This is a bit unusual for this thread, but my son is a cub scout and now a big 442/cutlass fan. This year we designed his car to look like a 442. Well I am proud to say he won 2nd place for Best in show. Here is our submission.

 

Oustanding. I remember my sons doing the derby. One year we soaked the wood block in wood oil for a month to add some weight. They always wanted the car to look like my GTO I had at the time. Great fun.

 

Thanks! He was very proud. My '72 is coming out of the shop on Monday. New Rear quarters and work done to rocker panels and doors. My son's car was a bit less expensive to build "fix" than mine.

 

When it was my boy's turn to do a Pinewood Derby race, I showed him the same trick my dad had showed me - we whittled the car own to be as small as possible, then I drilled some homes in the bottom with a SpeedBor bit and filled them with lead (melted fishing sinkers in a coffee can with a Bernz-O-Matic). We used a digital scale, and got that car to the exact weight it was required to be.

Little bugger was fast. He did win something, but I don't remember what anymore.

Congratulations to him!

- Eric

 

Very cool, I too was involved with the pinewood cars. I had a choice, let my kid do it and the finished product would be crap or do what most did and build the car yourself for your son! Yeah I would let him touch it for a second or 2 and after the races were won it was his to play with... lol One year I turned that block of wood into a police cruiser with working headlights, tailights and red roof beacon. Amazing what you can do at work!

 

They say the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. Dads boy for sure keep up with the projects. Great post Andrew !!

 

Well done, I bet he enjoyed the day.

 

He certainly enjoyed the day. I had a heavy hand in the project but made sure he did the sanding and cut the paper for the stripes. Now he wants to take the pinewood car to car shows this spring. Glad to see the boys appreciating the classic cars. Can't believe my high school car is a classic. Time sure does fly

 

Excellent! Congrats!

 

That is most excellent!

I remember doing Pinewood Derby when I was young. Now if only I had a son...

 

Congrats! I have 3 daughters who are showing exactly zero interest in cars. Except the part about me buying one for them. LOL! I had my youngest out last summer teaching her stick in the Cutlass. That poor car!

 

Nice car.

I did that in the mid 80s with my old man. We cheated using his dental lathe to polish the bejesus out of the wheels and axles. Always went in overweight, and had to take weight out on purpose, except one year with a goofy scale we ran a 6 oz car. I had one clunker, one semi-fast, and two scorchers.

Now there's an industry for the cars, so you can buy what you want, or get really creative.

 

My son is 47 and still has his pinewood derby car with the lead in the front of it. I remember putting the nails used for holding the wheels on in a drill and polishing them with fine sand paper and then putting graphite on them.

 

Exactly what I did.

As I showed him how to sand and shape it with the block plane and the sandpaper, I read the rules, and explained how we were going to follow them, while making it as fast as we could within them.

- Eric

 

Congrats on the derby!!

This year will be my 15th and thankfully final pinewood derby (not counting the ones that I did as a cub scout). All 3 of my boys have gone through the scouting process and my youngest will cross over to boy scouts in February.

Over the past years we have had some crazy entries as pinewood derby cars. The strangest are when you can tell that the father did everything, and I remember a few that would not even let their kids hold the car.

The most extreme case that I ever saw (I swear that this is the absolute truth) was where one of the fathers worked at NASA. He designed an built the car. He then used some sort of special paint that was loaded with lead so no weights would have to be added. He then actually wind tunnel tested it!!!!! He mopped the floor with all of the other cars when it came to racing, but his son didn't seem nearly as happy about it as he did.

 

Those (precut) pinecars are actually not allowed in the derby according to the rules. I hate to sound old fashioned here but the derby was designed so that fathers and their sons could work together in the cutting, sanding and painting. That is the entire point of the derby...the old fashioned sounding "FATHER-SON BONDING TIME"