Derby Talk

I'd put the stiff direction going the length of the car, since I'd imagine that would be the more likely flex direction. Thanks guys. I've got a sheet of the 1/64" plywood to skin our thin car with. Bending it one way is easy, the other way is stronger, stiffer. Which direction do I lay it on t...

<insert Scout-friendly exclamation of dismay> http://i.imgur.com/xrr1U1u.jpg?2 Was cutting the final wheel well on my second fender on Daddy's car when the scrollsaw blade 'grabbed' the balsa out of my hand and cracked the fragile top curve of the fender. NOOOOOO...! Not quite ready to say die. CA g...

My method in the past was to use the fence-and-spacer technique on the drill press. I don't use a level, because I'm not convinced that the drill press table itself perfectly level. Instead, I would check for squareness of the drill press platform with the bit, squareness of the fence block, and sq...

My method in the past was to use the fence-and-spacer technique on the drill press. I don't use a level, because I'm not convinced that the drill press table itself perfectly level. Instead, I would check for squareness of the drill press platform with the bit, squareness of the fence block, and squ...

Hullo pineheads, So I've been thinking, which, like scraping cobwebs from an attic, tends to come up with a bunch of stringy mess that I, now and again, attempt to pluck ideas from. One thing I'm wondering about is what kind of useful metrics can we come up with that predict the performance of a pin...

This is really a great way to get a light body that's rigid and crush-resistant. I bet if you paint the inner balsa with CA glue you'll get even better strength.

Hmmm, quite possibly some of these will work! I'll see if I can import them into Blender. Thanks whoda! I don't know if this is what your looking for or not! Might try giveing these links a look see Vitamin K. https://3dwarehouse.sketchup.com/search.html?redirect=1&q=pinewood+derby&scoring=m...

I drill my rears canted instead of bending axles. I don't do it because I think its faster in and of itself. I do it because its repeatable and removes a variable, particularly since the cub scout council rules and the leagues I race in allow aftermarket axles. This has allowed me to more easily ex...

Hey folks, time for a weird question. I'm attempting (for the nth time) to learn how to use Blender3D, and I was wondering: Does anybody know of any 3D models of Pinewood Derby components? Specifically, the wheels and axles? I have a bizarre idea in my head that I'd like to model in 3D, but it would...

Stole a few minutes before wifey came home with the kids to run down to the workshop. I cut and sanded the canopy and cut out the wheel wells on one of the fenders. Fitting single-piece fenders to the wheels is a learning experience for me. I cut the wheel spaces out pretty conservatively, and then ...

Very nice. Mrs. GPRaceMan gots skills!

Did the LED have any trouble with the starting pin?

Negative cant will force the wheel to ride against the nail head. Assuming the scout pulls the rear wheels to the nail head when staging his car, the rear wheels should be in the same position whether the nail is bent or straight. I'm going to guess the super experts are able to drill a perfect hol...

For years, I have drilled cant. On the DFW. Then use a lesser bent axle. I found the bend without doing this, could indeed effect the hub area and cause problems. Any elaborations on this? If you're noticing adverse effects from hub friction on bent axles, maybe this is one possible source of the '...

I can run GPRM on Linux, under Wine. Haven't tested a hardware link, though.

I see the biggest hurdle in a cross-platform race manager platform as being the interface with the timer. Otherwise, I'd suggest an GUI toolkit like wxWidgets or Qt.

Lets consider a pretend set up. A hole is drilled with 2 1/2 degrees of Negative cant. Scout nail installed. That's it. You're done. A scout nail is bent 2 1/2 degrees Negative cant and installed in a slot. How does the wheel know whether it is riding on a straight nail or a bent nail? Would like t...