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Teardrop Thoughts...

January 3, 1999

Well, the time had finally come. I had done all sorts of research on teardrops, visited with quite a few teardrop owners and even gone to The Fourth Dam Gathering of The Tears. I had an idea of the type of teardrop that I wanted to build, but the problem was, there were no plans that fit my personal ideas of my "ideal teardrop." What to do?

Of course, I did the only thing that I could do . . . I sat down and drew up my own plans. I make it sound quite easy, don't I? Well, it was difficult and it wasn't . . . I knew what type of features that I wanted, so the first decision was, what dimensions? Actually, this proved not that hard to decide. First of all, I knew that I wanted to be able to have a queen size bed [ a queen mattress measures 60" X 72"], so that automatically put the inside width at 60". I wanted a closet across the front 12" deep for hanging clothes. I already had a stainless steel sink that I had been saving for the trailer and it measured 13" X 16". I planned to use it lengthwise to save precious counter top width.

Adding all of this together gave me a length of 100" or 8"4". I decided to add an additional 12" to mount a water tank and deep cycle batteries. This brought the length to 9"4". Knowing the approximate length and width, I began to clean out the garage. I made a space in the center of the garage and swept it clean. Using chalk, I drew out a series of 1' squares, measuring 12' long X 6' wide. This gave me a good idea of what size the trailer would actually be. Knowing that I wanted to use 15" tires and rims, so that I could use the spare from the tow vehicle, I measured the tires on my van and added their measurements, giving me an approximate width of 7'.

Having two son in laws, one at 6'3" and one at 6'4" that would undoubtedly want to borrow the trailer in the future, I enlisted one of them to help me determine the inside length. We actually laid down on the floor, side by side to get an idea of how much room we would have. We ended up allocating 6'7" to the sleeping area, bringing the length to 9'7". I decided that I wanted a full 4' from floor to ceiling. This would give just a little more headroom for the taller members in the family and make the chore of getting dressed a wee bit easier . . . Combined with the already generous width and length, this should give a "feeling" of spaciousness not normally found in the typical teardrop.

Having looked at many teardrops, I had a pretty good idea of the profile that I wanted. I have always liked the profile of the Modernistic trailer. It has a rounded front end, and a rounded rear end. The rear end appearance is sometimes said to have a "rolled" pan. I wanted my trailer to have a "true" elliptical shape. In order to accomplish this, I decided to drop the body sides 6" below the floor to hide the frame rails. Sitting down and playing with pencil, paper and compass, I came up with the shape that I wanted. In order obtain the floor length that I wanted and to clear the counter in the galley area, I had to lengthen the body at either end. The final length came out to 11'. Quite long by teardrop standards, but with the width of 5', body height of 4'6", the trailer has graceful lines. The final measurements came to 5'W X 4"6"H X 11'L.

To be continued...

Please return often and share my teardrop construction journey...

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