Building on Lotus 7 principles

[KCStudly]

It's getting there, and looking good doing it!

[Iain Hall]

Thanks for the kind words KC

[Iain Hall]

We live in a warm climate so no teardrop should be built that is not well insulated and to that end I have been busy over the last couple of days fitting insulation to mine to save money and meet my personal commitment to reusing stuff that would otherwise be landfill I have recycled Broccoli boxes form my local fruit market which has probably saved me about $100 off the total build cost I still have a little left to do but those parts need the foam to be glued and held in place while the glue sets. That is my task for today along with putting the plywood on the inside of the hatch.

[MadMango]

Great job on the recycling!

[Iain Hall]

thanks MM discovered that an electric planer is great for making the foam the right thickness but it makes one hell of a mess!

[Iain Hall]

I have had to screw some pieces of ply onto the cross tubes to hold the foam in place while the glue sets


Now that I have finished the lining its actually really hard to photograph the interior



Its getting there and this week I will be ordering the aluminum for the skin fro the sides and the roof I plan to use .8mm and for the hatch I will use 1.25mm because I need the extra strength in the over hanging edges my plan is to rivet it all around the edges and the doorways making sure that the rivet spacing is equal and that they are in nice straight lines as I have done on my Locost Clubman.

[Iain Hall]

Got my aluminum at last but I am proceeding slowly to add the the skin

before I can cut the round openings for the windows I need to make sure I have the center of the window

By attaching two pieces of stainless angle to the bottom the sheet will stay in place while I trace the profile with a sharpie

With the outline marked its time to use tin sips to rough cut the outline

It took ages to mark out and drill holes for rivets


This gives a good idea of my shape / profile and this photo shows where my door opening is marked but as yet not cut my next task is to make some cuts around the door opening but that will not be fully cut out until the skin has been attached because I am concerned that the shin sheet will be too flimsy I fully cut it out before it has been glued and attached to the frame with rivets

[noseoil]

Iain, looking good now. Man, that's a lot of holes to drill. Hope you had a good supply of new bits, or a good sharpening system to use on the old ones.

I used a router with a 1/2" flush cut bit (12mm 2 flute cutter, pilot bearing on the bottom side) to trim my panels once they were attached. Rough-cut the side panel 2-3 mm too big, fasten in place & then trim to exact size once it's in place by shaving the excess material with the cutter. If you have a router it might make things easier, since you don't need to be as accurate in the initial cut & the match is a perfect fit once the panel is in place.

This is a wonderful build!

[Iain Hall]

Iain, looking good now. Man, that's a lot of holes to drill. Hope you had a good supply of new bits, or a good sharpening system to use on the old ones.

I used a router with a 1/2" flush cut bit (12mm 2 flute cutter, pilot bearing on the bottom side) to trim my panels once they were attached. Rough-cut the side panel 2-3 mm too big, fasten in place & then trim to exact size once it's in place by shaving the excess material with the cutter. If you have a router it might make things easier, since you don't need to be as accurate in the initial cut & the match is a perfect fit once the panel is in place.

This is a wonderful build!

Yeah man that is exactly what I plan to do and why I have rough cut the sheet with tin snips a little bit oversized I also plan to make the roof sheets over hang the sides by about a 1/4 inch and the tap then over to seal the join between the roof and the sides which should make it look neat.
As for the number of holes well I did many more when I built the car in my post signature because I did those at two inch centers but for this I'm doing them at 3 inch centers, that said though I have bought some really good quality drill bits and I won't be forcing them or over heating them either so they should last well enough

[MadMango]

...when I built the car in my post signature because I did those at two inch centers but for this I'm doing them at 3 inch centers...

I think that's almost as much work as sanding fiberglass resin smooth on plywood. Your build is going to look great!

[Iain Hall]

I think that's almost as much work as sanding fiberglass resin smooth on plywood. Your build is going to look great!

No its a LOT less work as I learned making the nose cone of my car which took me about 100 hours of sanding filling and sanding again!

[Iain Hall]

I have been busy working on skinning my creation and one thing that I did was to not fully cut out my door openings so that the sheeting would be less flimsy when I was attaching it because I don;t have the luxury of being able to have may tear on its side when I attach the skins

My trim rings are made out of small bicycle rims split in half and glued into the skin
The gap between the ring and the underlying piece of perspex will be filled with silicone and a window will be hinged with a stainless steel boat hinge and a simple prop at the bottom will secure it


The edge of the sheeting was cut large around the wheel well and tapped over the before the guard was fitted and sealed with grey silicone

the finished result on the RHS looks very good to me

Just finished the LHS and after trimming the edges of teh sheeting I will begin on the roof which will be cut about 15mm wider than the Tear drop so that when its secured to the frame the overhanging edge can be carefully tapped down to seal out any water incursion

[Iain Hall]

These pictures show that I have attached the first of the roof sheets to the front of the Tear and they also show how I have included a 5mm overhang on the sides. At present this sheet is held on with Tek screws but later today I expect to be gluing the sheet on and putting in all of the necessary rivets then I can do the next sheet. once they are fully riveted and glued the over hang will be carefully tapped down over a bead of glue to fully seal the corners the final thing will be to clean off any excess glue with mineral turps> My brother Peter was suggesting that I overlap the sheets where they join on the roof but I don't like that idea at all and I will instead do butt joins with lots of glue/ sealant

[Iain Hall]

Like cats there are many ways to skin a teardrop and I am well pleased to report that I have just riveted on the last piece of the skin on the body of my creation If you look closely at the pictures it can be seen how I turned the edge of the roof sheeting over the sides to seal them.
I am far less happy about the quality of riveters, between doing the sides and the roof I went out and bought a more expensive riveter and its bloody awful although the handles are longer than the cheepie I have it does not seem to have enough mechanical advantage to work properly, anyway despite this I have managed to complete the installation of the roof after struggling with about 400 rivets on the roof alone

[Iain Hall]

spent today working on the doors the one on the RHS is finished and fitted and the LHS is ready to hang first thing in the morning but I just had to share this picture which finally shows the look I have been pursuing . I really feel like I'm under the hammer here because My wife is booked to go to the Woodford folk festival and she wants to use the tear for that so I've literally only got a couple of days to have it in working order which will be a tough deadline