BSA Pinewood Derby Car Builds....Slightly OT but it is RACING

Geez, when I was a kid, most of us just hacked the block of wood into some kind of angle and tried to get the weight right! Mine are from '79-'80 or so.

You'll notice that #8 has decals from a '50s model kit. My dad contributed to that one more, and our scale was off, which is why he drilled all the exhaust ports in it. We had to tape weights all over it at the race. It was awful, and didn't win anything.

I did the purple one pretty much on my own. It was lopsided, and I brush painted it with airplane dope. I can still remember how strong the fumes were. Managed to pull out a fourth place with that ugly thing.



I don't know if my son is going to do Scouts or not, but these pictures do seem like fun!

 

Why don't we have a HAMB Pinewood Derby race at the HAMB drags every year?

 

Still have mine from '76 '77. The blue one won second place. I don't look too thrilled about it, though.

 

Put the nail in a drill and polish it with a file and emery paper. Do they still use nails, the last one I built with my boys was in 73.

 

Same Nails, the wheels aren't as cool any more, no dish to the rim....just flat with a spoke......

 

Can you tell what I have a soft spot for?

Entered into this years Parents Race. 4th place.

Last years ride.

 

This was my youngest boys car in progress. Superbird. (The car was out of spec but my youngest boy was yet to enter scouts. His car was a filler at the race as we have to run in groups of 4.)

"The King"

 

I hope they bring back the parents race at our pack.....I wanna build one too.

 

Wife and I had a great day of racing at my son, Colton's, annual Cub Scout Pinewood Derby race recently! The very best part was building the cars together and watching the kids have a blast sanding and painting their own cars prior to the big race day! Total fun for all of us! The Boy Scouts even let siblings participate, so my daughter Courtney was thrilled, too! Now, I just have to get one of those aluminum tracks for our basement so we can have fun with it all year! )

 

Wow thats a nice track.....ours is wood and very old. It would be nice to have one of those tracks at home....I could see plenty of Bench Racing in the winter months.

 

My daughters. Best in show last year. This year the flip flop, racing it tomorrow

 

So......We run to the scale this AM......Logan and I are .5 oz over weight.....with only 1 blower. Good thing is we do fit in the box. Time to get the die Grinder and groove the bottom.....This will be fun. Logan gets jumpy when he uses air tools.

 

Here's mine from around 1963 or so. Lost some of the original narrow wheels and replaced them with newer version. If anyone knows where I can find 4 of the 60s style wheels please send a PM.

 

You can glue a small piece of astro turf to the car, and drop BB's into the astro turf until you hit the 5.0 ounce mark. You can get your car to the EXACT max legal weight this way. That said, it's ugly.

 

I have a few here that I've built and raced with my sons. Some we won races with,, some we acheived "Best etc" award. It was all fun and made memories.

 

Won this trophy for getting second place with a car built the year before the orange one. It was black with red striping and numbers, similar shape but a boat shaped front end....its around in a box somewhere. Im thinking around 1976.


The following year we (i use the term we loosely, Dad did all the work(hes a body man)...LOL) built this laquer orange with gold pearl and my dad had the local pinstriper stripe it and do the lettering. My dad did the mural on the back with an airbrush. It was slow as Chrismas, but won best looking....couldnt find that trophy, may still be at my parents house stashed away.






Louie

 

Here are some more progress Pics.....We found out that we were over weight by half an ounce, so we brought it home and gutted the bottom....went back and were still .1 over. Looks like well have to gut it some more....without losing style.







I can't wait...he's talking about a custom bike now....

 

More Pics....Yeah...Im proud of the little guy....sticking it out with his Old Man. I have him for 45-an hour before he starts to get rammy. It's cool though....he understands that its not instant.









More to follow

 

Logan got to run the Die Grinder and throw some dust as we hollowed out the bottom. We ended up cutting some coves in the side, almost corvette like. We had to stray from the original 2-Much design a bit, but we had weight and something had to go!

 

Sunday Update: Taking a day off until we have access to a scale. Here are late Saturday pics.









Only a 5 days left to work on it.....

 

Post Office Scale says 5.0 oz. Looks like we take more off.....still need Paint!

 

Gutted it out more even more & had logan sand it down with 300 and 600 to take off most of the Primer's weight. We got a Plastic Driver rather than the Lead Version......We'll Hit the Scale again tomorrow.

Im gonna have a Co Pilot for sure this summer.....He'll be learning lots of real great stuff from my Rod Knock buddies......

 

We have an "Outlaw" Pinewood Derby each year at our swap meet. I built this the first year, added a bunch of weight, and it was SLOW! But I liked the looks, and did it mostly just for fun.

 

So when did Testors change the formula on model paints? These Suck!

We're almost there, a white stripe.....some decals & Logan will be ready to compete in the Show! 1 more trip to the Post Office Scale just to make sure. Pics later.

 

I've used the scale at the Post Office too. I always run mine a tad heavy and then drill out weight there at the Event if needed,,not all scales are the same. I've had to dril out every one so far.

 

We had a blast doing the Pinewood Derby with our pack. We have a scale at work that weighs down to the gram. Our cars weighed 4.99oz. I'll have to get it to 5.00 next year. My sons finished 2nd in his pack and mine got 3rd for the parents.

 

Mine.......

 

The trip to Hobby Lobby last night put the car way over budget! Its been years since I bought Testors paint. The 2nd blower was 6.99....I guess Speed really does Cost. Im sure that some snap together models will be next.

 

... snap together kits are around $14.95 now... oh, how times have changed.

 

hey ed , that is really kool! apple aint falling far from the tree !!! rich