When it was time to start formulating a plan for this years derby car I had Noah sit down and draw his plan for the car.
So I used a couple of his pictures, from the car show, and a bunch of pictures pulled from the internet to create the design for the car
Noah weighed all of the pinewood kits we had purchased to see which one was the lightest pine block. He found an unprepared block that was 3.47 oz.
He attached the ProBody Tool and drilled the pilot holes and attached a set of somewhat prepared wheels and axles and ran the block down our test board.
It seemed to roll pretty straight so we disassembled the block and marked it for cutting.
The windshield is made from the top of a 500ml (16.5 fl. oz.) Aquafina bottle. The plastic (polyethylene terephthalate - PET) is recessed into the body, via a knife cut line and attached with a small amount of superglue (superglue is not recommended to be used with PET, according to the instructions, but I carefully sanded the part of the windshield, with 220 grit, that was to be glued, to aid adhesion). Here is a picture of the first test we did with a PET windshield, with this test I decided to not use superglue on the inside of the windshield (as it seemed to fog the plastic). I lifted the test fixture by the windshield to make sure it was stuck well, it did not release (even when I tried to abuse it).
Then I was worried that the windshield install with superglue, might affect the paint so I made a new test fixture that was painted. After painting I attached a bunch of test windshields (the superglue did leave a mark on the paint that was easily sanded down with 220 grit sandpaper, when cured), then I painted on top of the mounted windshield (because that is how I planned to paint the body, after the windshield install)
The plan to carve the jet engine nozzle out of wood failed when I miss cut the rear of the car, so the changed plan was to find a piece of pipe (of approximately the right diameter) to be glued into the rear hole. I found that a 1/4” steel pipe is 9/16”, so we cut a 3/4” long piece to glue into the back (but it weighed almost 1/2 an oz.)
Ever since Noah was a Wolf we always have had a racing team sticker (Wolf-Radiator Springs Racing Team, Bear Pinewood 66 Racing Team) so this year we were the Batman Racing Team.
While I was working on our parent cars, Noah was in the shop looking for stuff to do. When I did not have anything for him to do He came up with a plan to make a shop where the pinewood cars are built. This became the Pinewood Derby Hot Rod Shop (he used a lot of the 1/24th scale garage tools I purchased for another project). We had to scale down some posters and some license plates (from the internet) for the shop.
During the racing I did not have a lot of time to view the races, but this year there was a lot of fast cars. When it came time for the awards Noah received 3rd place (technically 2nd for Webelos 1, as all Webelos raced together). This was the first year our pack gave out design awards, picked by all of the race spectators, and Noah received 2 - Coolest Looking Car & Best Painted and/or Decorated Car (I think they should only award one per Scout).
I had a discussion with a small group of parents at our pack PWD and we determined the Barris Batmobile is definitely the coolest Batmobile of all the series Batmobiles. But this was a bunch of old dads deciding this.
), or do you use a different tool for that?
