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Anyone build Pinewood Derby cars? Show 'Em


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I did a search of the site and didn't find anything on this subject. Being they are cars (for the most part) made from wood I thought this may be an interesting topic. There are modellers on here that build wood ships etc.

To start it off I thought that I'd post one that my son ran back around the year 2000 when he was a Cub Scout. Yes, I know, the kid is supposed to build the car. I built his cars and he lined them on the track (which is an important thing). I had a friend who let me use his wood shop. He was a professional wood-worker.

The character, snake and border were made from aromatic cedar glued to the pine block. It stood on display but had to be lowered to run.

This was built for the last year he could compete. I wanted to go out BIG!

What did yinz build?

pinewood car 006.jpg

pinewood car 001.jpg

Edited by DPNM
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Built this dry lakes T roadster for fun back in '76 (I wasn't a Scout but my brother was):

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I drilled out the wheels to lighten them, which was legal then. It went like stink and even beat my brother's car (which won the official meet). Thus the notation:

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Just like a real lakes T: Crude but effective.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Well...from the lack of responses I guess that there aren't that many modellers who did the Pinewood Derby thing. I thought that there would be more. Maybe that's why the subject never came up.

ChrisBcritter you've got a great old school car there!!! Nice!

Might be time to build it cobraman???

My first post was a bit "out there". I'll post some pics of the car I did for the first year that my son could participate.

Bear in mind that when I built it to run at our troop derby it did not have the front wing. The "fenders" stuck out beyond the starting dowel. That is where the name for the car came from, I know that the other parents thought that I had an advantage. We put it at the end of the track and the finish light did not come on until the actual nose of the car went under it. They wanted me to run it backwards.

The car won our troop race (I didn't make many friends in our troop). It did not do as well at the regionals which is the race that I added the front wing for. It was suggested by the Scout Master because of the controversy. I shoulda left it off.

One additional thing, I mentioned that I had a friend that let me use his wood-shop. I had also made a two lane test track to the Cub Scout specs. This car made a lot of passes before it ever raced.

As an aside, the wheels on it are not the ones it ran with. I had them from an older car. I used the wheels that were on it for his next years car.

 

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Sorry I'm a little late to the thread here, but you might want to check out this previous thread I started a couple years ago.

 

Here are a few I built for our annual adult Pinewood Derby to benefit the VA. They all finished in the top ten (of 70+ entries) but could never finish on the podium.

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I also carved a running dog themed car but I need to get pics of it. I didn't participate last year because it's getting too political. Since fundraising is the goal, participation has become more important than enforcing rules so it's becoming a cheaters game. The result is fewer people are entering while the usual big spenders take the trophies.

 

Edited by Lunajammer
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Now those are some fine cars lunajammer!!! We don't have anything like that race around here to my knowledge. A fund raiser sounds cool. You will have politics sad to say. I'd like to see the running dog car.

There was a place to ship your car for adult racing back then. I never tried it as you could not be there. I think back then it was the WDRL. I did a quick net search and it may have changed to NPWDRL.

I haven't built one in a good while. I do have two half finished but I can't find where I put them:unsure:.

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I'll play...........these were made from sections of 4x4 timbers that we used to set machinery and things on so the fork truck could get the forks out after setting something down. I picked out a broken timber that wasn't too greasy and had some knot-free sections that i could turn into pine cars. rather than bore you with the process i'll say instead that they are both single-piece chunks of yellow pine. The wheelbases, the track width, the overall length and the amount of front and rear overhang relative to the axles are all BSA legal and could've run in a BSA-sanctioned Cub Scouts race. But at the time the grownups could only display and not take up the time of the event by having their own races. Shapes hand-carved with bandsaw, 1/4" die grinder, sanding belt, files, sandpaper. They are about 20 years old so the red one has a Nascar Thunderbird/Lumina look going on. Was kinda thinking Mako Shark II with the other. Might have a couple more to post by the end of the week, if i can uncover them.

 

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  • 1 month later...

Here is another car that I had done. Although it never raced it was a fast car and the one I used to test his new cars against. I did it for the paint.

Trivia question about the paint job: What is the name of the skull car and where was it from?

Kudos to the first person with the correct answer. Sorry, I don't have any valuable prizes to include, just kudos.

pinewood skulls.jpg

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