The time has come.  My boys are entering their first pinewood derby.
does anyone have a guide book or cut templates?

My plan is to let them design or choose a design for their car.
I will do the big cuts and they will do the fine shaping.
They will decide what to do to fine tune or weight the car.
I will provide resources for them to study.
I will help with the work, not the decision making.
They will do the painting/decorating.

My 7 year old son did his own other than the big cuts last year. We turned up for the derby to see almost all of the kids fathers had done all the work workmanship was amazing, well it would have been if it had been the kids

best thing was a Kid who lost his father about 6 months before turned up with this chunk of lop sided wood with a gate hinge screwed to it for weight. Well someone was  looking down at the douche bag Dads who had to get little Jonny the win at all costs.

The Kid won fair and square with his four wheeled turd he was so happy I quite enjoyed the Dads faces

What's all this "template" and "big cut" talk.  I'm pretty sure every car I ever made was with this:

• Pencil


• One of these


• A very worn out metal file


• Half a piece of 20 grit sandpaper

I always lost to the kid who's dad built the track and promised us he never practiced at home.

Does he want to make a really good looking car, or does he want to win? Hard to do both.

^ This and the gate hinge had me in stitches.  I needed that.

My dad only did the power tool stuff when I was a kid, and I won best in show every year, and finished fairly high a few times in the runnings. Helped that we used real automative paint and finished it up with clear coat, went to the hobby store and bought add on parts and graphics... but I spent about a week drawing out what I wanted, and two weeks sanding until it was perfectly shaped, then my dad showed me how important it was to do the wheels the right way, and I actually painted the car myself. My dad was also the guy that would bring a whole toolkit with parts, weights, a drill and other things so that people that had stuff break, or were disqualified could fix their cars.

I put so much work into those damn things. After the second time I won, other kids (and parents) claimed that I bought mine.

My son's car was %90 built by himself, and he is 6 yo and he did very poorly in the receing. On the otherhand they let siblings race as well in our pack, so i researched on youtube and made a car for my daughter which smoked everyone so she took in first place for the siblings race and first place overall for the whole pack. Mind you, this was my first year doing the pinewood derby racing. Next year i'll make sure my son wins

i tried SOOOOOOOOO hard to make my car look like smokey and the bandit trans am.  i thought it did.


it didnt

I did pinewood derby in cub scouts. Came in second with a shitty heavy design (only side profile cut)

What is more fun is we made c02 powered cars in middle school. Now thats where shit gets technical.

I assisted my step son a bit too much with his car.  He lacked a desire to succeed, he was an utterly unmotivated yute.  He is with his under achiving father now.  Can not say he won a pinewood derby, but his car won all but one it was entered in (bad lane one year, they closed it 2 runs after it wiped out my stepsons car.
My son will be getting his first set of tools this Christmas.  I will help him with a few performance oriented upgrades - but it will be his car as much as possible.  



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Now for what you want.  Put the wheels on the corners (rules state they can not extend past the edge of the car I believe).  Keep it maximum length (so drill new axle holes with a press), Race at maximum weight.  Use graphite - use the best axles you can make (or cheat and buy better ones than you can make).  Good graphite on good axles on an uncut block of wood will win most races.  The 4 wheel independent suspension chassis was the fastest we ran, but many do well lifting a wheel instead.  Oh, weight to the back is most beneficial, but keep the cog at least an inch in front of the rear tires or you will be prone to bounce out of your lane (research this, an inch might be a bit cutting it close - it is what knocked my most artful design out of the race).



Ran (aluminum) hubcaps one year - it is questionable legal.  It allowed a block of wood to win - they are a cheat in that they prevent the wheel from touching the side of the car (plus help with the graphite).  

Heh.  
http://www.hobbylinc.com/htm/pin/pinp3935.htm

Weight placement, lubrication, and running on three wheels is important for winning. You can also sand the wheels a bit by rounding the outside edge.

Now if you have the tools (metal lathe), a great potential cheat is shaving the insides of the wheels.  Reducing rolling weight will help with acceleration on the ramp (of course it is not legal in all troops).  Some troops will go so far as allow you to cut the wheel down and race with only the outside rim-pretty much the ultimate in reducing rolling weight.

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It is kind of up to you what you want your child to learn.  Stepson learned nothing.  My son will hopefully learn how to do basic woodwork.

I am just providing the information and assisting with the power tool work.
If big cuts are not desired, none will be made.

There are a couple really good PWD sites which discuss the science and physics behind a fast car.

My boy did one for his last year where the profile of the car is very thin, like .125" except around the axles. Then, looking down from the top, there were all kinds of cuts that allowed the wood to be steam bent and the weight was added to one of the "tongues" sticking up. Basically it had suspension so, the weight wasn't being "lifted" over every imperfection in the track.

It was damned fast but Jake wouldn't take the first place cause he felt like he "cheated" for getting a design off the net. He took some award for most unique or some such thing.

Dads had an unlimited category to help discourage them from doing too much to the kid's cars. It seemed to work pretty well.

The field of competition wasn't exactly even. My car was built of delrin with .06 wide delrin wheels riding on abec 6 (iirc) ball bearings. The weight was a cylinder full of lead shot and was suspended by a leaf spring. When the car hit the bottom of the hill, the leaf spring collapsed and then sprung up and seemed to shoot the car down the track. The breaks at the end of the track wouldn't stop my car and I had to sit down there to catch it as it launched off the end of the track.

The funniest part was the wife of one of the other dads who is a mech engineer was crying foul. He shut her down pretty quickly asking for a re-match the following year. Being as that was my last year in the pack, alas the rematch wasn't going to happen.

The shape doesn't really matter, let your kids decide on the shape.  What does matter is to have as much weight to the rear as possible along with the longest wheel base as possible. Make sure the wheels are all square to each other.  Polish the axles and cut down the wheels if allowed. Another trick is to only have three wheels touching the track, make one of the fronts slightly higher.

Our Cub Pack had two pinewood derbies.  One for the kids and one for the dads.  That way the dads could vent their competitive spirit and not live vicariously through their children.  We also held a day long workshop so all the kids could get help on their cars.  This worked out great for the kids without a dad at home to help.  We polished axles and helped insure that the kids cars would make it all the way down the track etc.  Had several awards too.  Some for winning cars, some for style etc.  The most attended event of the year.  

1)  Polish the axles.

2)  Sand any flashing off the wheels.

3)  Graphite powder on the axles works wonders.

4)  Actual shape of the car is not as important as above.

5)  Add weight to bring car up to maximum allowable weight.  Gravity and momentum are you friends.  In the past, no moving weights were allowed.

When I built my kid's car, "we" drilled two holes in the front for headlights, and stuck a pair of inverted 80-grain SMK's in the holes so that the boat-tails were just peeking out like headlights.

On the bottom, "we" drilled a hole the correct size to accommodate a 240-grain .44 JHP, an inserted it so that the flat-base was flush with the bottom of the car. Secured it with JB Weld.

Rest of it was pretty much rough shaping to remove enough wood to "make weight, paint, and silicone spray on the axles.

We still lost in the first round.

I would post pics, but the car is parked on the bookshelf at my brick/mortar office which I try to avoid.

I never did as a kid, and my sons didn't do scouting, but I appreciated this video

This is why I believe they should issue TWO cars to every kid... one for him and one for dad.

The boys came up with their own car designs.
We transferred them to the block and cut them out with a band saw.
The boys sanded down the edges.
The boys polished the axles/nails for their cars.
I helped drill holes for adding weight back to the cars.
The boys installed the weights and puttied the holes shut and sanded smooth
The boys painted their cars.  I think mom helped tape part of the design.-
I helped install the wheels (I held the nails and they hammered - ouch once or twice)
They helped lube the axles.

Race day
Den heats
second place finish
top 5 finish (probably 4th place - didn't quite make the awards and didn't advance)

Pack heats
second place finish - all the runs pretty consistent
                                 there were two cars that ran consistently faster
                                 one of the fast cars crashed on one of its runs and it did not place but it was fast on all of its other runs