Cars Built with a Dual-Purpose

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Mr. Steve 316
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Cars Built with a Dual-Purpose

Post by Mr. Steve 316 »

Has anyone ever built something that just happened to also be a Pinewood Derby Car?

This Jeep was built for my wife to use as a business card holder for her home business, cake decorating.

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All things considered, it ran pretty well. It finished second in it's class and was voted Most Creative by the boys in the Pack - A PINK Jeep, imagine that. This was our second Jeep, the first car we ever built is the camo one in the picture below.

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chromegsx
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Re: Cars Built with a Dual-Purpose

Post by chromegsx »

Wow, what a cool idea. You have amazing skills, patience, attention to detail, and most important of all... imagination.
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Re: Cars Built with a Dual-Purpose

Post by pgosselin »

Sweeeeet! :D
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Darin McGrew
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Re: Cars Built with a Dual-Purpose

Post by Darin McGrew »

Very nice! I bet it's a real conversation starter. Thanks for sharing!
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Curse You Red Baron!
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Re: Cars Built with a Dual-Purpose

Post by Curse You Red Baron! »

I really like the business card idea. Those jeeps look amazing - how long does it take you to build them? We usually have about a month (and I can't build very well during the Holiday break with all the events) so whatever we do has to be reasonably quick to build or very well thought out ahead of time.
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Noskills
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Re: Cars Built with a Dual-Purpose

Post by Noskills »

Dont let me wife know the cars can actually have a purpose! She thinks I can go build her a wardrobe now that I have a table top bandsaw and can cut cars. Far from it. I am stickin to cars!
Seth
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Mr. Steve 316
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Re: Cars Built with a Dual-Purpose

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Curse You Red Baron! wrote:I really like the business card idea. Those jeeps look amazing - how long does it take you to build them? We usually have about a month (and I can't build very well during the Holiday break with all the events) so whatever we do has to be reasonably quick to build or very well thought out ahead of time.
After building the Army Jeep, that took a couple of weeks since we were learning everything from scratch, I knocked out my wife's Jeep in a single night. It took about 4 hours complete with paint. I had to apply the logos later after the paint dried, and we did no wheel prep except painting the rims.
Noskills wrote:Dont let me wife know the cars can actually have a purpose! She thinks I can go build her a wardrobe now that I have a table top bandsaw and can cut cars. Far from it. I am stickin to cars!
Seth
If you are like us, you will find other cool stuff to do with those tools. We have acquired a bandsaw, scrollsaw and belt sander since building Derby Cars. I use those tools all the time for my Bear Den at Scouts and of course other stuff around the house.
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davet
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Re: Cars Built with a Dual-Purpose

Post by davet »

Very cool. I drew up a CJ2a pulling a military trailer as an option for my boy this year but his heart was set on a missile. How did the short camo Jeep go down the track? Did it wobble or what were it's characteristics?
Mr. Steve 316
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Re: Cars Built with a Dual-Purpose

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davet wrote:Very cool. I drew up a CJ2a pulling a military trailer as an option for my boy this year but his heart was set on a missile. How did the short camo Jeep go down the track? Did it wobble or what were it's characteristics?
It ran smooth, no wobble. The wheel base was shortened from stock about 1/3 inch. I found the plans for it in a Derby book we had at scouts on build night. That plan shortened the wheel base about 1.5 inches, we just stretched the plan. The COM was about dead center and our stock class allows no axle or wheel prep. It finished 13th out of 30 something cars, 3rd in our Tiger Den. So, it did it's job and moved us on to Districts where we built a new car. (We aren't required to use the same car and there are no design awards, only top 3 in speed that move on to Council.) Also, when we raced the windshield and gun came off to reduce drag. In the Pack race it received award for most creative and the next year the Pink Jeep won the same award.
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Re: Cars Built with a Dual-Purpose

Post by Mr. Steve 316 »

I saw your missile car on another post... Very Nice! Here is one we did our first year just as a learning tool. At that time we weren't up to melting lead, yet. We used a steel yard spike (large nail) inside a hollowed out wooden dowel rod. We still used some off the shelf lead derby waits for the bottom to get up to 5 oz. We had some alignment issues, but all and all learned a lot.

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Re: Cars Built with a Dual-Purpose

Post by having_wandered »

I didn't realize it until he said something but my son has been selecting his derby cars carefully- to go along with his legos.
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