zson and I have competed in several Cub Scout Pinewood Derby events. We had the third-fastest car our first year, largely because I was a Cub Scout and I knew there are a bunch of easy things you need to do to make the car faster, and I suspected that most of the dads had no idea how to use a hand saw let alone polish an axle, and I also suspected that most of the dads are also hyper-competitive type-A nut jobs so they would work themselves into a lather after losing the first year and watch all sorts of YouTubes on how to make these little cars go fast, so I put a lot of time into getting the axles smooth, polishing the insides of the wheels, and getting the car right up to the legal weight limit with most of the weight right in front of the rear axle. As I predicted, the other dads came back with a vengeance after that and bought some woodworking tools (and possibly bought fast cars on the internet, but that's a different story).
This year we decided to chase the best design category instead of speed. zson thought a VW Camper Van would be cool and relatively easy. He was right and wrong, respectively. The project involved two blocks of wood to get the correct aspect ratio, lots of drilling and failed attempts to use Juan Carlos's palm router to remove lots of wood from the middle to get under the weight limit, a little sawing and a lot of sanding. We found some groovy reflective iridescent paper for the windows, printed some Grateful Dead images for the rear, and got a VW logo from a brochure at the local dealer. We were very happy with the results.
We took the first place trophy for design so the judges liked it too. I felt pretty good about my automotive woodworking skills. Then I saw this video.
I hope this guy doesn't show up at next year's Pinewood Derby.
Posts
