Top 8 tips for building the fastest pinewood derby car

How to build the fastest pinewood derby car. It's pinewood derby season and if you're helping your scout build a car, you definitely want to check out these tips and tricks we've discovered over the last 5 years of racing to help you across that finish line faster than ever before. In this video I talk about the TOP 8 things that will help you build the fastest pinewood derby car. We have numerous first and second place finishes using the tips I show you in this video so make sure to stick through to the end. You can also jump to different sections listed in the chapters below. I show you how to pick the perfect placement for weight, lighten your pinewood derby wheels, polish your pinewood derby axles, how to get the perfect 5 ounce pinewood derby car, how to bend your pinewood derby axles, some pinewood derby speed secrets and some pinewood derby tools that we use to make setup even easier.
Mark Rober Pinewood Derby Science - • EASY Pinewood Derby Ca...
3D Printed Axle Bender - www.thingiverse.com/thing:127...
As always, thanks for watching and consider liking and subscribing to help support bring you new DIY content every week.
If you used these tips and and finally got that first, second or even third place finish finally, let me know in the comments below! I'd love to hear about it
Chapters:
0:00 Intro
0:20 Car Design
1:44 Optimizing Weight
2:25 Weight Placement
3:10 Wheel Alignment
3:57 Bent Axles
4:40 Polishing Axles
5:40 Graphite Lubes
6:24 Lathed Wheels
8:04 Our Winning Car Design
Please consider purchasing your pinewood supplies from the affiliate links below:
Tungsten Putty - amzn.to/3SA9nIq
3.5 Ounce Tungsten Canopy Weight - amzn.to/3HvV15v
Tungsten Weights - amzn.to/3UgHKVL
Axle Alignment Tool - amzn.to/3OicH8i
Axle Polishing Kit - amzn.to/48LRDPR
XLR8 Graphite - amzn.to/3SgFCuv
XACTO Hobby Knife - amzn.to/3SfmBcb
#scout #scouts #diy

[@theguyofalltrades]

For the record my son spent about 4 hours cutting, sanding and painting this car. I helped him with the technical aspects of getting it to go faster than last years. This video is me simply demonstrating the tips to help you and your scout build a better and faster car. Please don’t assume ‘dad’ built the entire car. Good luck in your pinewood derby race and let me know if you used any of these tips in the comments

[@amarshall621]

Thanks for the video guy. Don't sweat all the internet hate about you being involved with your kid. Great tips man.

[@theguyofalltrades]

Very welcome. I don’t sweat it. Those are just the dads that didn’t put any effort into it and are mad they didn’t get a top 3 finish lol

[@LexiFrantzich]

Great video ٫ really helpful Thanks!

[@theguyofalltrades]

Your welcome! Thanks

[@TNTBA]

This was really interesting and informative! Excellent video!!!

[@theguyofalltrades]

Thank you!!!

[@TheDirtbikekid161]

Very useful video I am doing a pinewood race this year and this is going to help a lot 😀😃

[@theguyofalltrades]

Thanks and good luck! I would say make it as streamlined as possible. We ended up 7th at districts even though we had 1st with the den race. There’s some fast cars out there

[@PrincessCutLawnCare]

Following up with a comment you left on my channel last year where you mentioned you were closing in on 1k subs.. Look at you now! your crushing it bro, keep up the good work!

[@theguyofalltrades]

Hey man!! Thanks for checking in! Yeah it’s going pretty good. Just have to keep cranking the videos out. Any new lawn videos coming our way? Looking forward to getting my lawn going this year. Tons of crabgrass. I’m super unsure about spring seeding and aerating as I didn’t get a chance to do it last fall. Any tips?

[@mikemcguire2550]

Great video! Congrats!

[@theguyofalltrades]

Thank you!

[@digitalpacs]

Another pro tip that is important is flaring out the axle head so there is less friction from the wheel to the axle head (hub). I got a Pinewood Derby Pro Axle Press Tool at the BSA shop that flares out the hub of the axle as well as bending it 20 degrees.

[@theguyofalltrades]

Good tip!

[@PyroDenny]

the dad wood derby lol

[@theguyofalltrades]

You know it lol

[@loud2ns]

Congrats on the win!! Did you shave any off the body by the wheel doing the steering?

[@theguyofalltrades]

Nope just turned the bent axle to aim that wheel inwards a little to direct it to the rail

[@loud2ns]

@theguyofalltrades If you can make changes before the district race, I have a couple of quick and easy tips that could give you some speed gains.

[@theguyofalltrades]

Let’s hear them. Still waiting on the schedule to come out. I was thinking of raising one wheel in the front

[@loud2ns]

@@theguyofalltrades First thing before any changes is to check how much it's steering into the rail. I like to measure drift in inches per 4 feet(on something smooth). Remember what it is because when you put it back together you'll want to add 1/2-1". This will get rid of the wiggles that the car had on the flat. Make sure to get the bend pointing down and to the front.....maybe 5-4 o'clock. until you hit your number plus 1" Second thing would be to take both front wheels off of the car. It looks like the wheel you aimed in was on the right side. I would recommend sanding 1/16" off of that part of the car. We do this when rail riding to keep the right rear from contacting the rail which slows us down by quite a bit(You can test this in step one by using a yard stick as a "rail" and roll the car down to check the right rear). Make sure to re-rub graphite into the wood after sanding. Third thing you said....lift that 4th wheel. It's easy to bend the axle. I like to put my bend up and to the 11 o'clock position. I also like to push it tight to the body to eliminate vibrations. Fourth thing would be to clean off the wheels before the next race. I like to reapply my graphite liberally and then wipe off the car. I like to clean the wheels with a magic eraser. If it's really stubborn I'll put some isopropyl alcohol on the eraser. Clean wheels are faster wheels!! I think these 4 things could help speed up your sons car even more. The bonus is that he can be involved with all of these and you now know a bit of why. If this all looks too daunting just add an inch more of steer and clean the wheels. Ask any follow up questions. Ryan

[@MatthewPautzke]

I would think that shaping the wheels such that only a small portion of the center or outside rides on the ground would reduce friction and also make it faster.

[@theguyofalltrades]

It may but that wheel still needs to rotate on the axle itself. The wheel doesn’t fully sit flush on the track with the bent axles

[@born2skid00]

What is your consideration for amount of distance between the body of the car and the plastic wheel hub? Does this distance matter?

[@theguyofalltrades]

About 1/8”- 3/16”. They need room to be able to spin freely obviously. If you use bent axles they will move away from the body and you won’t have to worry about them rubbing.

[@KidLogicLTD]

Do you have a template for the body shape? Looks really slick, nice build!

[@theguyofalltrades]

Thanks! I don’t. We used one of the wheels to get the rounded shapes and just traced it out also making sure there was enough to hold the tungsten weight. The car is about 1/2” thick so we cut it down to that first then drew the pattern out on it and used a coping saw to cut it out then a wood file and sandpaper to smooth it up.

[@KidLogicLTD]

@@theguyofalltrades Very nice, thanks for the reply!

[@theguyofalltrades]

Welcome

[@bcworkman1983]

I have a question, how long was the track?

[@theguyofalltrades]

50 feet is standard track length

[@frankbright2533]

How thick is the orange car?

[@theguyofalltrades]

1/2”

[@brianstanley548]

The dog bone or hour glass body can certainly be fast, but it's not the fastest design. Using it you have to move the same air out of the way twice, a disadvantage. Additionally its difficult to maximize your weight distribution, especially side to side.

[@theguyofalltrades]

The really thin wedges seemed to be faster at districts

[@aisnow320]

Our district rules don’t allow us to drill axel holes. We have the use the original slots and the entire axel has to be disable from the underside.

[@theguyofalltrades]

We still use the original slot but drill the top part of it so the nail fits better

[@steamboatmodel]

Check with your local council for there rules, Our group does not allow bent axels the wheel must run flat and not at an Agle, we also do not allow any lubrication.

[@aisnow320]

My son placed 2nd in his pack but did not place in districts. Unfortunately our pack is ran by a very corrupt family who cheats a lot. District rules state only the top 3 cars can advance from each pack to districts. Our leaders son placed 4th, his car was much slower than the top 3 in our pack. However come districts, the pack leader and his son were there checking in and raced. They brought an entirely different car to districts and managed to go from 4th place in local pack races to 2nd in districts. It’s families like this that make it discouraging for everyone else. Luckily many people noticed what this family did and they are investigating the issue.

[@theguyofalltrades]

I’ve seen the car runners purposefully bend axles and push wheels in so their kid racing has a better chance. District and local track are identical and we didn’t change the car and it was significantly slower at districts. It should be about having fun honestly but some people…

[@aisnow320]

@@theguyofalltrades agreed. Some parents truly ruin it for the kids. It was so obvious that they brought an entirely different car to districts.

[@aisnow320]

@@theguyofalltrades I also witnessed the car runners and stagers drop at least a dozen cars. It was so frustrating to watch

[@theguyofalltrades]

It is frustrating. I feel bad for the kids

[@emilyallen8436]

Jesus Christ, bro. How th do I just make this thing with the most basic of stuff?

[@theguyofalltrades]

These are just speed tips. Make a wedge design. Make sure to use graphite and polish the axles and make it 5 ounces. It will be fast

[@mdwhitney350]

I'm calling BS on 230 MPH. An official track is 42 feet. He did it in 3.133 seconds. That's 9.14 MPH. At 230 MPH it would have taken 124 milliseconds to complete the course.

[@theguyofalltrades]

Scale speed bro. 230.10 mph on the official derby software

[@mdwhitney350]

It was wrong.

[@theguyofalltrades]

So it’s been wrong for 5 years eh?

[@mdwhitney350]

If it's giving numbers any faster than about 10 or 15 miles per hour, then yes. I did the math for you. In the video you referenced, Mark Rober did a "rocket car" powered by compressed air and it only got to 40 MPH. I'm sorry, there is absolutely no way your car got to 230 MPH.

[@theguyofalltrades]

Mark Rober’s car was actual mph not scale speed like the pinewood race is measure in. I have 5 years worth of pics from local and regional races that show 200+ mph

[@DayZeroFWD]

So, did you or your kid get the medal? Part of letting kids grow into successful engineers is having them fail. As a Director over a large engineering organization developing state of the art systems, I found that engineers that were at the "top of their class" or with the highest GPAs were the least innovative and successful. They often relied on "book knowledge" as they were not tempered enough to know how to succeed through trial and error. Let them research, innovate, build, test, fail, research, build, test, fail, innovate, build, test and ultimately succeed. If your kid's (your?) objective is for them to become a high performing individual in any field. They need to do it on their own. Myself and several on my staff would often be judges at state and national science fairs and the most successful projects were those that the "individual' struggled and figured things out on their own. One could see right through those that were heavily influenced by someone else. Good luck.

[@theguyofalltrades]

Let’s just say that my son is going to Nationals in Michigan for invention convention this year with his own design.

[@nmcaspari5374]

I’d agree if this were an event for older kids, but I’m not about to let my 7 year old operate power tools. He certainly helps a lot, but he needs some significant guidance and assistance from me.

[@trumptookthevaccine1679]

@@theguyofalltradesso in other words you made it and he painted it

[@theguyofalltrades]

@@trumptookthevaccine1679 Save your negativity for someone else. It doesn't belong in this comment feed

[@trumptookthevaccine1679]

@@theguyofalltrades am I wrong though? The guy had a point.

[@ratsrodsgarage461]

Sad to see the dads building the cars and not the kids makes it pointless to achieve a win when you did nothing and a grown man did the work... What do they learn from that..

[@theguyofalltrades]

Didn’t see anyone building the car in my video. Don’t assume. This kid had hours cutting, sanding and painting.

[@user-bq9ow1wj4j]

Moving the weights farther back would have made it a bit faster. Is the track 42'? The faster cars use a different body style where the weights are inside the rear of the car. Reeces has great videos. Nose should have been angled. COG should be close to 3/4". The hole in the wheel is about 8 ten thousandths larger than the axle. 4 ten thousands keeps wobble to a minimum. So take your axle and put it in your drill. Place a drop of CA on your finger. Make the nail thicker! You can also polish the CA. If your area allows for grooves in the axle then groove the CA. It will hold more graphite .

[@theguyofalltrades]

Good tips. Yes the track was 42 feet. I saw some other cars with the weight further back and they wheelied. Prob a bit too far back.

[@matbeedotcom]

Thats the slowest 230mph ive ever seen

[@theguyofalltrades]

lol I thought so too but it was 1mph off the track record