Cub Scouts Pinewood Derby

[crouse]

Two of my neighbor's son's are in the Cub Scouts. Since I do a lot of woodworking, they want my help in building their Pinewood Derby cars. I've found some information on the web about car design and speed secrets. Anyone have any suggestions for me? How about a Marauder Pinewood Derby car?

[Dr Caleb]

Hey! Getting Dad to do it is cheating!

But my secrets, when I was a cub scout - shave the wood real thin, almost cut the block in half. Replace removed mass with melted lead in the bottom.

On the 'nails' used to hold the wheels on - be sure to polish them with fine sandpaper (200 - 500 grit) so they are shiny, then use graphite lubricant on them. Petrolium based lubes will clog the wheels, or melt the plastic.

[enzoalo]

They seem to do a lot better with most of the weight in the front end. That's if additional lead weights need to be added to get it up to their specs. It helps get them out of the gate a little quicker and build momentum for the run. Also, keep the wheels lubed with anything that is approved in the rules. A nice paint job doesn't hurt. All the kids, young and old, have a great time.

[Mike]

Graphite lube works wonders!!

[mattf309]

Graphite and sand the wheels smooth.

[duhtroll]

The weight needs to be closer to even, IMO. I did this for 9 years in a row as my brothers and I all did this in consecutive years.

Every car I have ever seen win is a slim wedge shaped car with weight throughout - it's too thin in the front to put all the weight there - besides, less weight on the front wheels=less inertia to overcome.

If you can put slightly more weight in the front, do it, but we were never able to get more than like 60/40.

Seems the cars that went for style and show (and some of them were really cool!) never won, and the cars that won were always ugly wedges.

LOTS of graphite - I'm sure there's better tech now - maybe silicone sleeves in the wheel where the nail fastens it to the car. Oh, and VERY straight nail angle.

I always wanted a cool car for style - even had a Luke Skywalker Jedi car with him in it (OK so his head from an action figure and a fake body) and never placed higher than like 19th. One year I tried the wedge thing and finished 2nd though.

Now, I owned the rocket races, but that's another story.

Just my $0.02

[Bluerauder]

Two of my neighbor's son's are in the Cub Scouts. Since I do a lot of woodworking, they want my help in building their Pinewood Derby cars. I've found some information on the web about car design and speed secrets. Anyone have any suggestions for me? How about a Marauder Pinewood Derby car?
It has been awhile since I did the Pinewood Derby (about 14 years or so). Last time out, I was "in charge" of the race eliminations tracking.

Tips: Get the weight of the car as close to the maximum allowed as possible. Alignment of the wheels is critical (i.e. nails straight and no wobbly wheels). Use graphite lube. Good luck. Don't do it all for the youngster. Let him do the designing, shaping and painting. Winning is nice; but the process of getting there is the whole point of the exercise. :D

[crouse]

Thanks for the advise guys. We'll make sure we read the rules carefully. I'll let you know how they do.

[joemama]

Another secret is adjust the nails so one of the front tires doesn't actually touch the track. Now you have eliminated 25% of the friction yet it still tracks fine. This is a PROVEN enhancement...:)

[prchrman]

Chuck the axles (nail)up in a dremel tool and use the fine little wheel with the sharp right angle to remove all the burr from where head was crimped...use a magnifying glass or microscope to inspect because you cannot see well enough with the naked eye to confirm the crimps have been removed...then polish the shaft to a super luster...use sand paper and then polishing compounds...use graphite for lube...for the the tires true the roundness and chamfer to as much as a point as possible to reduce contact area to the track...get a good grams scale and get as much weight as possible without going over...have the weight evenly distributed between all wheels as much as possible as not to burden one wheel...let your kid do the body work...I have helped build maybe 5 to 8 of these things and they all won except one which came in second because a axle came out half way down the track...guy did not use any glue or anything to keep the axle located...willie