Next Saturday is the Pine Wood Derby for Corwin’s Cub Scout Pack. I had been putting off building the car due to the rush of things but with just a week before the big event it was time to get started.
I persuaded Corwin to do a simple design, with a shallow wedge in front and a longer wedge in back. I tried cutting the edges off with a hacksaw but I managed to bend it up. While I was looking for my nice wood cutting blade Mom got out the big wood saw and had at the block. It was not quite as smooth as a finer blade would have done, but it wasn’t bad.
The next step was some sanding. I did a first pass with my palm sander and then it time that special moment in every man’s life when he first finds the love that will be with him forever - power tools. After showing Corwin how to use the sander, I gave him the block and sander and he fired it right up and started sanding.Oh, what a precious moment it is to pass the lore and joy of power tools down to the next generation.
After sanding a bit, we went down the basement and put some sanding sealer on the car. After that dried Mom got out some acrylic paints (sadly, Corwin’s not old enough yet to use a power painter, but some day he’ll be man enough to handle it). Corwin actually worked on the painting for a long time, although he finished with the car first and then spent a while mixing paints to see what colors he could make. The orange on the top of the car is a Corwin blend, a custom color he made especially for this vehicle (if it weren’t so precious emotionally I’d auction it on E-Bay). Corwin helped me grind and polish the axles, marking his first use of a Dremel drill. After that I put in the wheels to produce the butt kicking hunk o’ wood you see in the picture. All that’s left is to put in some weight to give this baby some pep.
The hardest part was convincing Corwin that he couldn’t play with the car like a toy until after the big race. I expect that it will last until the day after the race, at which piont Corwin will play with it for a while and then leave it where Charles can get a hold of it. No car, however sturdy, can survive that.