Hi Guys I have been lurking here for a while and reading as much of the archive as I can because I have wanted to build a teardrop for a long time and now the time has come to actually do the deed and I have begun by building my chassis/
First thigh a bit of my background I have built my own Lotus seven type sports car https://iainseven.wordpress.com/ so I am very familiar with tubular space frames so it occurred to me that a teardrop is an ideal candidate for the use of a space frame in its construction if you can roll the tube into appropriate arcs To this end I am making a tube roller which I expect to be fully functional by the end of the week.
The plan is to have something that is tow-able by my daily driver (a fwd Nissan) and the vintage Morris I am building so I want to keep the weight down and the traditional construction methods seem to result in rather heavy Tears
No I will see If I can post some pictures
The plan is to partially recess wheels into the body because I want to make the internal space to be wide enough for a double bed but keep the overall width down do that I won't need any special mirrors for the cars.
The profile I am going for will be something like the very earliest designs from the 1947 Mecanix trailer for two but shortened by two feet so that standard 8 x4 sheets of 3mm ply can be used for lining and cladding The plan is to put a layer of fiberglass cloth and epoxy on the outside so that the wood grain of the ply can be seen the wall cavities will be filled with polystyrene sheet for insulation and to support the ply/epoxy skin/lining. i live in Queensland Australia and we have a very mild climate most of the time so I don't need to go overboard with insulation to be comfortable.
The floor will probably be no more than 10mm ply with Polystyrene glued between the framing under it.
For wheels on mine I am using 1946 Morris 8 wheels and hubs which are 17" and take a 130/90 motorcycle tire
As if that is not enough It looks like I will me making two other space frames because My brother and his mate both want me to build ones for them The former will help me fix some rot on my house in exchange and the latter will be offering cold hard cash which will help offset the costs of my build My brother wants one to tow behind his new MGB and his mate has Morris Minor ute