It's Pine Wood Derby time

This year we saluted the troops. Here's the new ride. I'll let you all know how well he runs on Saturday.

Great workmanship Kirk, you're teaching your grandson some great woodworking skills as well as to show respect for what others have and are doing on his behalf - and it doesn't hurt that he's building important memories with you.
My kids haven't even received their kits, so it's going to be a mad scramble for them to get everything done in time.

Very cool Kirk. Nothing escapes the Evans personalized and customized touch! I remember pinewood races when I was in cub scouts.Your Grandson will have great memories as well.

Great work Kirk

-G

Thanks guys---My grandson Alex picked the theme, did much of the finish work including putty filling and sanding the wood, sanding the primer, painting the cammo and doing some of the final assembly---even installing the wheels. Last year he was not able to help much--his turret ticks were very bad but this year he's much better---thank you God.

I did the cutting---tough to put your 8 year old on the ban saw and router. Helping him is the greatest joy of my life---just to see that smile. Here he is the first time seeing the base platform.

And no tank is worth a crap without cammo.

You need some flags

Couldn't put on tracks but we did install reactive side armor.

And no tank is worth it's fuel without a BIG GUN!

Kirk, Nice work. I learned that track set ups vary from one organization to another. Some keep the car tracking via a raised center section, others with gutters for the wheels and a third with side railings. Ou4r indian guides group used 3" tall side railing to separate the lanes and guide the cars.

One year I co-built a car with my son that had ball bearings mounted on the side of the car which would reduce friction when the car inevitably tracked to one side or the other. The larger exposed bearing was in a metal sleeve and rested on 18 smaller bearings permitting it to roll freely. We were confident of a victory. To our chagrin, the track had changed to gutter style and the metal sleeve holding the bearings dragged on the surface. Oh well, we had fun building it.

Good memories

JT

Wow, FANTASTIC life lessons, Good work!... Good Luck!!... Go Team Evans!!...

I love it!

I can't wait to help Ethan, my youngest. He's 3 years old, so this stuff is not too far away. He's not into cars (yet) but he loves legos.

In our case we weren't allowed to alter the wheels or axles in any way to every one was the same. So much for encouraging ingenuity.

Nice Job on that derby car.
This is my son's first year in scouts and me as well. I am thinking about carving up a Pantera, but it probably won't look as good.

We are still 2 months out from our competition.

This is my son's first year in scouts and me as well. I am thinking about carving up a Pantera, but it probably won't look as good.
.[/QUOTE]

OK---Here's the plan I used. Asked him to find a Matchbox he liked. Of course this has opened up a HUGE can of "That may not be the best choice buddy--how about another car" but I did open up the can. Here was his last years choice.

We took the picture to a copy shop and had it sized to the 7" length. Then added 3/8 of pine wood width to each side for fenders. Then we cut the different profiles (side and top) to draw the carving lines on the block---and the wood flew! Here is a different view of the finished car. I took some styling liberties but all in all it came out close and he loved it.

This year's Match-box caused some sweat beads.

Here's the base cut out. The problem started when we put it on the scale---it weight as much as a small dog---so the carving and real work started. Just take your time when you draw and carve and you'll be surprised how close the profile will look using the copy shop method.

The it took all day Saturday to trim and grind lightened version.

Carved out turret.

This was the real work---the undercarriage carving. I needed to make it weigh less than 2.5 grams so we could weight the car at the 75 rear 25 front balance.

Axle polishing.

Here she is again. Take you time and your Pantera will be fantastic---and the memory's will be priceless. Let me know if you need support--I have learned allot and he tested #1 every race but 1---and the car that beat him was overweight. Good luck.

Thank you all for the kind words. I can't begin to express how much I love my boy so this time---right now---is so precious.

Forgot to say we're doing a u-tube for the troops away from their sons who may be in scouts as a "We are here for you" salute.

Kirk,

Those look great! I built some pinewood derby cars with my kids for an Awana program at our church and had great fun doing it with them. Here's a sampling of ours...

Pantera?
What does the shape/silhouette of this one remind you of? Definitely looks like one of our favorite cars. My son drew the shape on the block, I did the rough shaping - showed him how to use a chop saw, and he did the rest. Won 3rd place for speed.





1933 Bugatti Type 59
This car won first place for style, but didn't make the finals for speed. My daughter did the final sanding and painting on this car.





1952 Ferrari 375 Indy
This car took 2nd place for speed. This was my other daughter's car and she did the final sanding and painting too.





The "New Love Bug"
My youngest daughter returned for a 2nd year of racing and wanted a "Love Bug." This car proved to be the FASTEST car at the races by a significant margin! True to it's 'Herbie' roots!




We glued up scrap pieces of a pine 2x4 on the top and sides of the derby block to get the shape she wanted, but didn't realize just how much more weight it would add. I ended up having to hog out most of the underside of the car to get the weight down within spec.


Definitely a LOT of fun. I helped my neighbor set up his son's pinewood derby car for Indian Guides - polished the axles, turned and smoothed the wheels, set the axles, etc. and he won 2nd place. Lots of fun for his whole troop!

Great work Garth---love the Bugatti---some of the best family fun you can have.

Alex raced today with mixed results. He ran 188 to 191++ scaled MPH winning 3 out of 6 races placing second in one. He derailed on lane 2/race 3 but still finished. Now it's the final race of the group---all eyes are on the track---count-down to launch---he we go on lane 2 again and yes---it derailed again---BUMMER!

The good news is he won best design and gets to go and compete in district. We all had a great time---Alex shed some tears when it derailed on the last race but we thrilled to win best design. All is good---thanks guys.

Kirk

Great looking Derby cars! A friend and I "helped" build this 2009 entry for his then 7 year old scout. After we roughed in the basic form, he completely finish sanded (and even helped paint) his green cruiser, complete with lots of big rear wing downforce, portholes, a moonroof, and even an antenna! He placed 3rd in speed, on the podium with a trophy, a happy scout.

For 2010 the downforce went to the front with his 8 year old choice of a dragster design in gold, resulting in another 3rd in speed, another trophy, and another happy scout. Great fun was had by all 3 of us, and planning is underway for this March's 2011 9 year old's entry, with hopes of moving up on that podium!

Cool! I really like that dragster! Very retro!

At the derby races one year, the winning car was a brick! The kid painted it red, put the wheels on and mounted some weights, and called it the brick - it took fastest car!

Tonight was the annual dad-son scouting cake making detail. Here was ours---got to use the pine tank again and the boys loved the dry ice barrel smoke---lots of smiles.

Kirk

Alex got beat for the most patriotic design by the George Washington cake on the right rear---we'll get em next year

Love the Pine Wood Derby thread.

My sons and I have some great PWD memories. We built their cars using machine tools. It gave me an opportunity to spend some quality time with my boys and teach them the joy of working with tools. Somewhere along the way we figured out how to make them fast and took several overall low ET in Pack and 4 District level trophies. Sadly we never took District 1st place. We missed 1st one time by .003 sec.

They have since transitioned to Boy Scouts.My oldest is closing in on his Eagle rank.

I had to have my kids show me how to add pictures. Hopefully this will work.

CB

That "happy scout" (on the right in this podium shot from 2010) has chosen his 2011 design for this March's competition in Santa Rosa, Ca.
I'll post details as work progresses, and results when it happens.

Great pictures guy!

I love this stuff---Please keep the stories and pictures coming---puts a big smile on my face and most likely many others.

That’s a great big smile!

Best of luck this year

For whatever it’s worth---

These are some of the things we did to our cars. The races were run strictly adhering to BSA rules. 5 oz max, only used parts from kit, length and width requirements etc.

• Aerodynamics play almost no role in making the cars faster, hence the winning block mentioned earlier.
• 75% of the speed is in axel/wheel preparation and weight placement.
• The other 25% is in friction reduction on the body and choosing the right block of wood (sounds silly).

The really fast cars had most of the weight toward the rear and a tight grain block. This works if your race is run on a wooden track. It becomes a problem if the track is aluminum as the cars can bounce around. You can compensate somewhat by moving the weight a little more toward the front of the car and choosing a wider grain (softer) block, they are a little more forgiving.

The block should have the axel slots at exactly 90 degrees from the long side of the block. This is important as the car won’t track straight if they are not. Sometimes quality control is not first in mind when these blocks are cut.

Wheel choice is also important. Last time I checked BSA had 16 different molds that the wheels were cast in. Some molds run faster that others. We always used mold 12 wheels if they were available. The rules state that you can remove the bump left over from the casting and that the foe tread must be visible. We turned our wheels on a lathe using an arbor to make the wheels round and made sure the tread was visible (barely). Our wheels were all the same diameter also. Some guys would cone the inner hub reducing the friction between the wheel and the block. They have since made this illegal in our District. We never did it. Bushings are also illegal but you can clean up the wheel hole. Once the hole wqas clean we mounted the axel with the wheel on it into a drill press, dumped some graphite lube (it’s legal) into the wheel hole and ran the speed up holding the wheel. We believed it builds up a little heat and impregnates a little graphite into the wheel hole. We couldn’t prove it but it seemed to help. We added liberal amounts of graphite afterward also

The rules also state that the axels (nails) in the kit must be used. These are straight forward. Remove the manufacturing burrs and polish, polish, polish. Some guys turn ribs into the axels to reduce friction, we didn’t. We always made sure that there was enough of a gap between the wheels and the block with the car weight on the wheels. Somewhere around 1/32” seemed to work.

We learned that recessing the weight into the car using a router to create space worked well and kept the weight from falling off. We filled the gaps with putty and painted over. We also drilled a hole to put little split shots in so we could fine tune weight easily. We made a cover using plexiglass and screwed it down, some less creative Scouts end up rebuilding their cars at check in. Not fun and tears can flow! The car should be the full 5 oz. and scales can very.

Of note: I included my sons at every step. They did the work when safety was not a concern. When safety was an issue I explained every step so they could understand what was taking place (honest).

There is a lot more that can be legally done to make these cars faster. It’s amazing what people come up with. Innovation, you be the judge.

This may all be old news to you, regardless best of luck in March. I can’t wait to hear the results.

Chuck

Sounds like fun! I was never in the BSA, so I missed out on the fun! It kinda sound like if Ol Dad was/is a Nerd or has no Garage skills, well lets just say little Johnny may not be in the running? LOL But thats all part of the learning. As they say back in the day (if it don't GO, chrome it!)

BSA is great for the boys it teaches them a alot, like good sportsmanship!

Kirk's right keep the stories and photo's coming!

quote:

BSA is great for the boys it teaches them a alot, like good sportsmanship!

And the girls, my daughter (8) is in her first year of cubs, and is loving every minute of it. She's already built her cub car using the band saw and sander (my kids insist on doing it all themselves so they can enter the 'Cub Alone' category - parents are only allowed to help with the weights and wheels, otherwise they go into the 'Cub with Help' category) ... my sons, on the other hand, haven't started yet (one is in his final year of cubs, the other is in scouts, so he gets to make an 18-wheeler).

Speedlimit170 - hey, that helicopter is awesome, well done!

Here's my eldest son's first 18-wheeler (foreground) from '09, cutting out the flamed fenders was a challenge, but he did a nice job on the jigsaw. With the weight of these things, they thunder down the track.