Ah, the grandkids are in cub scouts and its pinewood derby time again.
My son in law asked me to help him and them with the cars.
First thing I did was dig out the boxes of stuff we did when my son Jeff was in cubscouts. This was 25 years ago, My car and my son's car and a couple of experimental spares on a test track I built.
If you don't know, they give or sell you a kit with a block of pine and two axle slots, four plastic wheels and four nails.
Then you compete on Derby day with the other scouts. THey have an inclined plane that launches the cars downhill onto a straight flat altogether about 25 feet long and then crown a winner after a mutti level side by side competition. They also give various prizes for beauty and artsy style, humor and cleverness. So design counts.
You have to use the block and wheels, it has to weigh or be weighted to no more than 5 Oz. and a host of other rules.
These kids are only 8 and 9 and can't really handle full out woodworking tools so we let them make a couple of cuts but I set up the bandsaw and router and drill press. I mean my grandson was too scared to really push the wood through the bandsaw by himself but I held his hand. Cutting curves on a 2" thick block with a bandsaw is not an easy thing for an inexperienced adult!
I kind of got into woodworking as the den co-leader when my son was in cub scouts. He didn't finish all the way through high scool with boy scouts but I picked up a hobby for 25 years.
I wish I had I had my current set of tools and I wish I had me to guide myself back then, I kinda think I did some good work today. I'll post pictures the naked cars less the wings and fins and stuff the boys need to add.
I showed them how to polish the nails chucking them up in a slow drill and filing off the burrs under the head that drag on the wheel, and polishing the axle using a strip of fine sandpaper.
And we raced the cars I made back in 1995 on the short track I made to test rolling friction and straightness.
And I even have a small scale that weighs oz. to .001 resolution.
My son in law asked me to help him and them with the cars.
First thing I did was dig out the boxes of stuff we did when my son Jeff was in cubscouts. This was 25 years ago, My car and my son's car and a couple of experimental spares on a test track I built.
If you don't know, they give or sell you a kit with a block of pine and two axle slots, four plastic wheels and four nails.
Then you compete on Derby day with the other scouts. THey have an inclined plane that launches the cars downhill onto a straight flat altogether about 25 feet long and then crown a winner after a mutti level side by side competition. They also give various prizes for beauty and artsy style, humor and cleverness. So design counts.
You have to use the block and wheels, it has to weigh or be weighted to no more than 5 Oz. and a host of other rules.
These kids are only 8 and 9 and can't really handle full out woodworking tools so we let them make a couple of cuts but I set up the bandsaw and router and drill press. I mean my grandson was too scared to really push the wood through the bandsaw by himself but I held his hand. Cutting curves on a 2" thick block with a bandsaw is not an easy thing for an inexperienced adult!
I kind of got into woodworking as the den co-leader when my son was in cub scouts. He didn't finish all the way through high scool with boy scouts but I picked up a hobby for 25 years.
I wish I had I had my current set of tools and I wish I had me to guide myself back then, I kinda think I did some good work today. I'll post pictures the naked cars less the wings and fins and stuff the boys need to add.
I showed them how to polish the nails chucking them up in a slow drill and filing off the burrs under the head that drag on the wheel, and polishing the axle using a strip of fine sandpaper.
And we raced the cars I made back in 1995 on the short track I made to test rolling friction and straightness.
And I even have a small scale that weighs oz. to .001 resolution.
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