How many cars have you built?

General discussions for car and semi-truck racers.

How many cars have you built or helped a child build?

Less than 25
15
52%
25-49
3
10%
50-99
3
10%
100-199
2
7%
Over 200
4
14%
Over 1000
2
7%
 
Total votes: 29

BallBoy
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How many cars have you built?

Post by BallBoy »

I have 4 sons under the age of 7 and will have at least one cub entrant in pinewood derbies for at least the next 11 years. I was just looking at the cars currently in my collection and counted 32 cars, so the collection will definately increase in the coming years. There are an additional half dozen or so cars that I have built, including when I was a cub, that no longer exist. The oldest car I have was built when I was a wolf leader in 2001.

This got me to wondering about how many cars the members of DerbyTalk have built in their lifetimes. Please share how many cars you have built in your lifetime. If you don't keep your cars or have built then donated then please share how many you currently have in your collection. Also, what year was your oldest car built?
Last edited by BallBoy on Tue Feb 14, 2012 11:50 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Darin McGrew
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Re: How many cars have you built?

Post by Darin McGrew »

I built my 25th derby car this year. I built my first derby car in 1988, and have built one every year since then.

When I was a kid, my Cub Scout pack never had a derby.
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ciodude
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Re: How many cars have you built?

Post by ciodude »

I have 5 children (1 boy, 4 girls). I did two years of Cub Scout PWDs with my son and AWANA Gran Prix with all five of them for a year and now just every year with my four girls. I have usually built one or more cars every year. This year I did two. For the first time in a few years, my son built a car (he’s a Boy Scout - Life rank now) to race in the Pack leaders/sibling race where he is a Den Chief. I think our family collection numbers 30 or so (depending on how you count trailers).

My oldest car is (I think) from 1971. It’s the one car I built with my dad when I was a Cub Scout. I chose it to race down the “world’s longest track” when it came to two for our Boy Scout Council 100 year anniversary. The kids’ cars start in about 2007. I made my first car again as Cub Master in 2008. That started me down the road to PWD ruin. :)
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sporty
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Re: How many cars have you built?

Post by sporty »

As a kid I built maybe 3 with my dad. As a father. with two kids, 5 years apart and some tuff school years where they repeated a grade and at that time they also repeated the scout year. I think recently that has changed atleast locally here with the scout program.

But with that aside. for the first year of my oldest son scout, we did 1 car, the 2nd year we did 1 car, the 3rd year we did 8 cars. his 4th year we did 8 cars. his 5th year we did like 15-18 cars.

Then my youngest son was a tiger, by then we were doing 25 cars. By his 2rd year and my future step son into the picture then. we were doing close to 40 to 50 cars a year.

in late 2009/2010 year. I was doing 10-25 cars a month. Adult racing for 2010.

I am well over the 250 mark for building cars.

In part, divorce came into the picture for me in 2004. I as father then had the mind set, that trying to do more with the kids and do it better and learn and teach them, because of a reduced amount of time spent with them. Led me basically go crazy with car building. I think also when they were not here, it helped me think of them and helped heal my pain with no longer having them in my life everyday. Add in a local pack cheating my son one year also played a part into things also.

Getting a track, also made it easier and more exciting to build cars and for the kids to spend time when thety were here running cars and tinkering with them.

I add in, more here that what I prefer to share, but I wanted to convey some of the reason and motivation in building so many cars.

The best piece of advice I can offer to anyone reading this, is that even if you do not want to go faster. Our first few years, were just building cool looking cars and nice paint jobs.

Its really can be fun to do , cutting wood, painting cars,. ect. When we were just building 8 cars, they were all for fun looks and running them on the packs track the night before the race, if we came and helped set up they had a spare track, that the kids could bring there cars and run out. So we would help and run the cars and the fastest one, was kept for the race day.

But once my kids started winning trophies and winning council, they wanted to keep winning. They never bragged, because they seen how much time and how much work it takes to do the cars.

But then it also turns into being able to build a car to go faster than your last car. As time goes on, this becomes very hard to do.

Sporty
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Stan Pope
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Re: How many cars have you built?

Post by Stan Pope »

I've built maybe 20 car to race.

3 or 4 while Son was a Cub so I'd have something to race and test ideas, a couple of diagonal 2-wheelers, a really thin (barely over 1/8" for the entire length) lead weighted car with a poor CM, 10 in a test series, and a sewing pin axle + home cut wheel car for the district open race.

How many "parts of cars" have I built to test process ideas? Lost count!

How many hands have I placed mine over while they built cars? Lost count!

How many Dad's shoulders have I looked over as they helped their son build his car? Lost count!
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drathbun
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Re: How many cars have you built?

Post by drathbun »

I only ever remember making one car when I was in cubs, and that was a long time ago. It was a purple metallic paint job and came in 4th place in our group. :) Since my boys have started, we made 1 car first year (1 Tiger cub), 4 cars next year (1 Wolf cub, 1 younger sibling car, two dad cars), and then generally have made 3 or 4 cars every year since then. There are exceptions; my younger son made a train engine last year, and after the derby workshops were over we started making more cars for the train this year. (We've made a log hauler and a car transporter.) Total cars is somewhere north of 20 at this point.
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gpraceman
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Re: How many cars have you built?

Post by gpraceman »

Maybe the poll should be edited to ask "How many cars have you built with your children?"
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Awana Grand Prix and Pinewood Derby racing - Where a child, an adult and a small block of wood combine for a lot of fun and memories.
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Re: How many cars have you built?

Post by BallBoy »

gpraceman wrote:Maybe the poll should be edited to ask "How many cars have you built with your children?"
Good suggestion. I modified the question in the poll to include builds where assistance was rendered.
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5kidsracing
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Re: How many cars have you built?

Post by 5kidsracing »

Maybe I am just clueless, but I can't change my vote now right?
For my "Pinewood Story" go to: http://5kidsracing.webs.com/index.htm
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Stan Pope
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Re: How many cars have you built?

Post by Stan Pope »

5kidsracing wrote:Maybe I am just clueless, but I can't change my vote now right?
Yup! The survey is toast!
Stan
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46u

Re: How many cars have you built?

Post by 46u »

I am working on my first with my 7 year old grandson for Cub Scouts. Being I have 3 other grandsons and one granddaughter I am guessing I will be building many before it is over not counting the ones I build for my self. LOL. Out of my 5 grand children I have two sets of twins. :lol:
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Nate
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Re: How many cars have you built?

Post by Nate »

Stan, at least by proxy just on this site, you, Sporty, and others have probably built several thousand cars each. I know you guys have saved me hundreds of hours of experimenting to reinvent the wheel (pun intended) and allowed me to start experimenting in the fun stuff at the cutting edge almost from the get go.

When I was a kid in AWANA, we didn't even know to lube the wheels. When my kids start racing, they'll get to experience learning to do it right and reaping the rewards of winning.
Stan Pope wrote:I've built maybe 20 car to race.

3 or 4 while Son was a Cub so I'd have something to race and test ideas, a couple of diagonal 2-wheelers, a really thin (barely over 1/8" for the entire length) lead weighted car with a poor CM, 10 in a test series, and a sewing pin axle + home cut wheel car for the district open race.

How many "parts of cars" have I built to test process ideas? Lost count!

How many hands have I placed mine over while they built cars? Lost count!

How many Dad's shoulders have I looked over as they helped their son build his car? Lost count!
BallBoy
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Re: How many cars have you built?

Post by BallBoy »

I enabled the re-vote feature of the poll.
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Darin McGrew
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Re: How many cars have you built?

Post by Darin McGrew »

Hmm... With 25 years of workshops, 1000 cars would be only 40 cars per year. Yeah, I think I've been involved with the construction of at least that many cars. I've actually had my hands on a lot of them (cutting the basic shape on the band saw, helping the child press axle holes, helping the child polish axles, etc.), but not all of them. But for all the others, I set up power tools, paint booths, work tables, power strips, work lights, etc.
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PeterT
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Re: How many cars have you built?

Post by PeterT »

3 when I was a cub
5 helped my son with all five of his
1 we did following a book's suggestion to make two each year
1 I made as a wireless camera car
1 pack filler car - no longer needed due to GPRM not using fillers
2 half built cars

so... 11 to 13, depending on how you count the two unfinished cars

the filler car was in some ways the most fun since it did not have to conform to any rules.
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