Cover the car with Plastic

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Speedster
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Cover the car with Plastic

Post by Speedster »

There is a Revell car kit that has a thin plastic piece that is a car body. The plastic is already in color so it doesn't even need painting. The directions explain how to cut the block and then glue the cover onto the block. I suspect it could be held on the block with double face tape. I'm not so sure a wafer car could not be built and glue this onto the wood for appearance. I studied our fairly restrictive rules and if the scout tells me he used the piece of plastic to bring the car up to weight I can't see how his car would not be legal. I'm smiling as I'm writing this. What will they think of next?
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FatSebastian
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Re: Cover the car with Plastic

Post by FatSebastian »

Speedster wrote:There is a Revell car kit that has a thin plastic piece that is a car body.
The EZ Body accessory?
Speedster
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Re: Cover the car with Plastic

Post by Speedster »

Yep. That looks like it.
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whodathunkit
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Re: Cover the car with Plastic

Post by whodathunkit »

Speedster wrote: What will they think of next?
A Door Slammer Class for kids. :mrgreen:
What type of automobile can be spelled the same forwards & backwards?
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Vitamin K
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Re: Cover the car with Plastic

Post by Vitamin K »

This is similar to how I plan to help my kids build cars for this year's Derby season. Wafer car base with a hollow CA-glue-reinforced balsa shell for looks.
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Nitro Dan
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Re: Cover the car with Plastic

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Vitamin K wrote:This is similar to how I plan to help my kids build cars for this year's Derby season. Wafer car base with a hollow CA-glue-reinforced balsa shell for looks.
I pretty much did the same thing with a few cub scouts who came to my workshops this season. They didn't want to do a wing design car. So I suggested building up a "hollow car" to help maximize their speed potential. We cut a thin (1/4" thick) plank from the block, then cut it out to a ladder frame. We then took some 1/8" hobby plywood, traced the side template on them (minus the 1/4" at the bottom), and cut them out. Used super glue gel to glue the sides up on the frame vertically and then wedged/glued pieces of balsa between the two sides along the top edge, front and back of the car. Used low grit sandpaper to sand the balsa down to form the top, front and back of the car. This created a hollow shell to the car. The strange thing about it is two of the cub scouts I did this with wound up taking 1st and 3rd in their pack (out of about 40 racers). They went up against several wing design cars and at least two rail riders. I'm still trying to figure out how this was possible, since most of the wing designs were built in my workshop as well? :scratching:

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Scrollsawer
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Re: Cover the car with Plastic

Post by Scrollsawer »

We didn't use a plastic shell glued onto a wafer car to achieve our boys' hot dog car this year (which came in 2nd overall in the Pack), but we (like Nitro Dan) used the exact same principles, using a hollowed out balsa structure glued onto a 1/4" precision-tuned, wafer pinewood chassis. For all intents and purposes, it's the same idea (except we actually built and painted the 'super structure' ourselves instead of it coming out of a Revell box).

Nitro Dan, I'm still scratching my head trying to figure out how my boy won 2nd overall as well with a balsa hot dog shape and all I can come up with is that (as other people have stated on the Web) aerodynamics is not as important as tuning and friction reduction. Heck, our hot dog only weighed 4.3 ounces, and it still beat wafer cars weighing 4.99 ounces. Tuning and friction reduction seem to be the big differentiators.

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Nitro Dan
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Re: Cover the car with Plastic

Post by Nitro Dan »

I first started this concept about 2 years ago when I helped my two daughters build cars for a youth division outlaw race that we ran at a Girl Scout Powder Puff Derby. They wanted cars that their dollies could ride in, so I made them as light as possibly by building them up with hobby plywood and balsa. I didn't really think much of it at the time, because they usually always win the youth division outlaw race there.

Then last year I had a Girl Scout leader who wanted to enter the adult division, but she wanted to make a van and she wanted it to be fast. I was about to tell her it was impossible, but decided that to give this method another try. Her van took 3rd place. Again, I wrote it off as a fluke.

This year I started doing it with cub scouts who didn't want a flat car (wing design). I assisted with four of these. Two did well (as described in my last post) and I just heard yesterday that one did not. I haven't heard about the fourth one yet. The only thing I can think that was different in these over the wing designs is that the COM would have been higher in the car because the weights were glued to the inside sides and inside top of the shell (being that it was hollow). The other thing I noticed different was that all of the cars (including my daughters and the GS Leader from last year) ran on a 40 ft, six lane, aluminum Best Track. So they had a very smooth running surface. The one car that didn't do well ran on a very old hand made wooden track (that desparately needs some TLC). Not sure if they are contributing factors, but not ready to rule them out either.

-Nitro Dan
Take good and make it great. Take fast and make it faster. Performance drives success!
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