It’s Pinewood Derby Day!

Awesome work the little lady put in there. I actually did the same thing with my son and made sure he helped in every process. I didn't know about the tricks when I was a kid until I went to my first regional event and got smoked by some true race cars. So naturally I showed my son some of what I learned. Its sad that none of the other kids / parents were building 'race' cars. His cars smoked every other car in every heat. I though in this modern info age that most would know the tricks. I was glad my Son won but felt bad about some of the cars I saw. Some had no chance what so ever. I volunteered to give a class on building but unfortunately it never happened.

Awesome thread....those times are sure precious.

I missed this earlier, but I helped a buddy build one for his kid a few years ago. We used a reloading scale to get the weight as accurate as possible with a small amount of wiggle room for the possible error of their scales.

We drilled two holes into the bottom rear of the car so we could friction fit and flush mount two 124 gr hollow points. The theory was it would be far enough back to capitalize on the gravity of the ramp before it leveled out.

We tried a few different methods to get a smooth axle. In the drill press, we used 0000 steel wool with some polishing compound, as well as trying polishing compound and wax.

We also tried to work some graphite into the metal, cannot remember which worked the best, but we tested by using a regulated amount of air...I believe 50 lbs and used a blow nozzle to spin the wheels, then time the spin-down.

There was only about 20 entries but his kid placed 2nd and lost by a nose.

We didn't do the 3-wheel setup or bending the axles, just smoothed the surface of the wheels and axles with polish and wax, along with the lead in the rear.

The whole process is addicting, hoping my kids get a chance to get involved.

Maybe some "derby dads" still out there. I think I have one more year. I'll just add to this thread rather than start something new. I have attached this year's creations for race tomorrow.

Green one in the middle is the official scout car. Blue one is by the brother. I put the red one together because they told me i needed to race. Happy Saturday!

When I was a boy scout, a couple years ago, My dad and I built a car to look like the early race cars and because we took so much weight off we made a driver out of fishing lead weights. the man was just forward of the rear wheels and we won every event in our division. My dad is a retired mechanic who used to be on the pit crew for A. J. Foyt in the early 60's so it was always cool to tell everyone that story. That car would always start out last then just blast by everyone. Looked something like this:

Thanks, cool stuff