Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Pinewood derby!

Around here they let family members compete in the Derbys also...

We even had adults show up to compete, if you can believe that.... against 6 to 10 yr old boys....

My favorite tho, was a little second grade blonde gal, who was a sister to two boys in the Cub Scout Pack... Single Mom family...

Her daughter took the block of wood out of the box, put the wheels on it, and had her Uncle Plane some wood off of it until it weighed a hair less than 5.0 oz. Then she took it and spray painted it yellow, then with a magic marker drew windows all around the block, and then put School Bus on each side.....

Then it cleaned the clock of all the rest of the boys, and even the Adult males who showed up to compete.

many of us were proud of her.

My older kid watched that, said “Dad, let’s do this” and he won. His “car” looked like a skateboard more than a wedge though.

I ran the table saw, showed him how to drill using the scrap. And he did the rest. We did buy an inexpensive jig for drilling the axle holes and used tungsten for weight. My other boy is going to be doing the same thing this year, and we already have the jig. We will need a few more weights though. This kid is probably good to go on the table saw too, a lot less of a spaz around machinery.

Wheels were right out of the box, axles were polished and graphited. But again, I’d show how on one, kids do the rest.


Oh, and per the video and physics, our weights were as far back as we could get them. Maybe 3/32 between the edge of the weights and the end of the “car” . Again, letting the boy take the lead on how to orient the weights for the rearmost placement that also got the right CG point.

[quote=Seafire]Around here they let family members compete in the Derbys also...

We even had adults show up to compete, if you can believe that.... against 6 to 10 yr old boys....

My favorite tho, was a little second grade blonde gal, who was a sister to two boys in the Cub Scout Pack... Single Mom family...

Her daughter took the block of wood out of the box, put the wheels on it, and had her Uncle Plane some wood off of it until it weighed a hair less than 5.0 oz. Then she took it and spray painted it yellow, then with a magic marker drew windows all around the block, and then put School Bus on each side.....

Then it cleaned the clock of all the rest of the boys, and even the Adult males who showed up to compete.

many of us were proud of her.[/quote

I suggested they do the yellow and black full block and modeled it after my favorite septic pumping service, The Stool Bus! They didn't go for it but there really is a septic pumping company that paints their tanker trucks like school busses and called them the stool bus.

They pretty much wanted to do it their way which I'm ok with but my boy did like me adding the boat tail to his car for reduced drag. I think a lot is going to be about getting the wheels and alignment right but like I told the kids our primary goal is to win but learning something and having fun is good too. Although winning is usually the most fun. I want them to know it's still ok to be competitive despite what the world tells them.

Bb

Or you could do as deflave says and teach them what it is like to be a loser for the rest of their lives and never accomplish anything.

I hope they do well and make wonderful memories.

deflave Is a expert on losers, he has been a loser for his whole life. Rio7

Walked into a discussion among engineers at work about PWD one day... they also pointed out the physics of weight placement in that you get the additional gravitational advantage of however much higher the weight is on the ramp (tilted) vs when the car is horizontal... (back is better)

Reducing rolling resistance by 3 wheels touching makes perfect sense; I'm sure friction is a much greater drag than wind resistance. Caveat is that the car has to run pretty straight to realize this advantage or you're scrubbing the edge of the track all the way down

The biggest advantage in running on three wheels is that it makes alignment easier. Slightly bend one of the front axles then rotate it to adjust the alignment. Get the car tracking absolutely straight. The other front wheel should about the thickness of a playing card off the ground. You'll see otherwise fast cars that bounce off both sides of the track scrubbing off all of their speed.

3 wheels, try to get COG 3/4 to 7/8 from back of the car. Make wheelbase as long as legal, powdered graphite with moly is the easiest route to fast. Oil is faster but much more detailed prep. Lots of good ideas already stated above. Reducing friction and weight placement is key. My boys always tried for a little drift, idea was to hit the rail and stay, not bouncing back and forth. If your front axle is slightly bent it is easy to tune the car for the right amount of drift. Roll on a slight incline (wifes mirror) and shoot for 12 inches in 7-8 feet.
Like others have stated, it is about spending time with your kids, keep them involved. My oldest son was middle of the pack his first year. He wanted to go fast. We did a little research after that and my boys won every race after that

Let the kids work on the car body, you do the wheels. Clean off any burs on the underside of the head and taper the head outward a bit for less drag. Polish up the axles with fine emery cloth. Work dry graphite into the wheels and axles. I used a drill to put some miles on them. My kid really didn't care about the wheels he wanted a cool car body, so he cut and painted and I helped with the wheels/axles. He won locally a couple years running.

My son was into scooby doo when he did his we made the mystery machine.Some how the axles got off kilt gluing them and it would make it half way down the track and stop every time.The tears welled up in his 6 year old eyes defeat 😭bout tore me up but he got the ribbon for the coolest car after the race😉👍he learned a valuable lesson that day as most of his 6 yr old friends walked away without a ribbon.

I built 5 cars one year, two for my kids, one each for the wife and myself, and one for any kid that showed up without one. My kids both won their races, my wife won the adult worker race, and I came in third. You never saw so many angry Baptists in your life, and even the pastor got really snippy about it because he used to be a machinist and thought he knew something

Polished the axles, scuffed the wheels. Set the axels into the grooves, then pushed down so all bore equally on the surface and glued them into place. Took the cars to the Post Office and added stick-on tire weights to bring them up to the limit. Used RemOil on the wheels.

Years later when my wife was working in another church’s school, one of the other teachers asked about how we won. I talked to her husband about it and gave him some RemOil. They won all their races too!

We still have the cars and trophies, and it’s a favorite family story, “How We Kicked Baptist Ass at the Awana Races”.

Old Dad got it right that time.

How's daddy's property lookin' these days?

LOL

You anti-Trump dumb fugk.

I was out with my crossman pellet rifle killing stuff.
Think I made one in cub scouts???
Probably 75 85 % of us in troop 72 grew up to be burn outs in junior high and high school.
It was the mid 70,s to early 80,s after all.
Maybe 50% of us joined the military after high school and became goons with select fire wpns basically.

Weight in the rear makes sense
Polished axles make sense
Running on 3 wheels and tracking right makes sense.
Tapered wheels makes sense.



I would hate to lose to NASA dad and the nerd crew.

About the dumbest GD schit a person could spend their time on.

In 2022, Boy Scouts will teach you two things about being a man or the outdoors:

Jack & Schit.

Kids should all just stay home and play video games......

No wonder I always lost

Depends on the child and the game, but mostly I'd agree.

The Pinewood Derby in 2022 is a monumental waste of time. It's idiotic.

I remember like it was yesterday, I forget what foster family it was, but they were Mormons. Anyhow It was pinewood derby time, my Mormon foster dad said Langford you are competing. I built a car and I took last place couple of days later I was back in good ol state custody.. Nugget