Subject: Re: Pine Wood Derby Cars

From: Andy-Dowiarz <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 27 Mar 1997 08:44:32 -0600

SJ14280 wrote:
> 
> I'm building Oine Wood Derby cars.  How can you make them go faster?  What
> are good building tips for cool, fast cars?  Is there a web site or
> keyword for these cars?  Please help!

Try your local hobby store.  I bought a book that gave step by step
instructions on how to build the cars and how to build them to go
fast.  They also sell complete kits that include special axles,
wheels, and the weights.

One thing to keep in mind and this is very difficult especially if
you're a competitive person like me.  This is supposed to be a project
for the kids.  When I helped my two nephews build their cars, they
designed them and I helped them cut the cars out on my bandsaw.  I also
let them pick the color and do all the painting.  Plastic model paint
is really cool because you can get metallic finishes and it has a 
real nice gloss.  I took care of polishing the axles and weighting
the cars.

Our cars won the race the second time that we made them.  There were
plenty of Dad's that built some really nice cars, but you could tell
that the kid had nothing to do with it.  It kind of defeats the whole
purpose of the thing.  It's up to you.

On a side note, bring plenty of tools because there will be plenty
of kids who have broken cars or cars that weigh too much.  One kid
had a car that was about 3oz. too heavy.  I had to drill about 20
holes in the bottom of the car in order for it to be able to be in
the race.

It's a really cool experience.  Have fun!

Email me if you need any help.

Andy

---

From: [email-masked] (Matt Verrochi)
Date: Thu, 27 Mar 1997 17:07:07 GMT

>SJ14280 wrote:
>> 
>> I'm building Oine Wood Derby cars.  How can you make them go faster? 

Super smooth surface of axle to axle carrier.  Sanded with like 220 for maximum smoothness, wetsanded if you use metal to
metal in the axle/carrier setup.  Use dry graphite to slicken things up a bit, never oil.

Narrow wheels, narrow pointed nose on the car itself.  (aerodynamics in mind)  Well sanded to deflect any turbulence that may
occur.

I've seen a lot of dad's loose sight of the fact that their child is supposed to build the car themselves.  These same dads
have the KILL, KILL, KILL mentality and want their kid to win at all costs and have no problem building the entire car for
them.

Most any hobby store has all the parts and supplies for them.

Have fun
 
 Matt

[email-masked]
RC Cars, Parts and Radios for Sale at:
          http://www.tiac.net/users/verrochi/RCSALE.htm

---

From: Jerry Morrison <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 27 Mar 1997 09:44:44 -0800

Years ago I worked with my son on a Pinewood Derby car. As I remember,
it came as a kit and you were restricted to using only parts in the kit.
We enhanced the wheels by removing all casting burrs and chucking them
in a drill motor and polishing them. This included the inside of the
holes that you mount them thru. We also chucked up the nails used for
axles and polished the area where the wheel rides. These were lubricated
with teflon. We took the car to a market with an accurate scale and
adjusted the weight to max with lead fishing weights which were then
concealed inside. His car couldn't be touched in competition and he
still has the car today.

---

From: [email-masked] (Dennis R. Vogel)
Date: 27 Mar 1997 19:46:26 GMT

In article <[email-masked]>,
>
>Narrow wheels, narrow pointed nose on the car itself.  (aerodynamics in mind)
> Well sanded to deflect any turbulence that may occur.

You forgot the smiley face here, I think.  At the speeds that Pine Wood
cars run, turbulence is not going to be a problem.  Your other
suggestions about reducing the friction on the axles is probably the
thing to do.

Dennis Vogel

---

From: [email-masked] (A. P. Baj orinas)
Date: Thu, 27 Mar 1997 16:00:57 GMT

Thus spoke Andy-Dowiarz <[email-masked]>:

]SJ14280 wrote:
]> 
]> I'm building Oine Wood Derby cars.  How can you make them go faster?  What
]> are good building tips for cool, fast cars?  Is there a web site or
]> keyword for these cars?  Please help!

I used to love those races.

One good tip is to consider finishing the car with spray paint from
the autoparts store. The touch up spray cans are a good size, and you
can get a beautifull finish. Your kids can spray them, sand and
re-spray, end even wax them. Makes them look great and kids like it
because it is like working on a "real" car.

Not much help on speed, except maybe that a good finish has less drag.
:)

|----------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| Andrew P. Bajorinas             |     These opinions are my own and        |
| [email-masked]|       not those of my employer.          |
|----------------------------------------------------------------------------|
|                 God bless those pagans.  (Homer Simpson)                   |
|____________________________________________________________________________|

My return address is mangled to reduce spam.

---

From: [email-masked] (Foxeye)
Date: Fri, 28 Mar 1997 02:45:22 GMT

These little cars need all the help they can get, and the more you do
the better off you will be.  These tips are perfectl;y legal, and have
been done to my sons car, and he placed 1st 2 years in a row....I
substituted SS rivets for the supplied axles, and polished them where
the wheel contacts them...a true round hole is a must, as well as
having an axle (button head SS rivet) that fits the wheels axle hole
without to much slop, but rotates very free *without* any sideplay or
wobble.  Take the time to tru the wheells / tires by chucking them in
a lath or Drill press and making all four the same exact sixe and
perfectly round.  If all 4 can not be made the same size get another
kit, and get four that way.  Keep the weight low and to the front or
centered equally over front and rear axles.  If design permits center
weight, if not, keep it forward as much as possible.  Make sure the
wheels and axles are perfectly aligned. Don't trust the predrilled
holes or slots.  If necessary fill and redrill these axle locations
all the same height, and location.  If one wheel has more pressure or
weight on it it will have a tendency to run left or right and drag.
Last I new graphite was still allowed.  USE IT, not OIL or grease.
Finish (they say) does help, but its not really a big player in all
reality.  I have seen kids that took the time to make sure all is
aligned and weight adjusted do nothing but use the raw block right out
of the pack and win, over a slick as teflon finished cars.  Weigh it
on a certified scale, and make it exactly 5 oz.
  Lots of luck

>Not much help on speed, except maybe that a good finish has less drag.

Foxeye

The opinions expressed by me are mine and mine alone.  NAR 70031 TRA Someday
Take the XX out of mindspring for correct email address

---

From: [email-masked] (Drive-by Shooter)
Date: Fri, 28 Mar 1997 06:42:53 GMT

>From  what I remember of my cub scout days, and later helping my
brother, there are 2 big factors in making a pinewood car go fast.

1.  The wheels and axles must be PERFECT!  Chuck all 4 into a drill on
a nail or something of axle diameter, and using sandpaper run down the
mold flashing being careful not to take any more off than necessary.
Two at a time in one of the axles would probably work as well.  Its
also a good idea to burnish the axle holes with an axle chucked in a
drill, but just a little.  When you put the wheels on the car, be sure
the axles are properly liked up so you don't have any camber.
Finally, we used powdered graphite as a lubricant and it made quite an
improvement.

2.  Weight.  You will want to be as close to the maximum weight limit
as possible.  We used stick-on wheelweights underneath the car so as
not to make it look ugly.  Make sure you have adequate clearance
between the weights and the track!  The stick ons were nice since we
could show up underweight and using the official scale add weight
until it was just right.  They didn't have a problem letting us do
this since we brought extra weights for others.

The aerodynamics didn't seem to make much of a difference, except of
course for the kid who built the fire engine.  His barely made it to
the end of the track, but he did take first place in the craftsmanship
category.  I had my best car that year and ended up taking second for
both speed and craftsmanship.  They raced it and the first place car
several times before deciding it, standing next to the line I couldn't
even call it.  There's really something to be said for the electronic
gizmos they use now to call finishes.

Good luck with your cars!

Del Rawlins, HRM Student       "All I want out of Fairbanks
[email-masked]            is out of Fairbanks"
http://icecube.acf-lab.alaska.edu/~fsdcr/
All flames deleted with extreme prejudice.

---

From: [email-masked] (Drive-by Shooter)
Date: Fri, 28 Mar 1997 07:24:43 GMT

>purpose of the thing.  It's up to you.

This can also be a double edged sword.  The assumption being, if a car
is really nice, then the kid couldn't possibly have built it himself
and the dad must have done the whole thing.  Personally I don't have a
problem with the adult doing a lot of it, so long as the kid learns
the right lessons from it.  Did my dad spend more time than most
others helping on my cars and my brother's?  Probably.  At the same
time, along with the other projects we did together it helped to teach
us to work carefully, and to have pride in our workmanship.

I probably wouldn't have so strong an opinion on this except for what
happened to my brother in his last year in cub scouts.  That year he
built a VERY nice car on his own, with little help from our dad, and
would probably have done quite well.  Unfortunately whenever his
friends would be talking about the upcoming derby without fail they
would give him crap about "cheating" and how nobody had any chance
against the Rawlins brothers since our dad built our cars.  Eventually
he had heard enough of this and essentially told them all where to go
and what to do, and didn't even go to the derby that year.  By that
time his car was pretty much finished, and it never did get used.  I
think my dad's contribution to that one was limited to shooting the
paint, tweaking the wheels, and I think rough sawing the basic shape
my brother wanted.

Anyhow it felt good to get that out.  not sure what I am trying to say
other than that it should be kept as a fun learning experience.  The
best pinewood derby I have ever been involved in was in the boy scouts
when we got our hands on some of the cubs' leftover pinewood kits and
hacked together some cars in a hurry before they took the track down
for the year.  No pressure, and the only awards our cars would have
won would have been for goofyness.  We did have a lot of fun though.

---

From: [email-masked] (Tom Gauldin)
Date: Fri, 28 Mar 1997 16:51:21 GMT

>>keyword for these cars?  Please help!

Its also good to keep the weight as far back as reasonably possible.
Remember, the cars start out on a slant, but the slant transitions to level
before the finish line.  The front wheels therfore have LESS height and stored
energy than the higher rear ones.  By adding weight over the rear wheels, it
has more stored energy than weight added over the front wheels.

Tom
Tom Gauldin           Here's to the land of the longleaf pine,
Raleigh NC             The Summerland,where the sun doth shine.
fax 919-676-1404   Where the weak grow strong,and the strong grow great,
                               Here's to Downhome,the Old North State.

---

From: Stephen & Amy McClune <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 27 Mar 1997 23:37:19 -0500

One tip I have used successfully is to use spray wax(Pledge etc.)
instead of graphite BUT I had to super glue the axles in place to keep
them from sliding out!

As a Cub Scout den leader I have been to quite a few of these and I
believe that the more work the kid does the better. I have also seen a
little guy who did all the work himself become totally humiliated when
his car wouldn't even make it all the way down the track! There is a
happy medium.

My sons design their cars, make a pattern, which I cut out. They paint
and decorate and I fine tune the wheels. We do the weight together. Over
the years we've managed to pick up a first, a second, and had a heck of
a lot of fun!!

I suppose that I do more than some fathers and less than others. It's
all a question of what you can live with.

It's always fun to watch the kids arrive at the Derby, some follow their
fathers as dad carries the car (junior can't touch it 'til after the
race!) Others come in rolling their cars across the floor like Match box
cars!! It's really hard to say who will have more fun.

Oh well, I'll jump off the soap box now and give someone else a turn.

---

From: [email-masked] (Mort Tenon)
Date: 28 Mar 1997 17:10:47 GMT

>>Narrow wheels, narrow pointed nose on the car itself.  (aerodynamics in 
mind)

I took a good look at the winning car at our meet this year. (I dubbed it 
the lead skateboard) It had been shaved down to a wedge only about 3/8" 
thick and lots of work had been done to the BSA issue wheels. They were 
polished and cupped in the center so that they only ran on the inner and 
outer edges. The winner's brother placed second with a similar design, 
however, his wheels--though just as polished--weren't cupped.

---

From: [email-masked] (David Anderson)
Date: Thu, 27 Mar 1997 17:33:50 GMT

>keyword for these cars?  Please help!

The key to Pine Wood Derby Cars is not in the the carving, but in the
wheels and pins.  The sloppy axle diameter creates friction and slows
the car down.  The axle diameter needs to be a tighter fit.  The axle
pin needs to be polished smooth.  A little graphite can't hurt either.

---

From: Bryan D Johnson <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 28 Mar 1997 07:58:28 GMT

Foxeye wrote:
>....I
> wobble.  

As an ex scout with disquallification experience, I wouldn't swap out
the axels ever again!  (Got to the final race & someone whined about my
axels -- didn't even get second place)

---

From: [email-masked] (Marge Van Fossen)
Date: Sat, 29 Mar 1997 21:22:22 GMT

>> keyword for these cars?  Please help!

If your track is like the one my son's raced on - an initial hill then
a level portion to the finish - put as much weight in the rear as you
can.  The theory is that potential energy (mass times hieght) gets
converted into kinetic energy (velocity^2 time mass).  The car with
the wieght in the rear will run the same speed going down the hill
part of the track but when it hits the level part will pull ahead due
to the little extra potential energy.  Polished axles and graphite
lube help also.

Good luck,
Jim

---

From: "Paul Buerk" <[email-masked]>
Date: 31 Mar 1997 17:16:07 GMT

I have to say that this is more than a little misguided, unless your son is
the one really doing all the work. The derby is for the kids, not the
parents, no matter what your motivation may be. I have to admit that I
wanted to do a lot more with my son's car, but I managed to contain myself
and let him make his own mistakes. 

You can easily tell when the parents have built the car, and the kids can
tell as well. When you do this kind of thing, you're hurting the kids.

In most places, it is against the rules to substitute anything for the
axles that come with the kit, but your event may be an exception. 
-- 
It takes a big dog to weigh a ton.

Foxeye <[email-masked]> wrote in article
<[email-masked]>...

---

From: [email-masked] (Craig1708)
Date: 31 Mar 1997 23:46:45 GMT

I have tried all concepts of the placement of the weight and found that
the cars are more likey to jump the track with ALL of the weight in the
rear (especially if the track has bumps between segments). I like the idea
of putting it in the center of the car. 
The ones that win the "looks" catagory usually have a heavy-bodied finish
that looks like baked enamel.

**************************************************************************
Craig Deller
The Deller Conservation Group Ltd
Geneva, Illinois
USA
[email-masked]                "Conservators make it last longer"
http://home.aol.com/DELLERCON
***************************************************************************

---

From: [email-masked] (Ron Lane)
Date: Tue, 01 Apr 1997 06:00:08 GMT

For the last couple of years, our company has sponsored a Pinewood
Derby race and called it a 'team-building' exercise. This lets all of
those frustrated dads build the cars they actually wanted without
guilt.

[email-masked] (Foxeye) wrote:

> These tips are perfectl;y legal, and have

Our rules specifically stated that the original 'axles' be used
(actually the nails included with the kit), so these mods would not
have been legal. Closely check your local rules.

>without to much slop, but rotates very free *without* any sideplay or

Not exactly following you here. Are you referring to rivets as found
on airplanes or the pop-rivet type tools? where can you get these
things?

Ron Lane
[email-masked]
Central NJ, USA

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From: "Jack Rinderle" <[email-masked]>
Date: 1 Apr 1997 14:40:56 GMT

Ron Lane <[email-masked]> wrote in article
<[email-masked]>...
> We have built pine wood derby cars for years. One good tip is to slightly
bend one axle up so one of the front wheels does not touch. Car will run
faster. Another tip, turn the wheels on a mandrel so they only contact in a
narrow strip in the middle( turning to a vee contour is really the best but
i'm not sure what your rules say.)

There is a company that sells turned wheels, speed axels and special
bodies. Their catalog has how to instructions.

Hodges Hobby House Catalog is free tel. (818) 845-6123 Have fun

---

From: David Burton <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 01 Apr 1997 06:36:46 -0800

> his car wouldn't even make it all the way down the track! There is a

	The official SCout magazine a couple years ago had an article
	on the derby and said that the object is that the child and the
	parent work together on the car.  I thinks it's just as misguided
	to leave a kid on his own to do it as it is for the adult to do
	it all.  The point is to have a good working together experience.

	DB