2.21.2007

Pinewood Derby Cars - A Present Perspective

This is Part Two (actually, Part 2a - or , Part 2 of Part 2) of a 4-part series on the Pinewood Derby car. You can read Part One - "A Past Perspective" here.
This post describes our Present, Pictoral Perspective on the Pinewood Derby. How's that for alliteration! I'll be making a few comments along the way, to give some context to the photos.
What you are about to see is a step by step process to creating a (hopefully) winning Pinewood Derby car.
Here we go...the official Pinewood Derby Kit. One block of pine wood, four wheels, four nails (axels) and official guidelines. I had Aaron Job pick out some designs from his Hot Wheels coloring book.

This was the design we went with - now, off to the band saw to make our first cut.

This was the actual bandsaw used to cut my cars when I was a kid. The saw was pretty old back then, almost 30 years ago...I guess that's why we didn't use it this time... we used a basic Craftsman bandsaw, which isn't near as cool as the Shopmaster pictured above.

As you can see from the "hood" of the car, I'm not the most skillful on the band saw. Fortunately, the mis-cut will sand right out. You'll see.

Aaron Job sanding the rough edges using a belt sander. Don't tell his mom about this...boy, one little slip would've rubbed his fingerprints right off! That belt had to be spinning at least 40 MPH! Ok, ok, maybe not quite 40...maybe..like... 1.

This photo, by the way, was taken as proof for the Pack 99 Pinewood Derby official judges that my son actually DID help build this car.

Now, out of my way boy, before you ruin it.

My dad - sanding & polishing the axles (don't worry, it's legal).

Hand-sanded by Aaron Job. This is a precision project folks.


No, this isn't a Meth Lab. We're actually melting the lead (yes, the toxic kind) to weight the car to the official 5 ounces.

And here is the final shape - pretty cool, huh? Does this picture speak for itself? I.e., will my first two cars fall into the shadow of my son's?

We'll see - in a later post.

As for the next post (Part 2 of Part 2)- PAINT. LOTS OF PAINT.

Click here for Part 2 of Part 2.

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