Derby Talk

Had one last night.

My older son is making a "Donkey Kong" car that is thin enough (thickness of MaxV's tungsten cubes) to be run with either side facing up. He originally spray painted both sides brown, but when he discovered that it could be run either side up he decided to decorate the "other side" in "Luigi" green.

Well, last night he painted the underside green and meticulously cut out and applied the homespun Donkey Kong and Luigi decals to either side. All was good until... we applied the clear coat.

While the green brush paint was acrylic (as was the clear coat), the original brown spray paint was apparently enamel. You know the rest: Crinkle, crinkle, peel, peel. Discolored the decals as well.

After kicking myself in the pants a few times (regular practice for a "stubburn slo lurnrr" like me), he went to bed and I carefully shaved (hobby knife) and sanded off the spent paint and decals. By the time I went to bed it was fixed (probably couldn't have slept if it wasn't), another late night courtesy of "duh".

p.s. 29 days and counting...

I feel your pain. A few years ago I made a derivitave rail car. It was 2 coral snakes coming out of a hole(the weight pile in the back) then coming together in the front. Well the paint job took a long time, but looked great. I put on a clear coat and you know the rest.

SpinDoctor wrote:It was 2 coral snakes coming out of a hole(the weight pile in the back) then coming together in the front. Well the paint job took a long time, but looked great. I put on a clear coat and you know the rest.

Well, the crackle should have fit in with the snake theme

My Great Goof was when my son was a Tiger, I wanted to build a car to inspiere the scouts on the possibilties of what you can do with a block of wood.
Well, as a woodworker, I chose to make a plane. The scouts were thrilled and eager to see.....
Well our final shop night prior to the race I unvieled my plane.....
To dead silence

I had made a Hand Plane. Not even my own son knew what it was.
(And I have a gold plated one on my desk!)

I did manage to get the wow factor by staining it with soy sauce, mustard, paprika and ketchup.

I've since made up for it.

Mr C wrote:I had made a Hand Plane. Not even my own son knew what it was.

I love it! Great job!

But yeah, I've learned that designs lose something if you have to explain them...

I wish I could take credit for this story but this came from my good friend, our Committee Chair. His oldest boy's Tiger Year, his son wanted to make a police car like his Grandfather had driven. It ended up beautiful. White car with a working light--just as the boy had imagined it. Dad put a few layers of clearcoat on it to make it super shiny. The morning of check-in, he had a few hours and figured that another coat of shiny would make it even better. It looked great and was just about dry when they got to check-in. It was then that he realized that they hadn't graphited the wheels so a quick puff on each wheel, and the beautiful white car looked like it was dragged through the gray graphite-colored mud. Of course, the clearcoat was still wet so they couldn't even wipe it down.

My son's first derby car was a simple design that I could quickly cut out on my brother in law's band saw, but rather than go over there I decided that I could do the major material removal with the table saw and finish up by hand with a coping saw. Well about the time I cut up to my pre-measured mark I realized that of course the blade was well past the mark on the bottom. Duh! I had to do a lot of filling up with wood filler and my son got lots of sanding practice. Turned out well though, he won first place in the pack and I learned to quit trying to take the easy way out.

Last year I decide to keep things simple, I went with the classic wedge. I mortised two cavities, one for pouring lead and one for adding weight at weigh in. I poured lead and hit 4.95 ounces just perfect. Then I put the wheels on...

If you can believe it, wheels and axles weigh more than .05 ounces. I had to drill out the lead to get it under 5 oz.



Btw, that car took 1st in Open Class! Whoop!