Mechanix Illustrated Teardrop, in 1/14 scale.

[frizzen]

Hi, i'm a noob.

I like playing with remote control vehicles. I'm kinda into 1/10 scale rock crawlers, but more importantly i'm really into 1/14 scale model Trucking and Construction Equipment.







There's more in the world than Semi trucks, dumptrucks, excavators, bulldozers, loaders, draglines, tractors, combines...

So i built up a Bay-window 1967-71 Volkswagen Type-2 Transporter, from a german toy car. It came with surf boards, and a roof rack for them. But I'm in Indiana, what good is a surfboard? Around here it's just an excuse to find girl in bikinis.


It got bike racks added, lights wired up, more suspension travel, and some other custom touches.



Then i searched around the house for some scale accessories, and apparently it was time to set up camp?

And hit up the next meet with my log cabin and tent.


Anyway, at one of the meets, my dump truck smoked a steering servo. It was disappointing since i had really wanted to practice backing up a trailer around their loading docks and stuff.
Of my cars, the VW bus is most likely to pull a trailer, so it's gotta be really light. Maybe a baby Utility trailer, motorcycle hauler, or a Teardrop camper.

After much searching, I found a link to a 1947 Sept 'Mechanix Illustrated' pdf, "Teardrop trailer for two."
http://www.samstoybox.com/teardrop/trailer_for_two.pdf

Little quick math, playing with a xerox to get scaled patterns, and off to the garage. Grabbed some scrap luan that i've saved for "something" for years. Then this fell off the table of my scrollsaw.



Started sticking some 1/8" brass together, I ran out.


Quick mock up


Better make interior cabinets


Go grab the VW, i want to see how it looks


How about we cut a window shutter, then grab some bamboo skewers, and sewing pins. Razor blade, file, little bit of glue... Oh yeah, and let's see how it looks with an aluminum full-moon hupcap from a Monster can lid.



Push the window in at the top, it pivots open and it holds open for ventilation without a prop rod. Push it closed and the inner sill stops it flush.

[frizzen]

Gotta have a door on the stuff falls out.


Open!


Scratchbuilt brass hinges, Trim is again all bamboo skewer. The inside trim keeps door from closing too much, and will give the latch a good strike plate.



Let's pose some more stuff. I mean go camping again!


Then somebody sidetracked me into building an old style camp chair. Bamboo, straight pins, and a trash umbrella

"Hey, why haven't you done anything with this for months?"

Interior lights wired up



Wheels have brass bushings over axle, trailing arms are same size bushings, so everything can spin seperate. Springy thing out of a clicky pen. Still prototype phase, need down stops.


Looks about right, maybe a touch tall. Opened the bottom of the hitch coupler ball-end up to 5/32" for a light push fit instead of the hard snap.


I just threw some brass together to make a drawbar on the bus with minimal other mods.


Added some closet doors so they can use the nose storage closet

Entry step on the frame


I've got the amber markers, red markers, and tail lights / dome and porch lights mostly wired up. They'll run off a battery pack in the galley with switches. Galley probably won't be super awesome, because it's ment for RC not just a model so i care more about lights!

Which pretty much brings you up to speed, or atleast 1/14 of speed.

[DaddyJeep]

A grown man playing with toy cars and dolls.... I'm ok with that. I really like that Jeep FC motorhome.

Daddyjeep jr.jpg (94.05 KiB) Viewed 5583 times

Rock Rod.jpg (105.28 KiB) Viewed 5583 times

[razorback]

In the fall of 04, before I knew about this forum, I found the plans from Kuffle Creek for what they call the Comet. It is based on "a trailer for two" from Mechanix Illustrated.
I modified it to be 5 X 10 instead of of 4 X 10. Needless to say I love the profile. You have great skills.
Larry

[DWT77]

Here are a couple of RC and Teardrops I had found

https://youtu.be/y49iIbRsh7Q

https://youtu.be/q99w6SmmBiE

[KCStudly]

Pretty cool.

[frizzen]

Nice tubers! Although your 'doll' is taller than the roll cage. Axial based? I've got an ax-10 old comp from when DIGs were legal, and scx-10 trying to mini-me my jeep. All the local crawlers gave up on the forums and went off to 'myface' to plan events, so they havent been out in a long time

The 'jeep fc' motorhome is actually a 1960s Structo Chevy Greenbriar Rampside Corvair truck motorhome. My dad got it new. It might be fun to go rc with it eventually, but there are a lot of builds ahead in the line.

Thank you very much, i hoped a Tiny Teardrop build would fit in around here. While looking for ideas on here, I'd seen several people mention looking for scale models, or wanting to make a tiny version.

Nice find on the videos, those are cool looking. I'm not planning to subject my tear to nearly that much offroad abuse, it's just a little on-road one with an appropriately under-powered tow vehicle.

Thanks everybody, all feedback is welcome. Especially if it's correcting something that doesn't make sence or work well on real ones.

--


----
This is more like the type of use this one should see.
https://youtu.be/PNspzv7ZRys
https://youtu.be/tUJ1WP-lflU
https://youtu.be/YtjZv70wKqA

[DaddyJeep]

Nice tubers! Although your 'doll' is taller than the roll cage. Axial based? I've got an ax-10 old comp from when DIGs were legal, and scx-10 trying to mini-me my jeep. All the local crawlers gave up on the forums and went off to 'myface' to plan events, so they havent been out in a long time

The Jeep is Wraith based and is the mini me of my Jeep. Although the tires are not quite scale the performance is quite close. I built the suspension to be very scale accurate to the 1:1. The Rock Rod started life as a Redcat Everest, but has more Axial parts that Redcat parts now.

[frizzen]

I wanted to have the roof on by now for the next meet at Lebanon IN 'back to the 50s fest' Sept 14-15, but i didnt get the interior pics printed and scaled. I'd rather wait on roof than decorate ship-in-a-bottle style.

Let's save that disappointment some and grab a 2 cell battery holder, 2 switches, 3 resistors so we finally have the lighting work self-contained... uh, i mean it can go boondocking without shore power.

Running lights.


Dome and porch lights.


Mount the door handle with latch. It swings fwd / up to unlatch


No electrical connection to tow vehicle, little more weight over axle, and seems to track a little better

Hope ya like it.

---
Wrong pic size, you need L not H

[frizzen]

Got to take it out and test it a little more.

[frizzen]

Ya know when you make something months ago, then too much life happens to even take pics...



Should atleast be more comfortable now

[pchast]

Nice!

[frizzen]

Thanks.

If i'm going to go out towing this on any more "public roads", i better add in some more safety before the police notice and want to discuss things... (i built an AMC Matador police car somewhere along the way)




A jewlery thing (necklace spacer?), and some chain.

Now there's a magnet on bottom of the hitch drawbar. Snap the hitch together, stick the chains up and adjust slack. If i used 2 smaller weaker magnets i could do the chain cross better.

Be safe out there, and watch your speed

[rjgimp]

That's freaking awesome. lol

[frizzen]

I'd forgotten to come over here to say Merry Christmas when i got a production Tiny Trailer.


Had another RC meet in Jan/Feb, got parked next to a Tonka Winnebago. Campground was noisy, lots of trucks and construction going on.


Then i finally got a printer so i 'could probably' stop procrastinating and get some pics on the walls and actually get a roof on here. Yeah, it'd sure be nice if i finally do that... freaking slacker.