Our new Gulf project - my son's car
 

He is only 10 but I say start 'em out young. Best part is, it gets excellent gas mileage...

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Yep, it's Pinewood time! He saw a picture of the car from Lemans in one of my mags and said that is the one! He has excellent taste.

To be fair, my 8 yo also is competing this year. He has more of the street rodder influence from me I guess.

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We are just happy to be racing this year.... had a change in leadership in their cubscout pack and they never said anything about the Derby. Luckliy I happened to be in the Scout office 2 days ago and saw the sign for the district race today. We are loaded with graphite and ready to roll!

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Man, I miss my pinewood days. Locally, 1st in '91 and 2nd in '92. I was only middle of the pack in the regionals, though. That looks like a WHOLE lot of lead on the 8 year old's :)

Good work....I hope they are spellers....than dear old dad....

wee kan onli hop

Fixed that fer ya.

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I just scared my kids by laughing so hard. I literally fell on the floor and pissed my pants. The grammar nazi is hilarious.

...need to go change my pants now.

curve the front noses up they will get out of the gate quicker!

Very cool Shane. Nice to see. Brought back some great memories of my Dad some 36 years ago. Wow time flies....superb memories!

Scott

I just finished stuporvising the kids building their cars. One thing I do like about this cubscout pack is that they really do try to let the kids do the work. None of the cars the kids bring are bought or kits. When we send kids cars to regionals, you can really see the difference from parent built cars and kid built.

One way this scout pack keeps parents hands busy is to have a parents only unlimited class. You should be able to tell which ones mine.

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10 year old in front.
8 year old next.
moms is next
mines in the back.

LMAO, thanks!

I agree with you and have seen that as well... that said, I think kids canbe taught a lot during this process and that is what I have always tried to do. By the time our cars are built, my boys do not ever want to see sandpaper again... at least until the next Pinewood anyway.

Kids can do a great paint job with guidance, but the trick is using the aerosol cans. Hard to get a good finish with a brush. The one thing I do for my guys though is the axles. I wish the Scouts would sell them as a pre-polished deal. What a pain id the rear to get those things deburred. I am not sure a 8-10 yo would have the patience for it. I barely do at 40.

As it turns out, we got waxed. My younger son won the first 2 and then got beat twice in a row. Older son did not when a race, yet his ET's were juat lower than the final race's winner. Those cars were slowing down, but not fast enough to help us. He raced the wrong guys at the wrong time. This was my 8 yo's first one and he is extremely competitive. He wanted a perfect chinup bar for Christmas this last year. 8 years old... He got one, and we have created a monster. He rips off 10 chinup's every time he walks past the thing. The other day my wife called me at work to tell me I needed to have a talk with him. He came into her room and says, "Hey Mom, look at these guns!" I have NO idea where he got that from... really. Man, I must be in a talkative mood, way off track. Anyway, back to the drawing board for 8 yo. This was 10 yo's last one...

Per the axles. I/kids chuck em up in the drill press, turn it on and run a small jewelers file along the head and shank. Cleans the burrs right off. Then the kids run some 600 & 1200 grit paper across the shanks to polish them up.

After they sanded them it dawned on me that the rougher surface would probably hold more graphite. The smoother surface is slipperier and will outlast the graphite. We'll see how the polished shanks work out this year.

Edit - add: the 10 year old is a bit different. He doesn't want help at all painting his car. Therefore there are about 12 coats of aerosol paint + some brush paint on there. He also wanted to paint moms car.

Also, after the kids got tired of sanding by hand, I took a vibrator sander and clamped it in the vise. I had the kiddies wear welding gloves and they cleaned up everything nice. Then proceeded to try to sand off the gloves.

Few tips from my younger days. Make it as thin as possible in the front and not much thicker in the rear. Aerodynamic wedge. Then put your 5oz of weight. Sand the wheels and polish the axles. Then make it so only 3 wheels roll. Make one of the rears be off the ground by just a wee bit. Less friction. Wins every time.

Man, the profile of those wheels are MUCH wider than the ones I remember back un the 60's! We'd even put them on a lathe and turn them until almost razor thin & sharp.

Can't lift the wheel here. One of the check-in inspection points is all 4 on the floor. They actually use a machined surface to check them.

Can't do this nowadays either... quick way to disqual here is to show any signs of wheel profile modification. The only think you can legally do is sand and polish the contact surface for casting blems. In fact, I had my boys rub graphite into theirs while turning with a drill and the guys at the check-in questioned that... He had to be shown that it was OK... Pinewood has gotten serious.... Geesh.:eek:

Same here. We are allowed to sand the inside of the rims, not one kid does it though.

P4life: The second car up is shaped like a dogbone. Chase thinks it's better than the wedge because it's so skinny in the middle and round, not square.

Well a wedge with rounded edges would be perfection. Not to burst the little ones bubble but the dog bone might make fer some funky aero on the track. I wish I had video of the custom pinewood my uncle made that had an estes a series rocket engine in the back. that thing would cover the track in short order.

will it help to put lots of negative camber on the wheels so they ride on the inside razor edge? this may be the only reason i want kids....