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mrmossyone · 02-28-2009, 12:55 AM

I thought some of ya'll would appreciate the color schemes and craftsman ship of these cars. These are the cars my sons and I built for this years races. The colors actually aren't purposefully AS colors just the ones my sons thought would be really cool. If you notice on a couple of the cars there is a crooked wheel, that is on purpose the wheel doesn't touch the track. Three wheels on the track are almost always faster because there is less friction. If they seem to sparkle it's because the paint has metalflake in it. The paint actually looks much better than in the pics. For your viewing pleasure:

byamcaravanner · 02-28-2009, 05:04 AM

Very Nice!!

Thanks for the photos, we have two of these build soon and my boys will appreciate the ideas.

slvrlng · 02-28-2009, 05:37 AM

My son and I will be working on our car this weekend. If you want to go fast go to www.maximumvelocity.com ,an amazing site!!!

Steve & Susan · 02-28-2009, 05:52 AM

Ummm - the oldest Cub Scout is 10 years old and there are some REALLY talented kids out there apparently. I HOPE these cars were entered in the 'adults' class and not with the other 6,7,8,9 and 10 year olds who actually built their cars themselves. If these were built by the kids, I apologize for the criticism. If they weren't, I don't.

Sorry to be a wet blanket, but this is one of my pet peeves.

AirsDream · 02-28-2009, 06:04 AM

In my area, there are a LOT of automotive engineers ... some of whom have a lot of free time, 'cause when my kids did Pinewood Derby, these guys would show up with "their" cars in special carrying cases that they wouldn't even let their kids carry! They all had micropolished and deburred axles, lathe-turned and trued wheels, "special" axle lubricants, etc. It was clearly a technology race among the engineers themselves. But I always liked the cars made with mostly kid involvement ... this is a great way to get kids acquainted with safe hand and power tool practices, center of gravity, friction, etc. I remember one car that "looked like" and maybe was, fundamentally the block of wood as it came out of the box, painted with a brush, and with a small gorilla glued onto it as the "driver" - and which was faster than stink, beating a lot of high-tech entries. Probably just luck, but it was cute!

willyd · 02-28-2009, 06:19 AM

Your cubscout designed cars have changed since my son made his - only 35 years ago. Nice job.

mistral blue · 02-28-2009, 07:57 AM

mistral blue · 02-28-2009, 07:59 AM

Vintage Thunder, Jr. came in last every time it raced but we all had a great time.

drag'nwagon · 02-28-2009, 09:23 AM

My wife and daughter built this one last year for the freinds and family race. The trailer took second place and was beat by a car that finished 4 in the regionals the year before.

mrmossyone · 02-28-2009, 04:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Steve & Susan

Ummm - the oldest Cub Scout is 10 years old and there are some REALLY talented kids out there apparently. I HOPE these cars were entered in the 'adults' class and not with the other 6,7,8,9 and 10 year olds who actually built their cars themselves. If these were built by the kids, I apologize for the criticism. If they weren't, I don't.

Sorry to be a wet blanket, but this is one of my pet peeves.

My wife said I shouldn't even respond but my son took some of the pictures and I let him read the comments with me ( Icertainly didn't think I would have to worry about theses kinds of comments)

Maybe you should ask first before you critisize, as my son was upset that he was called a cheater.

This is my sons 4th car and I will detail for you all that he did himself. You know a father with the knowledge can teach his son the same knowledge.

Luke's car. His own design and paint scheme. He helped cut the car, did all of the sanding, drilled the holes to hide the tungsten weight in the car, did the primer coat and first base coat of paint, he redrilled axel slots with drill press to ensure they were perfectly aligned, he deburred and trued the axels (he used a tool made to true axels with), he polished the axels, he beveled the axel heads (with the same tool mentioned above), he shaved the outside wheel tread and inner wheel rim to true wheels and then sande them, he spun the graphite into the wheels and axels and he inserted the wheels and axels into the axel slots. He put a total of about 30-40 manhours in this car and he is very proud of his car.

mrmossyone · 02-28-2009, 05:05 PM

All of my son's hardwork and effort has paid off. My oldest son won first place in his division and set a new track record as well as having the fastest time overall.

My youngest son didn't fair as well and before any other negative comments are made this is what he did to his car:

This is his original design and choice of paint scheme. Vann drilled the holes w/ drill press, redrilled axel slots with body tool and drill press (with my finger on kill switch and holding body tool), sanded everything, painted primer coat, deburred and decrimped axels using drill, file and sandpaper, shaved outside of wheel and inner rim to true the wheels with me helping to hold tool, and helped insert the wheels. He is also very proud of his car. We have progressed each year as we learn more and more about building fast cars.

markdoane · 02-28-2009, 05:07 PM

We had lots of talented dads in my pack, and we also had several kids without dads. My son suggested we hold a pinewood clinic.

We set up some tables in the shop, and everyone that wanted came to the clinic. The kids moved around the shop from the design table, through rough shaping, sanding, weight adjustment, axle tuning and paint. The kids did as much work as they could, depending on their ages.

I was amazed at the variety of designs that the Cubs came up with. The dads got a great opportunity to interact with kids that weren't their own. The boys had a great time.

The race two weeks later wasn't quite as much fun as the clinic, but every single Cub has a car he was proud of.

mistral blue · 02-28-2009, 05:11 PM

Hey Luke,

Some people feel they have to blow out other people's candles to make theirs burn brighter. You did a GREAT job creating that beauty. Do you give your cars names? I showed my 8-year old (pictured above) your cars and he said they were "awesome!" Can you figure out why his trailer came in last every race? The axles were too close to each other, which made the trailer go down the ramp like a hooked trout fighting for it's life! The paint he used is the same paint that was used on our trailer, mistral blue. The two trailers don't look exactly the same but he must have spent 10 hours testing on scrap pieces alone to get it as close as he did.

Congratulations to both you and your dad. It's fun working together. Almost as much fun as camping together!

mrmossyone · 02-28-2009, 05:24 PM

Before someone might say it isn't fair that I have all these tools for my children to take advantage of and the other kids don't, I made ALL of my tools available to every scout in our pack. I also taught all scouts in our pack how to build a fast car using these tools. We held four 2 hour Derby shop classes. Our pack did well overall in the district races.

By the way the all blue car in the above pics with the single diagonal cross piece was my parent car.

As I said my youngest son's car didn't fair as well. At first it looked as if he would win his class as he won the first heat and then one of his wheels came off. It appears as though when he redrilled axel slots to ensure exact allignment he got a little off center so the hole was a little large and the axel slipped out from under the gel glue. He did however take first place in our pack race three weeks earlier. In hindsite we probably shouldn't have taken axels out to repolish.

Here is a picture of my daughter's car for the sibling race. She is three but she told me she wanted a roller coaster car with butterflies on it. She helped sand the car (yes even at three she wants to keep up with her big brothers) and she helped paint it and she helped glue the butterflies on.

Oh she won most colorful car for the second year, she says she likes pretty cars.

mrmossyone · 02-28-2009, 05:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by slvrlng

My son and I will be working on our car this weekend. If you want to go fast go to www.maximumvelocity.com ,an amazing site!!!

I have purchased a couple of their tools and books on building fast cars. It is a good site.

mrmossyone · 02-28-2009, 05:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mistral blue

Hey Luke,

Some people feel they have to blow out other people's candles to make theirs burn brighter. You did a GREAT job creating that beauty. Do you give your cars names? I showed my 8-year old (pictured above) your cars and he said they were "awesome!" Can you figure out why his trailer came in last every race? The axles were too close to each other, which made the trailer go down the ramp like a hooked trout fighting for it's life! The paint he used is the same paint that was used on our trailer, mistral blue. The two trailers don't look exactly the same but he must have spent 10 hours testing on scrap pieces alone to get it as close as he did.

Congratulations to both you and your dad. It's fun working together. Almost as much fun as camping together!

Luke named his car this year Extreme Holeshot and Vann named his Bluesilver Speeder. The red and black car was Vann's sibling race car and it was called RacerX. Luke and Vann both said that the Argosy car was awesome, they especially liked the paint and the wheels.

Luke thinks it may have beeen faster if the wheels were further apart and that maybe it was to heavy in the front. Vann my six year old said he thought maybe it was too fat.

My kids have asked me to post pictures of our previous cars. It will give some idea of our progression.

mrmossyone · 02-28-2009, 06:14 PM

These are pics of all the cars we have built minus one. I believe my youngest son's first car is at our barn. I will be making a display shelf to hold all of our previous, present and future cars in the next two or three weeks. Here they are:

The truck was my first parent car, it was supposed to be a rally race truck.
The car with the fan I built for a no rules parent race, it blew the rest of the field away with a scale speed of 250 mph.
The group shot is all our cars that we have built.
The two together are my son's cars from last year (the gator skinned one aptly named Gator Racer was Lukes'. It was very fast during test and tune but he broke it the night before the race playing with it, it was to delicate. We had to build a new car the night before the race, needless to say it did not win), (the silver, red and blue one was Vann's sibling race car it took first in the sibling race and also best paint. It was named Blade Cutter.).

vswingfield · 02-28-2009, 06:18 PM

Congratulations to Luke and his sister!

Scouting is a great institution.

mrmossyone · 02-28-2009, 06:23 PM

Here are the rest of them. The red, white and yellow one was Luke's first year car. He broke it by playing with it after the races that is why it has the unpainted piece on the front from where I shaped a new piece and Luke glued it back on. The letters on the car are Luke's initials and the car was named DragStar. It was painted with a brush using stencils and then transfer stickers were applied.

The red one with the hole was the car we had to build last minute. It's just a wedge with a hole drilled in it. It finished 8th overall and 1st in his den. It was named Shredder.

The hot pink car was Carrie's sibling "Love" car from last year. She was two and helped sand and paint, she also helped put the rhinestones on.

mistral blue · 02-28-2009, 06:28 PM

Luke and Vann both have a good eye!

It was actually two pieces of wood glued together to make it TALLER. It was then "gutted," or hollowed out, to get it under regulation weight. The axles had to go into a separate block of wood in order to get the wheels the correct width for running down the track. This block then got wedged into the hollowed out trailer. The trailer had to race backwards in order to deal with the pointy hitch!

All of the "experts," including me, suggested to Donal that it might be better to take the hitch off. He said, "NO WAY!" He worked too hard putting that together with those propane tanks. We were all glad that he stuck to his guns. What a sight it was wiggling down the track!!