Pinewood Derby car

CDM

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Joined
Dec 8, 2010
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93
My son and I built this car for his Cub Scout Pinewood Derby a couple of months ago.

I cut the base slab with a TS55, and also cut a bunch of veneer-thin pine slices.  He drew a shape he wanted, and I cut a caul pair with a Trion.  Then we glued and clamped our thin slices in the caul to get a laminated wave.  When the glue was dry he did some supervised low-speed RO-90 sanding of the sides and hand-sanded the top and bottom edges.

Next, we had an afternoon of experimenting with wood dyes.  Thankfully my wife overlooked a variety of dyed clothing and a large variety of dyed wood scraps scattered about the front yard.  The finish was spray polyurethane (a couple of coats) followed by pumice and rottenstone rubbing out, with the wave and the surfer attached the CA way afterwards.

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He won some heats and lost some heats while we were there.  We missed the finals because we had to leave early, but his friend's little brother got the overall trophy.  Most of the fun was goofing off in the Festool end of our living room thinking up neat stuff to try.  "Let's make a working roller coaster, Dad!"  Well, maybe next year...  He definitely had a gee-whiz moment when the laminated piece came out of the forms.
 
CDM said:
Festool end of our living room  "

wow id love to get away with that . even one small tool box left inside the door is a yellow card offense.

unfortunitly it is probably harder to hide those new purcases
 
very cool project!  

One of my fondest childhood memories is of making a pinewood derby car with my grandfather.  He was a tool and die maker for General Motors.  He shaped the car to look like a 69' Stingray vette.  It was one of those cars which everyone knows the kid didn't make it, but looked cool anyway.  I sanded and painted it.  I wish I still had it.

your son is a lucky kid.      
 
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