Pine Wood Derby tips. Our section has put off Pine Wood Derby till spring, this year. We allow either GPH cars (wood dowel axel) or Boy Scout cars. Our rules state that the boys have to purchase their car from their commander and the price includes sectional race fees and covers the cost of trophies, etc. This year, we're buying the Boy Scout version because of quality problems with the GPH cars in the past (axel grooves not perpendicular to the wood block). We used to use the 5 oz. max weight rule but bumped it up to 5.5 oz. for our whole district. (We have a district race too) Here are some tips I've picked up... * The car starts out on an incline with the back end higher than the front. It ends up at the finish line with the front and back at the same level. That means the back end has more "potential energy", if you remember your physics class. In other words, weight located there gets the chance to do a bit more work coming down the hill. If you have ideas about whether the weight should "pull" the car or "push" it, forget them. Weight only acts in one direction: straight down through the track toward the center of the earth. * As the car goes down the track, it usually bangs from side to side with the wheels being stopped by the track center guide. If the front wheels are just slightly closer together than the rear wheels, then only the front wheels will touch the center guide. That cuts that source of friction in half. It also helps if the front wheels are as close as possible to each other without binding the track (assuming no misalignment of track sections.) * If the front of the car is too pointy looking down at it from the top, it may not trigger electronic finish lines as soon as it might otherwise. * A car with one wheel slightly lifted has less rolling friction. (This goes against the mindset that considers a perfect four wheeled machine should have equal pressure on all four tires.) *Probably the most important thing is polished axels. The Scout car axels are easy to polish in a dremel tool with a 3/32" collet. Make sure the pointy nail end of the Scout axels is smoothed before they ever touch a wheel. The points are cut with a shear and flare larger than the wheel bore. They will scribe a permanent groove through the wheel the first time they're pushed in if not filed down. The GPH axels are screws and don't true up properly in a collet to spin them round. One year, we were disappointed in how the holes in the ends of the GPH axels were drilled so we threw them all out and made new ones from wood dowel stock. If you need to do the same, mount the drill bit in a drill press vice and the axel in the drill chuck and spin the wood instead of the bit for a true center. This works best if done on a lathe, if you have one available.
These aren't all the tips, but they're ones you might not get from regular sources. If your track starting gate is of the standard hinge-below-the-track design and does not "POP" away from the front of the cars faster than they begin rolling, then cars with a high front end have a starting advantage over cars with a low front end. (As the starting line "fingers" pivot, the tops of the pins move away from the cars faster than the bottom.) If you're the guy operating it, make sure you flip it fast. If not, tell the guy who is operating it, but don't count on him following your instructions. Most starting gates have rubber bands that hold the fingers up and you stretch the bands to retract them. A design improvement would be springs or rubber bands pulling the fingers down away from the cars and a catch or trigger holding them up. Aside from the standard set of rules, we have a car clinic every year where we point out the above information. The boys that incorporate it, win. Most build their cars within 3 days of the race and don't have time for details. -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Mark W Jones Sent: Saturday, November 20, 2004 7:02 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [RR] Pinewood Derby Time. Well now. Who is building Pinewood Derby cars? We are supposed to have a Pinewood Derby Lock in in a few weeks. If SBC would allow me more than one day off every 21 - 11 hour days it might happen.....grrrrrrr! Before that I think I had one day off in 30 days and that day was spent at our ROTY District Event. The money is good but my dog who loves me thinks I am a stranger and is starting to growl at me... and my wife just shakes her head. In 25 years with SBC it has never been this bad. It has been close...many times..but never this bad...GRIN! Last week I was pretty tired and fed up and after a grand display of how a Christian is not supposed to act... blowup at work... I threw in the towel. and called my Div. Commander and said...I need someone else to do this job as Sec. Commander. It is sad when you want to do something that is good for all concerned but work won't allow you to do it. That includes Church and Royal Rangers. I have been to church once in 3 months... I think. Bottom line... Pray for me. Please. Mark Jones It's time to leave for work.... o boy! Pinewood Derby Crafting...still on my mind! Nothing like a 18 hour lock in to restore your soul... : ) Download a Free Royal Ranger Database. It's packed with goodies and it will make record keeping fun! Over 33 related databases and 13 years of field experience. Just like Salvation it's free! http://home.classicnet.net/mjones02/index.html Rangernet Picture Directory http://mark.rangernet.org/rangernet.pdf ________________________________________________________________ Juno Platinum $9.95. Juno SpeedBand $14.95. Sign up for Juno Today at http://www.juno.com! Look for special offers at Best Buy stores. _______ The Golden Rule is our daily rule on RangerNet. List host: http://Kahunapule.org List info: http://RangerNet.org/faq.htm To unsubscribe, send "unsubscribe rangernet" to [EMAIL PROTECTED] or visit http://eBible.org/subscribe.htm _______ The Golden Rule is our daily rule on RangerNet. List host: http://Kahunapule.org List info: http://RangerNet.org/faq.htm To unsubscribe, send "unsubscribe rangernet" to [EMAIL PROTECTED] or visit http://eBible.org/subscribe.htm
