Another local brewery had a 'Pint’wood Derby race last weekend. I put the MPCNC to use. My son modeled the blue car himself from scratch and did the sanding/painting. All I did was cut it out for him. I found a model of a Batmobile and tweaked it to fit PWD dimensions. I think it turned out pretty well too.
My son’s car not only won the Youth division, but it was also the fastest car of the day and beat all of the adults too! Plus it is a sweet paint job! He was a little bummed when I told him he couldn’t race the same car again next year.
The Batmobile had some problems during assembly. The wood split when trying to put the back wheels on. I repaired the wood the best I could, but I had to re-drill axle holes and I did not do a great job. The wheels were not very well aligned. Even so, it had a respectable showing for 2 of the 3 heats. The other heat had a crash. Honestly, I didn’t even care. The car turned out like I hoped it would and that’s the challenge I was hoping to complete.
The Batmobile was tight. The main body was actually narrower than the standard block. It required a long bit and I barely had enough Z height to get all the way through it. All the clearance moves pulled out of the bottom set of bearings so it was a little nerve racking. If I had to do it again, I would have split the main body up a little more.
The blue car was a little easier since the main body was the same size as the block of wood, so the bit didn’t have to reach 1.25" down. The sides of both were cut out of some 3/4" pine and glued on.
Man I remember me and my dad always making these when I was in cub scouts. These are great memories and just one of those things I couldn’t have thought about using the CNC for!
I love pinewood derby. As a cub scout, my first car I made all by myself with a saw and some model paint. It never finished a race because I didn’t know about weights. The next year I had adult help and did much better. over the years with my boys, we have made, herbie, the good year blimp, one that looked like lightening, a corvette/viper, batmobile (hot pink) and spongebob and a prop driven one that would go up the track. Good stuff. Carving the cars with the lowrider is next level and could open up a host of options… we do adult and youth races periodically at church, so now I’ll be looking for the next design.
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