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Pinewood Derby Stories and Photos from Maximum Velocity
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PINEWOOD DERBY MEMORY
Know Your Glue!
This was my son's first year in Tiger Cubs and thus our first Pinewood
Derby race. Our pack also includes a race for siblings, so his 4 year
old sister and 5 year old brother also got to build cars. The children
all picked out a design and we worked together on the cars over a period
of about 3 weeks (I had no idea what I was getting into, but we got
better and a little faster with each car we built!). A friend of mine
shared some tools with me and gave me some tips. The night before the
race we finished preparing the wheels and very carefully applied glue to
keep the axles from popping out. Everyone was very excited about the
big race and could hardly wait for the next day.
The next morning after church about 1 hour before we were to leave for
the race, I went to get the cars from the workshop. To my shock and
horror I discovered that the glue had greatly expanded and had glued ALL
the wheels on ALL 3 cars to the axles! My heart started racing as I
imagined the great disappointment for my children if they could not race
after all their hard work (yes, and my disappointment too). It had
taken us about 4 hours to prepare the wheels the first time, and now I
only had 1 hour before the race. I just started praying and working
like crazy - I had to pry off all the wheels, re-sand the axles, sand
out the inside of the wheels, lube the axles and wheels, re-sand the
bottom of the cars to remove excess glue, re-install and align all the
wheels, and re-glue the axles (with a different type of glue this time).
I could tell the wheels did not spin quite as well as the night before,
but at least they moved! My wife kept the kids busy while I worked on
'the disaster'.
Fortunately, I finished all the work with just a couple minutes to spare
(I worked a little harder on the Tiger Cub car). We were off to the
races and had no idea what to expect from our 'refurbished' cars. To
our great surprise, my Tiger Cub took first place for his den (out of 7
cars) and came in 4th place for the whole pack (out of 60 cars)! My
other children placed 3rd and 4th in the sibling race (out of 16 cars)!
Now we are all hooked and can't wait until next year!