I used to work with a guy who had earlier worked at Amoco's research lab in Naperville. Pinewood derby was S E R I O U S with those guys. Moly-lubed axles were just the start... They would buy tons of wheels, chuck 'em up in a lathe, and hollow the centers up to the tread, true 'em up, and test them to see which was best. Serious studies on a test track to determine best weight position, as well as body shape... Something about setting them up so that only three wheels were on the track at any one time, saves on rolling resistance... Computer aligned axles, too. After all that, there was the cheating... Oh, yeah, I think their kids got to actually HOLD the cars at one point... Cosmo
My son built the Dragster last year (I built the engine and painted what he designed with left over spray cans) I built the Bantam for the Adult class. The Mustang and 34 were built for the Pinewood we have at work, pretty f un. I painted the cars with just left over spray bombs, works pretty well.
This is a cool post! I was just going through some boxes of old stuff today and uncovered my very first Pinewood Derby car. My dad and I built this really cool boattail roadster and painted it black and silver. My mom took over at that point and pinstriped the whole thing in silver & added the grille. If I remember correctly, I won something for looks, but nothing for speed. I still remember my dad with the big bar of lead and a torch dripping it into the tail of the car saying, "Don't breathe this son, I want you to have normal children." This when I wasn't even old enough to know how to make one. Then he and I sat with a postal scale and shaved the lead until we were just at the allowable weight limit. This really brings back some great memories that I hope I can relive when I have kids, that is...as long as I didn't breathe too much lead fumes.
A few key secrets to wining the pinewood derby: Make sure the axles are parallel. Otherwise, the derby car will scrub speed by having toe out, or toe in. Also, if the axles aren't parallel, it can dart back and forth against the guide, losing speed. Weight is another key issue. Grandpa and I used fishing weights to get the perfect weight. Polish the axles as mentioned before. Smooth out the wheels. run some fine sandpaper on 'em and ease the hard edges and let the wheels get some traction by roughing up the tread. As mentioned before, graphite on the axles is key to top speed down the track. Using these methods, I got first place two years in a row and had a whole lot of fun to boot.
Stealthcruiser is right on the money. Highly polished axles with powered graphite is the hot ticket. Unbridled speed for the pinewood cars. Also, though this is bending the rules, sand the wheels so that only a portion of the wheel actually makes contact with the track surface. These wheels are actually available for sale. It's like the opposite of actual drag racing; the less wheel that is actually contacting the track surface, the less resistance through friction, yielding a higher speed. Also, get the car to the heaviest possible weight you can get it to within the rules. When I was a cub scout it was 5 oz. A digital scale is the way to go, and the people at the post office are generally helpful and will throw it on the scale for you. You can chisel out the bottom of the car and nail in that wedge shaped weight, as well as drill the back somewhere and insert the cylindrical weights. They also make a lead based play dough for adding small amounts of weight to get it just to the limit without going over. As far as where to get this pinewood speed eqipment...check out the classifields in the back section of a Boy's Life magazine. There is an add that says "Win the Pinewood Derby". They have all this shit, and believe me, it works. I won 3 times straight, won the Sectional Cub Scout Olympics once, and then won 2 more times with cars I built for a buddy http://www.abc-pinewood-derby.com/ Go to that site and crush the competition
Dry film lube,(molybdenum),for certain would be available from a place like Grainger,but I do not know if Homeless Depot would carry that. Dry graphite,or lock lubricant,should be available at any hardware store. And the true running car with only three wheels on the ground "wows" them every time! All seven cars we built ran that way! Something about less drag being a factor........hmmmmmm.........
My son won his pack race. He was sick with the flu so the den leader raced it for us. Everyone said no-one else was even close. For the axles, put a drill in a vice and chuck the nail in the drill. Lock the drill on. Use a file, hold it just close enough to the nail to take the high spots off. Also reduce the size of the head slightly. Use some polishing compound and a course rag to polish the axles up. Ours didn't "shine like chrome", probably just about as shinny as the original nail. For the wheels, go to Hobby Lobby or Micheals, etc and get the tool that mounts the wheel in the drill. Repeat above steps, maybe use sandpaper in stead of a file if you don't have a fine file. While at the Hobby Shop, get the alignment tool. It's worth it. Graphite the axles. Before we started the wheel would spin about 5 seconds, after polishing, about 10 seconds, after graphite about 20 seconds. Our car weighed 4.905 ounces. We got the round weights at the hobby shop and made a few passes on the table saw the make a grove wide enough to put the weights in straight down the middle. Used JB Weld to secure them. Also had to add four more sections of the weight to get close to 5oz, for those we drilled a hole on each side of the other weights just big enough to put the weights in and JB welded them in also. The rear weight in the center stuck out the back maybe a 1/2", for rocket assist . Our car balanced about 1.5" in front of the rear axle.
Well, it seems this thread has generated some interest. That's cool. My boy sure appreciates all the positive comments on his car. Sometimes he feels like he's the only car guy in school. We had a really good weekend of racing. My daughter's car was fastest in the open class. My son Jesse took home best in show for the third year in a row. We're off to the council finals now. Just in case anyone's interested, here are some pictures of the rest of our cars: Jesse's car for 2004 My car for 2004 Jesse's car for 2005 Julia's car for 2005 My car for 2005 By the way, Jesse made the stands for his cars out of some scrap diamond plate and two 12" nails I got from Menard's. It was a nice easy welding project to start a kid out with.
I always enjoyed the pinewood derby because, by rule, all the cars were built entirely by the scouts. It made me feel good to know that we had so many talented boys that could build cars that looked like adults built them. Ex den leader Den 2 Pack 9 Ft Worth Tx
Looks like I missed out on my childhood, I don't recall any pinewood derby races growing up here in the Peoples Republic of California in the 70's...I think they were teaching up how to take seeds out of a bag pot in 4th grade, not something cool like this....damn hippies
We should have a HAMBwood derby at the HAMB drags this year. Only rule is the maximum weight. Anyone else up for it?
I third it... if my son and I get to go. "Little Slide" and I are building his second car ever right now. He's not in scouts (least not yet...) since he just turned 5, but the Awana group at church has the derby. Last year, he couldn't understand why it was so much work to just put the car together. But when he saw that the closest competitor was a couple car lengths behind him, he caught on pretty quick! He's willing to do a lot more sanding this year! He was so proud of last year's car. He wouldn't let it out of his sight for a month. It came with us to restaurants (he wouldn't hesitate to tell the servers how he built it, and that it was the fastest!), grocery shopping, and he'd even fall asleep at night still clutching that thing. It was very interesting to see the cars that 4-6 year olds "built". There's a whole different type of "creativity" in them... at least the ones the kids actually had something to do with! Then there were the ones that I don't think the kids themselves had even seen till minutes before they ran.
At the RRT/HAMB BBQ in LA we've raced pinewood derby cars, since 2000. Stock weight, Outlaw, as heavy as you want as long as it meets the size requirements, and of course Rocket powered. There was one there from CalTech that had near $1,000 in wheel bearings in it one year. My car was billet aluminum, with teflon wheels, and weighed about 2 lbs.
Here's ours from this year. We had our race last weekend. We got a first place and best of show. Our past two cars have been 3 wheelers. One of the front wheels never touched the track. To keep it in the air we kept all of the weight to the back. This also keeps the weight on the incline as long as possible. Back weighted cars have the characteristic of being slow off the line, but "slingshot" past the other cars. We also polished our axles and filed some grooves in them. This reduces friction because there is less axle surface. It also provides a pocket for the grapite.
we have been threatening to have a derby at our openhouse. It would be cool. We have customers and manufacturers build cars and compete for cash and trophies. Just think... Edelbrock and Weiand head to head in the Pinewood derby... it would be neat to see what they would build. Mike
dad hooked us up like this sanded all 8 wheels down and i think he even rounded them a LILand then polished them all upi think he was out there for a few hours when the drill pres cleanin them up for us. we didn't know why tell he was done.
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