French Fries anyone !

[whodathunkit]

Hi all it sure is good to see that Derby Talk and the Derby season is picking up once more.

My son would like to share his build for this year.
Yeah he loves the fries at Mc Donald's and when I showed him a pic of a Mc Donald's French fry pinewood derby car he said that's what i want to build this year.



Yeah you all may note the older kit!
All the kid's in his Cub Scout Pack are using this older pinewood derby kit type for there pack race ..as there are a very small group of 4 kid's this year and the kits were donated and free.
Drawing out his design:

Fixing his design for straight lines with a ruler before moving on to cutting it out on the scroll saw.

He wanted to try cutting his car out on the scroll saw with my help.
( he did good and kept his fingers away from the blade like i told him as we cut his shape out with a Hand's over hands approach for his first time to run the saw.)

From there i took over to cut out the weight pockets and plate to cover them.. and then he helped with cutting out his fries and started sanding and shaping them.

Bottom view of the weight pockets I cut out for him.. and plate made so the front doesn't stick out past the starting pen with it concaved shaped front.

Where he is with it in the building stages as of today.. and before hogging out more wood weight and moving into the paint stages later on tonight.

[exoray]

Looks like you are off to a great start...

[Vitamin K]

Super cool!

[FatSebastian]

Delicious! Everyone loves McD's fries! And you demonstrate your expertise by not making the front of car concave like the model.

How old is that kit he's holding?

[whodathunkit]

Delicious! Everyone loves McD's fries! And you demonstrate your expertise by not making the front of car concave like the model.

How old is that kit he's holding?

Charlie thinks it’s a 1996-97 kit
And it was VK that once told me about the concave shape sticking past the start pin on the one I made for my self some time back.

Thanks for the compliments guys!

[FatSebastian]

Charlie thinks it’s a 1996-97 kit

Those are definitely (heavier?) pre-2009 style wheels. Looks like the kit box design we started building with circa 2000…

[whodathunkit]

Yeah he noted that the wheels did not have the coned hubs or the step rings to the outer hubs ..right away!

Not sure .. how there going to work the pack winner
Car.. for The districts race to be built with the current kits.
Guess we will cross that bridge when we get there.
But Charlie understands and is happy about getting the chance to use the older 97 kit to make his car this year.

[FatSebastian]

The districts race to be built with the current kits.

Wood is wood, so if he races in a derby requiring post-2009 wheels, then a wheel & axle swap ought to be enough...

Those old-style wheels bring back some memories! The ones after 2008 require much less work...

[whodathunkit]

Wood is wood, so if he races in a derby requiring post-2009 wheels, then a wheel & axle swap ought to be enough...

Those old-style wheels bring back some memories! The ones after 2008 require much less work...

Just what I was thinking of doing if he happens to get lucky with his race.
And your right so right on the older wheels they do bring back the memories of how much work needs to be done.. he is not looking forward to that.

Well his painting session went well on the car.. But not so well on the paint tray as he put out a little way to much of the red paint
that we had to mop up with the brush and put it back in the bottle.



After the red paint had dried.. he did not think he could paint the big yellow M on his car.. as he said he was to shaky to even try painting it free hand.
So he let me take over to help as I had to show him how he could steady his hand.. while free hand painting the M on his car for him.. plus paint the concave spacer yellow.
Then I told him painting the fries was all on him to do .. and asked if he wanted to put salt on the fries as well.
Boy did I ever get a deer in the headlight's look.. how are we going to do that he ask.. I told him just wait and that the paint on his fries need to dry first.


He has no Idea that he is going to use real salt from a salt shaker tomorrow night while clear coating his car.

[FatSebastian]

He has no Idea that he is going to use real salt from a salt shaker tomorrow night while clear coating his car.

Have you tested to make sure that the salt doesn't dissolve when it contacts the (wet?) clear coat?

[whodathunkit]

Going to do the salt trick.. after the clear coat is almost dry but is still just a tad bit tacky.. wish us luck well see how it turns out!

[whodathunkit]

Well Charlie is back at it after taking a few days off for getting his School homework done and Cub Scouts.
He was happy to finally get back to working on his car and put the salt on his French Fries.

And even the ink pen tattooing he did on his hands while at school today.. that I'm not so happy about but life moves on!

What I had him do was spray the fries on his car and wait for it to dry to a tacky stage and then sprinkle the salt out of the shaker on to his fries.
While I covered the front end to keep the clear coat and salt off the French fry box holder to the car with a sheet of paper.


Then I let him use my phone camera. while I showed him a different way of doing it..
to get more salt down in a small area by pouring it out in my palm and pinching it in my fingers to sprinkle it out.




Then I let him have at it with his last coat of clear spray paint.


How did his salted French fries turned out:

He was very happy with his salted fries and how it all turned out.

Then I even had a talk with him and told him that salt could also be used to distress paints.. for making models look old or weathered as well.
By sharing with him the model of a Backhoe I done some time back.. ( some of you on DT may recall the Backhoe build!)
I told him you have to start out with a primer base and put drops of water down to hold the salt in place while spray painting the color coats.

When the water dries out around the salt.. spray a color coat over the salt and work item.

Let the paint dry.. and then rub off the salt and paint.

So you can end up with a weathered and old.. paint job.


Oh the ideas that are spinning in his head now for next year build!

[Vitamin K]

This is so awesome. Love it.

I really have a soft spot for hand-brushed acrylic paint jobs.

[exoray]

Then I even had a talk with him and told him that salt could also be used to distress paints.. for making models look old or weathered as well.

A lot of people do this with yellow mustard, paint your basecoat, let it dry, glob,brush,apply yellow mustard let it dry, then paint over it all with a top coat, then you can easily buff/wipe off the topcoat in the mustard areas giving a chipped paint look as you reveal the base coat under it... You can do the same with rusty metal, apply the mustard directly to the rust, paint it then remove the mustard areas revealing chipped paint with rust under it as if it's old failing paint...

[whodathunkit]

Charile, said to say thanks guy's !
He is enjoying his build so far.. I just got to get him started on the wheels , axles and weights this week end.. as his race is Feb 28.