized there just isn’t an equivalent starting point for us. You can buy a finished RV, commission a custom expedition rig, or build your own from the chassis up. There is very little available if you want a dried-in box that that you can outfit to your own vision.
It may turn out to be a very small niche, but T-Shell aims to fill that gap. We will simply build ready to mount overland camper shells. I’ll get into the design in a future post but the goal is to use top grade materials and construction methods, handle off-road abuse, minimize weight, and be intrinsically insulated.
Easy, right?
