Good Axle Prep Methods for a Workshop?

[RMoose]

For those who have conducted workshops, what method of axle prep did you use?

I would like to avoid a bottleneck developing at this step this year. The time required to get a set of axles polished for every boy last year seemed to throw the entire workshop off. Last year we polished with 600, 800, 1000, 1500, & 2000 grit sandpaper followed with Mother's polish. I was thinking this year of doing only 1000, 1500, 2000 and then the Mother's. What advice do you workshop veterans have?

[Darin McGrew]

For those who have conducted workshops, what method of axle prep did you use?

At our workshops, we have a bunch of hand drills and some 600-grit emery paper. That's it.

The goals of our workshops are (1) to make sure everyone can build their car, and (2) to provide everyone access to basic speed techniques. We aren't trying to provide everything that anyone might need to build the fastest possible car, and that's okay. The fastest cars usually require some "homework", but so do the best-looking designs.

[terryep]

That's all we do, some filing, 600 paper, then auto polish. Not a mirror finish but it works for us.
Terry

[RMoose]

We had this year's workshop this weekend. I decided to go with 800 and 1500 grit wet/dry sandpaper and a jar of Mother's polish. They were available for anyone to use. Some took advantage of them and some did not.

This year the workshop was a weekend afternoon drop-in event. That seemed to prevent the bottleneck problem we had last year when we tried to do the workshop during our regular meeting time. Much more successful event. Just not enough time during a one hour meeting for a workshop! Good lesson learned, will definitely go this route next year.

[nosam116]

What sort of time frame (number of hours for workshop) would you suggest?

[gpraceman]

What sort of time frame (number of hours for workshop) would you suggest?

Due to everyone's busy schedules, I like to keep the workshop times as wide open as possible. We have usually gone from 10am - 4pm, on the 3 Saturdays prior to the race (2 cutting & sanding and 1 for finishing). People come for as long or little as they need. We have usually gotten well over half of our racers to attend at least one of the workshops since they can work around soccer, baseball, and other activities.

Having all of the necessary tools, someone to provide tips on construction and making the "official scale" available are key things as well.

[Darin McGrew]

What sort of time frame (number of hours for workshop) would you suggest?

We typically have 3 Saturday morning workshops (9-11:30), plus an hour or so of workshops during "activity time" for 3 Wednesday night meetings. That seems to work well. Holding only 2 Saturday morning workshops wasn't quite enough. Our Saturday morning workshops don't need to be longer. No one shows up later, and they're winding down by about 11:00 anyway. (YMMV)

[mclark]

Hi, New to the forum.
We usually have our polar bear campout in January. We tarp off a pavillion and heat it. The adults bring the tools (power tools operated by the adults) and the boys bring the kits. We have a full day of pinewood derby workshop and we found that boys, who normally would not have participated in the pinewood derby because of not having tools or for whatever reason, built a car that weekend and participated in the race.