hey just for a laugh run over to egay. pinewood derby cars over $100. guaranteed to give Jr. that first place trophy come on. hey my dad bought a faster car than your dad. i always knew people had other people build there top dollar street rods but pine cars wow people really know how to flex that pocket book.
Wish I still had mine. It was a ROTH style bubble-top car,with a plastic engine from one of my models. Never won,but was the hit of all the races. There was a movie on cable about a week ago,about Pinewood Derby races. ****py acting but the races at the end were pretty cool.
Had to smile when I found this post as I just ran across 2 of my old racers from 35 years ago or so. I remember my grandfather taking a particular interest in the second car. He glazed the wood with bondo until it would take automotive lacquer and then applied a gl*** smooth , hand rubbed orange finish. He was a meticulous fabricator and we spent many hours polishing the nail axles and applying graphite on them to reduce friction. I also remember him melting lead and pouring it into the base of the car for weight. He is long gone and it is great to have the memories. Love the tanker and the F1 style truck too guys.
I went and dug up my old pinewood derby race car from back when I was a cub scout in 1992. Here's a 360 view: Note the painted on brown parachutes...cause ya gotta slow down somehow, lmao.
My dad and I did the same thing when I was a kid. Here are my cars, if I recall correctly I ran these in 1966 and 1967. I think I still even have the tiny little plastic trophy I won stuffed in a box somewhere.
I helped my son with his and I just had to lower it..He won a prize for it lookin cool but it ended up draging the track because ir set too low..Way too go Dad he says..Ha..Ha...
Here is my only one surviving Pinewood Derby Car. Dad and I built this in, probably, 1968/'69 ish. The 'metallic' sparkles are actually crushed gl***. Dad had a big jar of it for paint jobs. We built a very similiar Soap Box Derby car, also......
I was a den chief for a few years and after the first pinewood derby we entered and it was very clear that a few of those cars were dads builds only we built all the cars at the den meetings !2 very skilled dads helped all the den build their cars.some kids won races but every single kid loved racing that year !
I did not stay at a HOLIDAY INN last night but i know this.......... when intsalling the axles put them in at a bit of a an angle pretty high so when at rest just the innner edge of the front wheels touch first. the height of axle placement is so a lower center of gravity is acheived also have one of the rear wheels mounted just a bit higher in the body keep the body as wide as the board and low profile when adding your ballast the car should be on a incline and barley rock front to rear end result this process allows the car to run straight on two wheels two/ one front and one rear (opposite corners) those wheels will be running on the outer edges running on 2-3 wheels reducues drag and the caster - camber will make it run straight (shortest distance) play with toe in to adjust all this was discovered by accident on our car .... it was a winner and some ol pros were pissed off cuz of it
Oh hell ya. We cleaned house today. Our son won 1st and took track record of 2.645 sec and 233 mph. YEA BABYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
My youngest built his last car when he was the a'Den Chief' for a den -- he was maybe 14 at the time. Took the block to the drill press and used one of each size wood bit he could find. Called it "The Holey Roller"
That's what I remember my older brother's looking like. Man, all of you guys' cars look so great. I esp. like the belly-tanker;...sweet! Here's the ones my two sons have championed over the past few years. The yellow one was the over all winner last year.I've also included the one I built for the fathers compe***ion; the one all the other fathers forgot about. (It'a a Lotus 8)
Heres my sons car. heres the proud little guy. His first ever Pinewood Derby race, mine in 30 years.. He wants to do a copy of my 32 truck or the batmobile next year.... sorry for the ****py pics. our camera took a dump a couple of days ago...
ok tx which tricks did you use polish nails weight in the back ? let us know my boys love the trophies
We didn't put all the weight behind the back wheels but we did some. the largest weight deposit was just in front of the back wheels then we progressively put weight through the middle. I figured if we put too much in the back it would be tail heavy. sure enough the track had a slight hump in it and the car tried to "hop" it. I think the weight placement kept that from happening. Heavily modified axles and spun/deburred wheels All from the kit (remember every thing must come from the BSA approved box). I got a few dads wanting my son and I to help with the cars next year. even with all the work we put into the car the field from first to fifth was only a few hundredths of a second. we didn't have a clue as to how the car was going to run so when we showed up we weighed in at 4.9 oz. . That was good enough for us. my son took the car to the track offical and asked for it to be run. when it went down the track I was watching the car for any issues we may need to address. it rocketed down the track and was quiet and straight in the process. My wife said the track official stated that this was the fastest car at the meet so far. I'm so proud of my little scout, he did a bunch of the work sanding, drill press weight placement, wheel dressing etc. the secret is drag. back relief the axle heads, groove the axles and polish everything. sand the wheels to get rid of burrs and irregularities. Check with your local pack before you do anything. ours was pretty loose and stated to us just use the instructions from the kit and "wheel and axles from the BSA Pinewood Derby kit" we stayed pretty consistant with 2.6** times all day. we won every heat but one and came in third in that one. heres the back of the car. My son wanted it on there. pretty ballsy statement...
wow that just looks fast. we went to scouts to night i was suppose to lead all the kids cars to the proper 5 oz. when we weighed my sons truck it weighed 4.5 oz befor lead. Ive never seen a pine car that heavy before hope it works good.
Here is mine, probably built in about 1978. I did win best of show, but can't remember how well it ran. I remember dad sanding the wheels smooth, and we used powdered graphite on the axles for less drag. It was carried in a Hot Wheels case that my mom made a velvet lining for, but it is somewhere in my attick. Great thread!
When I was in Cub Scouts, my dad and I built mine. We did the powdered graphite thing and sanded the wheels completely smooth.. For extra graphite, we would put it inside the "rim" and stuck a circle price sticker over it. It gave the look of Moon wheel covers and worked really good to keep the graphite inside and also made the wheels spin really really good
Here's my Grandson Nathan's Pinewood Durby car, it's called "Time Flys" He came in second place over all and number one in his Den. His Daddy is a watch make (on the side) so that is why they did the clock thing. In the picture he's the on the right with gl***es and yellow hat, he's a super kid!
We just had our race last Friday night. My son Calvin who is a 1st year Tiger Cub (1st grade) placed 1st out of the Tiger Cubs. The top two winners advanced to the Semi Finals... Where he raced his brother Nate, who is a Webelos scout (4th grade...) Nate had placed 1st out of the Webelo camp. He's a 4th grader... and there are 5th graders too. The compe***ion was fierce... with quite a few "Labby" dads who hold various engineering degrees and such, along with machinist dad's, I gotta say, this ain't your average group of dads! Pre race talk is always interesting, but I try to keep my mouth shut. Out of the 8 kids in the semi's, Cal got a 5th place finish... then after quite a few more races, Nate got 1st place (only loosing once) The COOLEST part was that a 1st year scout/dad came to a workshop I held last weekend to show kids/parents how to cut the cars out and weigh them down... and he got 3rd place. They were TOTALLY stoked, and thankful that I had helped them The workshop is usually helping dad's who have pretty much minimal mechanical/shop skills. I give the kids pencils and paper, have them trace their block of wood... and then draw a couple cars... they then trace the drawing onto their block, and I cut it out on the bandsaw and then hand them a piece of sandpaper. After they are sanded, I weigh them, cast weights, and then weight them down to just under 5oz. I give the dads a few pointers on how to put the wheels in, and then send them home to finish them. The dad told me they just went home, painted it, and stuck the wheels in... damn, 3rd place! And let me tell you... the Labby dads put a **** load of work into these things. I had one, who is a machinist out at the lab, tell me he made a mold off a machined, perfectly round piece of steel, cast some "clamshells", impregnated them with some super-secret abrasive, and the lapped his "kids'" axles until they were round within a half a thou! He laughed at me when I told him that oval axles are better! He shook his head and laughed some more when I told him I like my axles AT LEAST .010 oval! Anywho, next year I proposed that we let the kids build their own cars in their dens... and then have a dad's race. After all, it was like it was the dad's competing... Here are the proud scouts! Cal and Nate. Sam. Cal's "BUS". Nate's streamliner... painted hammertone gray! Oh yea... I ran the pinewood derby in my woodshop cl*** for 10 years... and have my own track if we ever want to have a HAMB Pinewood derby race. The HAMB Drags would be a natural... I just need to get out that way.
hey anything that helps get kids into cars, be them old or new. cause we all know the smart ones always end up on the old ones can never be off topic always suport their interest in the Hobby
If you hav'nt watched the movie Down and Derby then you must. Its the funniest movie I've ever seen about Dads taking over during pinewood time. This was our 4th year. year 1 My son got 2nd in his den and did'nt get to race if the finals and I I placed 2nd in Dads division. We have a race for Dads to try and make it so the little guys get to make their car(This will make sense after you have watched movie above) 2nd year my son got 2nd in pack and his sister took 1st in sibling cl***. No time for dad to build a car that year 3rd year exact duplicate of above year. 2nd and 1st. This year my son took 2nd and my daughter got first again and I got to build a car at the last minute and took 1st in the dads race. I did'nt expect to place cxause I went for looks over speed. I built a belly tanker to look like the so cal one but did,nt get to detail it like the one above due to time. The bellytank looked cool but is all wrong according to all the pinewood theorys from the books. Well I'm here to tell you that the Tanker was really fast with minimal work on the axle and wheels. Everyone loved it. I tried to get my son to make his car different than he did. I have tried to keep my nose out of his as he has gotten older. Good thing I did because he got a trophy for fastest looking car. He would'nt have gotten that if he listened to his old man. I sorta doubted how it would run but he pulled 2nd out. he planned on building a car that looked cool next year and not worry about speed, but after tonight he said he wanted to try and go for first. Next year will be his last year for pinewood so I hope he does well. I'll be looking for a kid to rent so I can continue(see movie to understand)
Must be the year of the Bellytanker. My two sons have been working for some time on these with minimal Dad involvement. I figured they would want something newer modeled but I see with the choices they made I must be doing something right. They told me they were not really interested in winning but just wanted a cool car. If they won, great. They both have put a lot of work into these. The roadster is done but the tanker is a work still in progress. Sits high for a belly tanker. We will see how they do. BR
I new a guy in my troop back in the 76 who's father worked for Honeywell. He put some type of space age cone in his racer and windtunnel tested it. Needless to say he lost to my hand built masterpiece complete with old Revell decals and heavy brush strokes. Old school vs. New School wins every time. I encourage my boys to build when ever possible. Keeps families together.
The Jalopy Journal
