This is a brief “outline” of how Joe and his Dad make his car. This is a dad and son project, but Joe does do more of it than dad. We do a 4 phase approach to our car:

I Prepare the body (this takes awhile due to drying times.) First, Second day

II Prepare the axles Second Day

III Prepare the wheels Third Day

IV Assemble everything. Third Day

Here are some general tips that may make more sense if you’ve read all the instructions below first and are ready to make your car:

A Do not make the car wider or narrower than regulation. The wheels have to straddle the track and you cannot interfere with your neighbor. Hence the rules for size of car and wheel placement.

B The center of gravity for your car must be somewhere between the axles. We have had cars do wheelies as they speed up at the bottom of the track and end up on their neighbors’ track or even on the car next to them. This was due to the weight being to far behind the rear axle.

C I believe in order to race in our scout district pinewood derby race, we cannot relocate the axles. I will confirm this. But . . . the pack hasn’t checked for this in the past. Just beware, if you relocate the axles, you may get disqualified if the district has a pinewood derby meet.

I. Prepare the Body

1. First: Do not put wheels on the axles and spin them. There are burrs on the axels that will tear up the inside of the wheel. Not good. Take the block of wood out and put the wheels and axles away.

2. Joe creates a design. The last design was roughed out on a piece of paper by Joe, and drawn on the wood by dad.

3. With supervision, Joe cuts out the pattern, first by cutting the block to be ¼” - ½” thick, then the pattern from above.

4. We then use a belt sander, (I hold it) and Joe sands the car into its almost final shape using rough sandpaper.

5. We drill a ¼” hole in the back for spare weight if needed.

6. We weigh our car with axles and wheels and figure out how much extra weight we need to get close to 4.85 oz. (The other .15 oz to get as close to 5 oz as possible is done by paint, wood filler, and spare weight if needed.)

7. We then make our canopy for the car out of lead. (create a form in a show box of sand, melt lead with a torch in a pan, and pour it in the sand mold.)

8. We roughly sand our canopy to get rid of major burrs, drill a hole in the canopy, put wood glue on the bottom and screw it onto our car. Then cover it with wood putty to smooth it all out.

9. After the putty is dry, we sand the whole thing down with 100, then 200, then 400 grits to get it very smooth.

10. Put a philips head screwdriver in the spare weight hole to hold the body and spray paint it all one color. Let this dry till you can put a second coat on. Then let it dry over night. Finish off painting the next day. Put decals on the third.

II. Prepare the Axles

1. Items needed, a metal file, sand paper, steel wool, a drill, someone to hold it or a vice, your axles.

2. Put an axle in the drill, pointed end in first. Put the drill in a vice and turn it on.

3. Take the metal file and file off the triangular shaped burrs near the head of the axle, and the three or so bumps on the shaft.

4. Make the head smaller by filing off the outer edge of the nail a little. Then try to angle the flat bottom of the nail up and away from the shaft. See the diagram of before and after to see what we do.

5. After the filing, keep the axle in the drill and use the sand paper to smooth it out, then the steel wool to polish the axle. Axle should be very smooth now.

6. Repeat for the three remaining axles.

III. Prepare the Wheels

1. Items you’ll need: Dremel tool, Wheel chuck (can be found at hobby lobby or like places), some sand paper, wheels

2. Put wheels chuck on your dremel tool, and mount a wheel.

3. Take the burrs off of the wheel with sandpaper. Do this slowly and carefully, as you do not want the wheel to melt. The plastic should turn a gray color, not black.

4. Take steel wool to smooth out the plastic, wheel should look black again.

5. Coat outside of wheel with graphite.

6. Repeat for the remaining three wheels.

IV. Assemble the Car

1. Items you’ll need: The body, axles, wheels and a little super glue.

2. Take your wheels and put them on their axles. Push the axles into the axles slots on the bottom of your car. Adjust so them first so they have about 1/8” play between the back of the wheel and the body and all four sit on the ground evenly.

3. We then angle the axles so the car is running on the outside of the wheels. We push the tip of the axle deeper into the car if possible, or pull the wheel down a little. See diagram for clarification.

4. Once all the wheels are adjusted, we take one front wheel and adjust it to lift it off the ground. Our car is now running on three wheels, but the fourth is there to keep it on the track.

5. Turn car upside down, tilt it to one side, apply ONE drop of super glue to the axles that are up in the air, so it won’t spread down to the wheel. Hold for a minute till it dries. Tilt car to the other side and repeat.

6. Fill the space between the wheel and the axles with graphite. I use lots, can’t hurt right? Do for all four wheels. Make sure to get some on the exterior of the wheel.

7. We use a cotton-polishing wheel on the dremel tool and spin the wheels. Add some more graphite and spin them some more. This helps break the wheels in and is like running hundreds of races.

V. Race Day

1. You are now ready to race. Here are some tips for race day.

2. Bring you car in a box, like a shoe box.

3. Bring spare parts, super glue, graphite, weights, the dremel to spin your wheels in more, what ever else you think you need.

4. Don’t play with your car on the floor.

5. Get ready to rumble!!!!!!