Had the derby today, my son Jake came in 11th out of 53 cars but won most futuristic with his green car. I got screwed in outlaw,I won all 4 heats and got 2nd place, don't seem right.
My kid is 37 now but I remember those days like yesterday. This was/is my entry. Didn't win anything but we had a blast building and racing them together. You just can't buy that kinda satisfaction and memories.
Somewhere along the way I lost one of mine, of course it had to be the one that won the championship that year. It wasn't much for looks, but it was Petty blue with yellow racing stripes...still have the dorkey hand painted trophy.
We just had our derby last week,it was fun.Here's the cars my son and I made.Mine was the slowest,my son didn't win either,but we were ok with that.
My sons name is also Jake. Here is a few pics of his pinewood derby car. We used some pieces from a model of a midget racer for it. He came in second racing and 1st place in the car show! Only three of the wheels touch. Less resistance.
You guys should COVET every moment with your boys!!! With 4 sons, I had years of this stuff and would not trade a minute of it!!!!! WOW, we had a GREAT time! As to "other" things we did, well..I would try the "hairspray" thing! Yes, take a hair dryer to the wheels and while you are spinning the wheels, spray some hairspray to the axles.......it works!!!!! Moreover, if you can replace the axles, buy some of those cools sets from Ebay and WOW!!! I was SO tired of our "den brothers" kicking our asses for so long, so I took the bull by the horns and KICKED their ever-loving asses our last year!!!!!!
Move your weight. Make sure the weight you have to add to get to 5 ozs, is as high and as far back on the car as possible. This is a good thing to keep in mind when designing your cars overall look. A big wedge, all weight high and to the rear is fastest. It has to do with the physics and potential energy. Reducing parasitic losses are important. They are all found in the tire axle combo. Crown your axles a bit so that the tires rest on the inside edge of the tread. You don't want the tread to lay flat on the track. Crowning your axles like this will cause the tire to force itself out to the nub on the end of the nails. Polish both surfaces and lubricate with graphite. Chuck your wheels in a lathe using an axle and true them up so the tread is concentric with the hub. Also, narrow the bearing surface of the wheel/axle contact area. Remember, the reason Hot Wheels are so fast is their spherical wheel bearing. The bearing surface on a PWD wheel is close to a 1/4" wide IIRC. By beveling the outside and inside of the bearing surface on the wheel, you can cut that by half. Even better, grind a small boring bar and go in there and relieve it completely except for a small rib inside and outside. Better still, bore out the original hub completely and replace it with a harder plastic, then machine the ribs like I mentioned. Lastly, make sure you check with your group as to what mods are legal. Beating 7 yr olds in racing isn't any fun if your 7 year old gets caught cheating. In our pack, the adults basically had an outlaw class, 5 oz weight and anything you could think of otherwise. It was fun beating all of those other smug lugnuts that have never been to jail for anything in their lives.
That is what screwed us up for YEARS..listening to the damn dads who thought that they knew the rules...these are the bastards that CHEAT and don't tell!!! SCREW them! And the suggestion about three wheels touching is RIGHT ON!!!!! I have to tell you a story: When my youngest was in his last year of Cub Scouts, I asked him: "Do you want to do what we have done all of these years or do you want to kick some ass?" He said, "Dad, I want to kick some ass!" So, we did!!!
As a former Pack champion, I congratulate you! Besides weight distribution and graphite, my dad lightly sanded the tires with a very fine grit paper. Something about contact and resistance. I dunno; I was 11 and that was 29 years ago... On another note, I loved the weigh in/tech inspection at the Scoutmaster's house. One kid handed in a car with gooey wet paint that got all over one of the parent's hands. Very funny to a bunch of goofy kids. And I will always remember the car that looked like a potato screwed a porcupine; nails protruding at all angles to make the 5 ounces. Good times.
After seeing the obvious .. who built the cars , we came up with Da Rules! Yes, we were tired of the Dad's with the machining skills . To eliminate it .. we had the Dad's modified race . No rules with the exception of weight. Here some pictures of our collection . The pink one is my daughters. I miss those days.
enjoy the momements with your kids as they go by fast! really great to see kids and parents still particapate in the scouts!
Thanks for the tips! Our Pinewood derby is coming up, and right now the car is still a block of wood.
I think boring the wheels out where the axle goes through and press in a UHMW bushing. Ultra High Molecular Weight is a plastic that has very low coefficient to friction, The Ice Capades actually use UHMW when they cannot actually use ice. I used to work in a plastics factory and that crap is heavy and hard to hang onto in big sheets. but machines well...
Good looking cars guys and gals.You can see we didn't put that much effort into our cars but we still had fun and Jake did do alot of the work on his car. His was only running on 3 wheels also. All they did was the weigh in, didn't check anything else. We probably should have cheated, but that would have been wrong .
My oldest nephew just had his first race Friday, brought back a lot of good memories for me, he came in 21st out of 32, I really wish he had done better, but he won a heat race and that thrilled him, so it was successful in the end, I just want him to be as good as his uncle (me) was, so were going to have to get him into the 1st place one of these years......
Proud to say my boy took 1st in his category and 4th overall---Plus managed to have a blast gettin it done.
Funny this comes up. My 9 y.o. Just joined 2 weeks ago and handed this block of wood to us. We haven't had much time and now we have 3 days to finish it. Inspiration is from the Old Crow... Dylan loves it and he's got a bit more sanding to do...!
I always deburred the axles on the lathe and turned the tires true on an arbor. Nice to have access to a $100K Hardinge tool room lathe. I also cut a bevel on the outside of the tread, both sides so the tire runs on an 1/8" strip in the middle. The center of gravity should be 1.5" in front of the rear axle. I also milled a weight pocket in the bottom so it would be recessed. For the weight, find out what type of scale they use and see it if possible. The one our pack used displayed one place after the decimal, so a 5.09 ounce car was "legal" I weighed my son's cars on a gram scale at work. I never used the slots for the axle placement, if you do, epoxy the axles in place. I have a jig that drills the axle holes where I want them. The jig picked up the left front tire by .020 so it runs on 3 wheels most of the time. The other dads would smirk when they saw the car teeter on 3 wheels. It seems like I did the car, but only took care of the wheels and my son's worked on them with me in the shop. They were totally responsible for the body mods, paint and assembly. The results, it took many pine cars to get a winner out of it. The last two were fast enough to take the overall wins in the blue and gold races and the last one only the gold. Bob
Yeah, that could be a pack thing. I always went with the "tripod" method with my son's cars and they were faster. Bob
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