Pinewood derby

[snappy]

Been working on pinewwod derby cars with the boys today. Drag car is mine, we are doing on that looks like monster mutt for the youngest(Im doing alot for him, he's not a scout yet). We have 8 tiger cubs coming to the house tomorrow to start there's as a den. This should be an adventure for shure!


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[J.C.]

Start soaking your axles and wheels in a baggie of graphite powder

 

[MarsFab]

Looks good snappy. I got some lead if you wanna melt it down and pour it inside for weight!

 

[Chris_Keziah]

I remember these, I know a few ways to make them unbeatable from when me and my dad worked on these.

 

[snappy]

Thanks Chris, but they want us to refrain from using lead these days. I have some tungsten we are gonna use. JC i will do that after we polish the surface, true the inner ride surface and axle hole. Then we start polishing the axles themselves....

 

[Chris_Keziah]

I'm not sure how the rules are now. But the last one we made we cut all the axles down a little bit and polished them. Then completely polish all the wheels and made the contact area on the outside edge instead of the whole thing. Then the trick that really worked great was to groove out a channel on the inside circumference of the wheels. This basically makes it to where it rides on graphite and not the plastic wheels. That and if you have a level table make it where it will only ride on three wheels. Probably have changed the rules by now because we bent them in everyway possible, our troop was very competitve.

 

[snappy]

We are going basic, I have 2 boys have single mothers so we are doing our cars this year as a den. I am going to smooth the wheels and polish the shafts very basic. These are all first years boys and want to teach them right is right and to just try there best.... No stepping into the grey areas yet!!

 

[rattlecanpaint]

We just had our race Saturday. Mine (My son's but I did most of the work since he's only 7 and I'm not ready to give him a knife sharp enough to carve wood yet) did OK. We did not polish the axles or anything. Did the 3 wheel thing (which I heard the guy doing the tech inspection mention to a father). I also had a bit of negative camber on the wheels so only the inner edge was touching the track. We placed 10th out of 17 cars in his den. If you want to be competitive you HAVE to polish the axles etc. I've also read about chucking the axle in a drill and using a small file or something to hollow out the nail head so you just have the outer edge touching the wheel. It gets pretty extreme what people do to win.

Had some really inventive cars too. One looked like a piano, one was the truck from "Raiders of The Lost Ark" complete with Lego Indy on the front bumper and cloth top over the back end with the crate with the Ark of the Covenant in it (tons of work in that one and relatively competitive too), one was a Monster Energy pickup truck complete with fenders, one had little dowels stuck in the top to look like Legos, (lots of work on that one too). The outlaw class (Where there are no rules) had one with a trailer ball hot glued to the top of the block and a UNC Truck with lag bolts in it. Top time was 2.67 seconds for the outlaw class. Top time for the legal cars was 3.169.

Have fun!

 

[WARRIORWELDING]

these things are great, my best memory was the fact that my dad was involved. we went to the regionals and then got spanked, not to bad since me or dad knew a thing about em.

Later in Middle School we built CO2 powered cars. I was way more involved in "rule pushing". I remember having to add more paint to get back legal again. Made about the same progress regionals then spanked.

Snappy you seem very well rounded in your community endevors. KIds more than ever need good leaders.

 

[Jman78CJ7]

I remember these days with my dad. First year we ever did it just built a cool looking car that i liked. Got spanked and you could say we got bit by the bug. After that it was all about making it go faster. Went to district twice and did fair.
We use to go up to the post office and use their digital scales to get the weight just right before "tech inspection".
I have also seen some dads who got way too far into it and wouldnt let their sons carry "their" own car.
Good luck and have fun with it.

 

[ManglerYJ]

I remember building my first Pinewood Derby car. I cut the body into a wedge shape and poinded two nails in for headlights (big framing nails if I recall). The nails put me (luckily) just under the weight limit and it put all the weight at the front. I had done this before my dad realized it - and he was a bit pissed because he wanted to work with me on it since he was an engineer for General Motors. He took one look at the "design" and honestly didn't think it would work very well. He chucked up the wheels into his drill and polished them and we put graphite on the shafts. As it turned out, I won every race that year. I painted it black and gold and called it "The Wedge".

Now, my oldest brother is a Scout leader and they did their Derbty last year, his son made his into the shape of a box of Sugar Babies (with complete replica decals). It was called "Sugar Rush". He didn't win any speed comps, but he took home a trophy for creativity.

 

[hadfield4wd]

You definately need to polish the axles. Get the max weight you can. Put the weight towards the rear. When it's all together put the graphite powder on and run it back and forth on the table for hours. Get it smooth and fast.

 

[technologyteacher]

Lemon Pledge on the axles

 

[nctom]

Being an Eagle Scout, I give you huge props for helping out the kids in scouting! Especially those with single moms. I am sure none of these single mothers were attractive? Right?

 

[85hinuff]

I used to teach RA's (Royal Ambassadors) Kinda like boy scouts, and we had a pinewood derby. The boys decided to make it into a car show instead of a race event. We had a good time and a real good showing. Here is the one that I made.

 

[LBZ_Duramax]

I raced for several years and the last year we had a problem on the final coat of paint and ruined the car. I brought out the first one I built (didn't touch anything on it) and won all the way to regionals. Not the slightest bit of graphite on the axles after 4 yrs in a closet and did great. Now that i think of it, the first time I raced the car I was almost dead last.

 

[f i s h]

these things are great, my best memory was the fact that my dad was involved. we went to the regionals and then got spanked, not to bad since me or dad knew a thing about em.
Later in Middle School we built CO2 powered cars. I was way more involved in "rule pushing". I remember having to add more paint to get back legal again. Made about the same progress regionals then spanked.
Snappy you seem very well rounded in your community endevors. KIds more than ever need good leaders.

I made those CO2 cars when I came through middle school. Won school, lost regionals but got to state and WON!! At the Nationals in Baton Rouge my car bumped the edge of the track and splintered into a 1000 pieces. Good times, My son is in scouts now but I always enjoyed the Pinewood Derby. Get the troop to have a Fathers Race it will take the "need" for Dads to "help" so much on the boys cars and create some competition too.

 

[snappy]

Well 8 cars cut out and we still have all 90 fingers!!! And yes the den leaders are building cars and we are going to have a siblings class also(we have a young lady,age 4 that comes with brother every week thats building a pink one, and Austin or 4 year, I mean myself, is doing a monster mutt with lego driver!)

Will post a few picks next week as we are starting the painting and final sanding on 2 of 4 here at the house....

 

[WARRIORWELDING]

I made those CO2 cars when I came through middle school. Won school, lost regionals but got to state and WON!! At the Nationals in Baton Rouge my car bumped the edge of the track and splintered into a 1000 pieces.

I kept mine along with the derby cars. A kid in school built his Co2 car with no structure at all. They hit the trigger the car move five feet and we heard a clink at the end of the gym. The cylinder had bounced off the far wall!

Snappy post em pics I wanna see the fun. I ready to dig out mine again, makes me regret not getting my son in scouts.

 

[snappy]

Here they are, still alot of work to do. The monster mutt will be getting red felt tounge, black felt ears and a pipe cleaner tail!


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[Gmachine]

We had a 3D cup body on file at work that for making scaled models for wind tunnel testing. A guy stretched the scale to fit the wheel base. That was years ago when the cup teams outsourced some of there stuff. I think it did pretty well. We all laughed because we knew how valuable that file was & to used it on a pine car was funny.

 

[Your Hot Dog Guy!]

Looks good Snappy! Call me about those tickets.

 

[snappy]

Need help fast guys... What takes graphite off the cars?? I have 2 red cars that are now silverish

 

[Jason W.]

Brake cleaner, takes everything off anything!

 

[Black Bear]

more paint?