New Steel Frame Teardrop Construction

[Keith]

I am posting these pictures of John's construction of his teardrop trailer. John tried a different method of constructing his steel frame sides. If you've seen our pictures of our previous pictures you know that we have used a ring roller to bend the steel and then weld the pieces together to form the sides. John cut screwed two sheets of 1/2" mdf together and then cut out a full size template of his shape including cut outs for his upright supports. He then screwed the entire pattern down to a third sheet of mdf to hold it into place. He welded to twenty foot pieces of 1" round .065 steel together and then started bending it around the pattern. The photos explain it better than I can. The steel was clamped into place as it was formed. The steel bent around the pattern without creasing. This method was quick and the sides came out identical.

John bent up four outer sides total. His plan is to use the round tube for the sides and weld the aluminum top and sides together forming a rounded corner. In several of the photos you can see a test form that he made up. He also bent up two sides with square tubing to butt splice them if the round tubing doesn't come out the way he wants.

John is planning on having the trailer welded together and skinned before the Dam Gathering in May.

Here is the link to his photos. Unfortunately I just switched over the sbcglobal and haven't figured out how to post directly out of the album yet.

http://new.photos.yahoo.com/[email protected]/album/576460762393022011

Keith

[Laredo]

Is that an Ambassador wagon? Will it be a tow vehicle?

[Keith]

No it's John's 67 Chevelle four door wagon. It has already been a tow vehicle. He used it last year on several trips.

Keith