2.1 K2: The folding teardrop design

The idea for my next camper design came while I was sitting in camp, enjoying an afternoon with K1. I was intent on finding a way to overcome some of the limitations of the first prototype but the inability to do my own sewing was proving to be a big stumbling block. Every design I thought of required some type of tent work and I just didn’t want to drop big coin on another prototype that might not work out.

There had to be some kind of design that would work for a small camper that didn’t require a lot of tent. I realized that if I were able to make all the camper parts rigid except for the roof, that would leave me to deal with just one piece of soft material for which no sewing would be required.

I was trying to come up with something as simple as the original Time Out Slipstream which was an older solo camper design. (Sadly, the Slipstream’s fiberglass molds were destroyed in a fire and it’s no longer made.) Hmmmmm. Thinking more about the Slipstream, I got a new idea. Maybe if I made the sides fold over on one another…kind of like a folding teardrop design. That could be really cool, and work really well.

I got pretty excited about this idea. A design like that could be set up in seconds and would not require any heavy lifting. I could separate the bed from the cargo area. Hell, you could even set up the tent completely and still move the camper around.

I felt like this camper was going to be large enough to require a frame for support underneath. I don’t mind building a camper that spans a couple of feet, but I could see this one being a little wider and definitely longer than the first camper. A one-off frame isn’t cheap, so I guess I ended up spending the same $$$ on this design in outside work as I did on the first prototype, just in a different way.

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