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Hall of Famer [22930]
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Year 2 of building Pinewood Derby cars
Jan 30, 2021, 8:46 PM
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Webelos aged son finished 2nd in his den with a huge improvement from last year.
Wolf aged son won his den and won the kids choice’ design award. Finished 2nd overall in this troop a fraction behind the Webelos winner.
Kids are pumped. This dad is proud. Everybody had fun. Not sure how to go faster next year, but expect the kids to do more and more of the heavy lifting.
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CU Medallion [54758]
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thinking about gettin' the boy into scouts
Jan 30, 2021, 10:09 PM
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we were talking last night, and I couldn't remember....i know Webelos stands for 'we be loyal scouts'...but do you ever singular-ize (is that a word?) it?
like, he's a "webelo"?
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Heisman Winner [135637]
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No - it’s because you learn how to climb a tree
Jan 31, 2021, 1:22 AM
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and Wee Below on all whom pass by
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Oculus Spirit [97653]
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...year 7 now. Only 7 more to go.
Jan 31, 2021, 10:34 AM
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Yeah...assuming son #3 likes it too.
I'm not one of those dads who builds the MIT-approved car for their kid, but there are some neat things you can do to make it faster.
Everyone does the graphite on the wheels, BUT you can also sand with a dremel tool the nails for the wheels, making it smoother, and rolls better. Weight to the front helps. Always nail in wheels AFTER painting. Add a small drop of super glue to the wheel nails, careful not to let it run to the wheel though. Honestly lanes matter more than the cars sometimes. So much depends on the lane you get. There's usually one or more slower then the others.
It's a lot of fun though. I feel for the kids who's dad's obviously take it too seriously.
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Lot o points [163008]
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We did the Pinewood cars in Indian Guides
Jan 31, 2021, 11:27 AM
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unfortunately it was in March, my busiest time of year and I was a workaholic. So we get the car and spend a Sunday afternoon (about the only time I did not work) cutting corners on the block and letting son paint it with some red, black and white paint. It looked like a kid made it and he did, so it was fine.
The race was at night, I don't really remember much other than getting my work done so we could go - I race home and we are getting the car to take, and I grab a can of graphite spray (it was for our treadmill iirc) and dosed the axles, not really thinking twice about it.
We get to the event and all the engineering dads were talking about sanding axles, checking weights on axles, etc. etc. - and we said we just put it together and hoped it would roll. LOL. They just shook their heads and I told Son of, to not worry, this was just for fun, praying he would at least win one race.
Well, he won every f'ing race. Wheels kept coming off, but they kept putting them back on for us and set us up for the next race. It was amazing and Son of still has this car, 25ish years later. LOL.
Love these types of memories - so , enjoy it you young guys - you cannot re-live these times.
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All-In [40869]
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I always wanted to do that but had two girls
Jan 31, 2021, 1:46 PM
[ in reply to ...year 7 now. Only 7 more to go. ] |
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girl scouts was a total joke it paled in comparison to our camping trips. I was a single dad so I became an expert in fixing hair, French Braids, pony and pig tails. When I remarried I got a son but he was 13 and never did any boy scouts or sports.
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Hall of Famer [22930]
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Kids did all the design work
Jan 31, 2021, 2:02 PM
[ in reply to ...year 7 now. Only 7 more to go. ] |
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Most of the cutting with my hand on the tools for strength and accuracy. All of the painting. We had more fun designs and not a regular race car look.
Together we must have watched hours of YouTube videos to learn all the tricks. Items that might have worked for us:
1. Maxed out the weight and put it all in the back. Center weight of car was 1” in front of rear wheels
2. Worked on axles. Removed burrs, then sand paper to polish. We read about steel wool for the last step, but all we had were SOS pads that made a big soapy mess.
3. Sprayed axles in lemon pledge since I didn’t have any polishing wax
4. Liberally applied graphite
5. Then used a magic eraser to smooth out the wheels and remove excess graphite
6. Only ran on three wheels
We didn’t do any axle bending, rail riding or measure alignment (our Webelos car could have been faster but it wobbled down the track).
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