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Pinewood Derby

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martx-5

martx-5

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When my son was in the Cub Scouts years ago (he's 27 now) he had enterd into the Pinewood Derby where the kids build a car (with some help from dad), send it down a chute and see who gets to the end first. A lot of elimiation rounds.

Well, I had my son over today (remember he's 27 now), helping me clean out a spare bedroom so my wife can set up a treadmill for excercise.

We came across all of his Pinewood Derby entrants. I had saved them. Two were pretty generic, but one was different.

Yes, I helped him out with the design, but he did all of the work, except for the windshield.
 
Wayyyyyy cool! TR2, or small mouth TR3? the headlight pods stick out a bit, that's why I guess that way. hehehehe
None of mine were ever that cool.
 
That's Awsesome. I forgot about those days. My sone has since gotten out of the BS but here is what we ran in the adult division.
He actually did pretty good and we went on the the state semis. He cut the car on my bandsaw, sanded and painted the car all by himeself without any help and he was only 7. I added the wheels and weights and he was off and running.
This was a few years ago and we've since retired the car.

PinewoodDerby.jpg

PinewoodDerby003.jpg

PinewoodDerby002.jpg
 
Oh, alright, you are gonna make me drag out our pinewood derby cars. These are about 20 years old and much the worse for wear.

Oh course I did most of the work.

A little well-kept secret in winning the race: Lengthen the wheelbase of your car as far as you can, simply by cutting new slots for the nail/axles both forward and aft. You can run a solid block of pine right out of the box and beat the tar of everybody.

I found this secret out after we built our cars.

derby.jpg
 
We were not allowed modify that portion of the car. The only thing we were allowed to do was work on the axles which are basically nails. I chucked them up in my cordless and ran then at high speed with 600 grit paper and oil and then lubed them up with powdered Graphite. Installed with Epoxy and trued them to make sure the car would run straight. I also shved the wheels a wee bit to smooth out the molding marks and polished them on a buffing wheels.
I dig seeing these old Pinewood cars as it's kinda like looking at barn finds.
 
vping said:
We were not allowed modify that portion of the car. The only thing we were allowed to do was work on the axles which are basically nails. I chucked them up in my cordless and ran then at high speed with 600 grit paper and oil and then lubed them up with powdered Graphite. Installed with Epoxy and trued them to make sure the car would run straight. I also shved the wheels a wee bit to smooth out the molding marks and polished them on a buffing wheels.
I dig seeing these old Pinewood cars as it's kinda like looking at barn finds.
Click to expand...

/bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/iagree.gif We weren't allowed those mods either! One trick my sons and I discovered was to turn the block around (front to back) so that the front overhang was greater and the weight was greater on the rear axles! I am going to have to dig around and see if I can come up with a couple my boys built, I know they are stored around here somewhere!! /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/thumbsup.gif
 
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