Sorry in advance for my long read.... Enjoy!
So, I've spent pretty much the whole month of January planning and building cars, it's been pretty crazy for my family. I did a garage day early in the month and helped 6 scouts cut and build cars. Then we both worked to plan our Pack's race.
Meanwhile, we built our first two cars for scouts, two are for our pack's scout race which is stock slots, stock wheels, 4-on-the-floor, no bent axles, and graphite only. I also built a sibling car for my 4 year old, it was just a fun build for him....
L to R, Webelos Enderdragon Car, Wolf Minion!, and Scribble Sibling Racer
The cars on the left both used a variation of the 5kids wrap method, I was very pleased with the results.
At our pack race last week we had the following results...
Enderdragon - 1st Place Webelos, 3rd Overall
Minion - 1st Place Wolf, 1st Overall
We ran the sibling cars in among all the pack kids off the record, and since it's a 3 wheels touching rail runner, it dominated every race it ran. I had to laugh too because I used nickels to weight that car.
Each boy took home two pieces of hardware....
Got to rave about two things I recently acquired that made building PWD cars so much easier. For Christmas my wife let me buy a mobile cart from Harbor Freight, I used a coupon and payed $99 for this, and because the top doubles as a work surface, it's made building and swapping bench-top power tools much easier in my tiny garage workshop. It's now filled with my PWD stuff!
http://www.harborfreight.com/580-lb-capacity-four-drawer-tool-cart-95659.html
Then last week I went to Lowe's and picked up a Retractable Electrical Cord Reel and mounted it next to the outlet by my garage door opener.
https://www.lowes.com/pd/Bayco-30-ft-3-Outlet-Metal-Retractable-Cord-Organizer/1233131
OMG, it's so nice not to blow out the circuit by my bench when I'm running my belt sander and vacuum at the same time. I always would blow power to the downstairs TV and computer and make the whole house mad. This outlet is on a different circuit, and as long as I'm not running a portable heater at the same time, everything works!
Anyway... My Webelos was less than thrilled coming in 3rd overall at the pack race even though it was such a close race, less than an inch separated the top 4 cars at the final. Each boy spent a good hour polishing and prepping axles and wheels in addition to the actual car build. I guess he expect better results from his time...
We've got the District Race coming in 5 weeks followed by a Council Race, and then after that, Mid-America.....
So this weekend my Webleos and I made plans to build an even better car, based on a couple of ideas we discussed. No photos of that project yet, we completed the chassis last night and weighted the car, and it's one of the best scout class cars we've ever built.
I think it's a better chassis design, the front end is slightly narrowed to help reduce rear end rubbing, and we started adding balsa spars in the body to try to stiffen things up, never did that before.
I'll get some photos tonight on that build, and post them. We also are doing a video on that build, showing what we did, but that won't be ready until after we run the district race in another 5 weeks.
Last night I got ambitious and decided to attack this years Mid-America cars, and I spent an hour and planned out the chassis for both cars....
It was awesome to clamp the two blocks side by side and draw everything onto the blocks, never did that before, but it's going to be my new method!
Also, I'm having lots of fun using the Silver Bullet Pro, it's such a breeze to clamp on and drill, it takes less than 5 min to drill a block, unlike the 30 min it would take preparing to use the old Silver Bullet on my Harbor Freight Drill Press....
I think I've drilled 6 cars with my Silver Bullet Pro, and every one came out perfect.
Can the bushings be removed and replaced on this jig? Just wondering.....
I do have a wobble issue drilling holes, but it hasn't affected the drill jobs that I can tell. I wonder if the bit I'm using has a slight bend, or maybe the drill I'm using was dropped and has a bent shaft/chuck?
I've also discovered that I can drill directly into the stock scout slots, and get 3 degree rears in the stock slot, that method has served me well for three years of scout racing. I may insert some wood putty under the nail points to help stabilize the axles, but otherwise I get great migration of wheels both forwards and backwards!
My favorite thing was slapping my Mid-America blocks into the jig. The way the jig is designed, if you flush the back of the car to the side of the 3 degree bushings, you will get the perfect drill for rear wheel spacing. If you flush the front of the car to the 3 degree bushings you get perfect front wheel spacing for the zero degree drill point! Smart design! It was a pleasure to drill those cars....
So, I've spent pretty much the whole month of January planning and building cars, it's been pretty crazy for my family. I did a garage day early in the month and helped 6 scouts cut and build cars. Then we both worked to plan our Pack's race.
Meanwhile, we built our first two cars for scouts, two are for our pack's scout race which is stock slots, stock wheels, 4-on-the-floor, no bent axles, and graphite only. I also built a sibling car for my 4 year old, it was just a fun build for him....
The cars on the left both used a variation of the 5kids wrap method, I was very pleased with the results.
At our pack race last week we had the following results...
Enderdragon - 1st Place Webelos, 3rd Overall
Minion - 1st Place Wolf, 1st Overall
We ran the sibling cars in among all the pack kids off the record, and since it's a 3 wheels touching rail runner, it dominated every race it ran. I had to laugh too because I used nickels to weight that car.
Each boy took home two pieces of hardware....
------------------
Got to rave about two things I recently acquired that made building PWD cars so much easier. For Christmas my wife let me buy a mobile cart from Harbor Freight, I used a coupon and payed $99 for this, and because the top doubles as a work surface, it's made building and swapping bench-top power tools much easier in my tiny garage workshop. It's now filled with my PWD stuff!
http://www.harborfreight.com/580-lb-capacity-four-drawer-tool-cart-95659.html
Then last week I went to Lowe's and picked up a Retractable Electrical Cord Reel and mounted it next to the outlet by my garage door opener.
https://www.lowes.com/pd/Bayco-30-ft-3-Outlet-Metal-Retractable-Cord-Organizer/1233131
OMG, it's so nice not to blow out the circuit by my bench when I'm running my belt sander and vacuum at the same time. I always would blow power to the downstairs TV and computer and make the whole house mad. This outlet is on a different circuit, and as long as I'm not running a portable heater at the same time, everything works!
---------------------
Anyway... My Webelos was less than thrilled coming in 3rd overall at the pack race even though it was such a close race, less than an inch separated the top 4 cars at the final. Each boy spent a good hour polishing and prepping axles and wheels in addition to the actual car build. I guess he expect better results from his time...
We've got the District Race coming in 5 weeks followed by a Council Race, and then after that, Mid-America.....
So this weekend my Webleos and I made plans to build an even better car, based on a couple of ideas we discussed. No photos of that project yet, we completed the chassis last night and weighted the car, and it's one of the best scout class cars we've ever built.
I think it's a better chassis design, the front end is slightly narrowed to help reduce rear end rubbing, and we started adding balsa spars in the body to try to stiffen things up, never did that before.
I'll get some photos tonight on that build, and post them. We also are doing a video on that build, showing what we did, but that won't be ready until after we run the district race in another 5 weeks.
---------------------
Last night I got ambitious and decided to attack this years Mid-America cars, and I spent an hour and planned out the chassis for both cars....
It was awesome to clamp the two blocks side by side and draw everything onto the blocks, never did that before, but it's going to be my new method!
Also, I'm having lots of fun using the Silver Bullet Pro, it's such a breeze to clamp on and drill, it takes less than 5 min to drill a block, unlike the 30 min it would take preparing to use the old Silver Bullet on my Harbor Freight Drill Press....
I think I've drilled 6 cars with my Silver Bullet Pro, and every one came out perfect.
Can the bushings be removed and replaced on this jig? Just wondering.....
I do have a wobble issue drilling holes, but it hasn't affected the drill jobs that I can tell. I wonder if the bit I'm using has a slight bend, or maybe the drill I'm using was dropped and has a bent shaft/chuck?
I've also discovered that I can drill directly into the stock scout slots, and get 3 degree rears in the stock slot, that method has served me well for three years of scout racing. I may insert some wood putty under the nail points to help stabilize the axles, but otherwise I get great migration of wheels both forwards and backwards!
My favorite thing was slapping my Mid-America blocks into the jig. The way the jig is designed, if you flush the back of the car to the side of the 3 degree bushings, you will get the perfect drill for rear wheel spacing. If you flush the front of the car to the 3 degree bushings you get perfect front wheel spacing for the zero degree drill point! Smart design! It was a pleasure to drill those cars....
