Teardrop.ZA

[wrm]

So I bought an axle and designed a chassis and got a friend who welds to weld a bunch of 50mm square tubing together, towed it home, got my Malawian buddy to paint it all, chopped up three sheets of 1220 x 2440 shutterboard (inexpensive ply, the only other type available here is d*mn expensive ply), made a floor...





The floor is 1480 wide, which means I had to use three shutterboards. I joined two of the offcuts to two more sheets using a routed groove and hardboard, feathering I think you call it? Then drew out the four quarter ellipses, screwed the two panels together, jigsawed the curves, and got my Malawian buddy to belt sand things square.



I might end up using these lights, I bought them as spares for the 1955 Series One I used to have.



That's all for now... If you don't see me I'm out there screwing a teardrop together :-)

(And QCAD rocks)

[stevegsmith]

Nice Landy!

[Junkboy999]

Great looking frame and a nice old land rover. I love to have one of those. ZA ? is that
South Africa? I bet it is toasty over there. And I complain about the heat here in Kansas.

Keep up the good work

Terry
Junkboy999

[wrm]

The Rand-Lover is a 1959. Rebuilding it was a previous project. Took the whole thing apart, galvanised the chassis, built it up. Been as far north as Lusaka.

Then things happened, ended up with kids :-) so now I'm doing things a little differently.

Although I still have a Forward Control that needs converting to a camper.

.za is on the other side of the world, means it's winter here. Had snow this year in places which don't often get snow. But Cape Town is relatively moderate, it's only dipped to below 4 C one night so far -- you get ice on the windshield when that happens. That's cold for us, since we don't build with double glazing or central heating.

So I'm not too stressed with insulation, but I am worried about waterproofing. It tends to rain for days at a time this time of year.

[Forrest747]

I do believe this chap is down your way.
http://www.tnttt.com/memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=4787

[wrm]

Indeed he is (well, it's about a thousand miles, but yea, just up the road :-)

Very interesting build he has too.

I have yet another project, which is a Puma -- a glassfibre body on a shortened VW chassis. So I'm familiar with glassfibre. Didn't think of using it on this build but now I have a few new ideas to ponder :-)

[wrm]

Slow day at work so here's an update.



Inside space being critically evaluated (note second opinion sitting off to the side).




Clamped a piece of ply to the side (should have done this before putting the sides on maybe?



Routed it out. I love my powertools!



One...



Two...



Four!

[bgordon]

Hi WRM,

Welcome to the madness of teardrop building! As far as I could gather there is no more than about ten teardrops in South Africa. Yours should be one of the first of the double digits.

Anyway, enjoy the building process! It is good to see more people in South Africa are waking up to teardropping.

Kind regards,

[Shadow Catcher]

I will also extend a welcome
I will also say that I love to see pictures from other (than the USA) countries, so please share with us.

[wrm]

As far as I could gather there is no more than about ten teardrops in South Africa.

That many? I have yet to see one in the wild over here.

The only teardrop I've seen on the road was on El Camino Bignum in California, last year about this time.

Edit: This fellow, being towed behind a Toyota Camry or some such. Google images tells me it's probably a SoCal Teardrops rental.

[wrm]

(Slow day at work)

I saw the pics here and realised a transparent roof would be cool. Polycarb is available in 3050 x 2050 mm sheets, when I phoned they said the thinnest is 3mm, and that was bugging me because of the bending radius.

So I changed the oil in the Rand Lover (which has a roof rack) and bled the brakes and schlepped it over the mountain to Maizeys, where I not only got 2mm poly sheeting, but they rolled it up so tightly I could have fit it in the faithful family sedan. Ah well. Rand Lover needed an outing anyway.

3050 cut down the middle is of course half a blade less than 1525, and since my floor is 1480 and the sides are 18 ea, there should be just enough left to trim with the router.

Anybody know what kind of glue I can use to (1) bond polycarb to wood and (2) provide a bit of fill? I'm planning on using stainless self tappers, maybe with washers? 4" spacing sound about right?

And yea, I'm aware this thing might turn out to be an oven. I can always paint it white :-)

[bobhenry]

My lexan roof is 1/8+ " thick and I took several days with 3 heavy ratchet straps on a few 90 degree plus days and slowly formed the curve. No snap crackle or pops

As to "glue"of choice mine was 100% silicone. I did use plastic rosettes over an oversize drilled hole to screw down the lexan.

You are right it is a greenhouse in hot weather but a reflective space blanket on the roof or a first up type gazebo as a sun shade will help reduce the solar gain.

There is nothing like lying in bed late at night and studying the stars and watching the moon play on the cabin walls.

This was my first and there was not a lot of documentation but here is a link.....

http://www.tnttt.com/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=18699

[grizz]

Great to see another boertjie on here.

Look lower down to see my build that I did here in the UK.

Rian.

[wrm]

OK, so I've been somewhat busy, on the trailer and other things. Not going to post all the intermediate pics (it'll go on my website sometime) but this is from this morning. I have a door (that was fun to trim) and a roof (the 2mm polycarb bent easily) and still have to make the lights work.



Leaving for Etosha on Saturday. If it wasn't for the last moment I'd never get anything done.

[wrm]

So the teardrop survived the 4220 km round trip to Okaukuejo and back. Diesel consumption was 7.9 l/100km, which is about 1.5 l/100km more than without a trailer. Total fuel cost for the trip should be under R 4000, since fuel is cheaper in Namibia, even though it's trucked there from here -- we have more tax.



The road looks like this. Straight as an arrow for miles on end.



Here we are at one of the overnight stops (this one in Okahandja).



The waterhole at Okaukuejo. Yes, those are wild heffalumps. Magic. We saw seven rhino at this waterhole _at the same time_. Recommended, even if their food is crappy.