Thin car design template?

Mar 14, 2013
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So I've watched the national championships and a lot of other races and I see a lot of the same thin car design with fenders. Does anyone have a template or diamentions of this thin car? Looking to make a bunch of cars during the " off season " and testing them all. Son is pumped cuz we are getting a track /images/boards/smilies/smile.gif
 
Under "building tips" it is the very first post called the keys to win from the king...
 
Do you do like 1/8" veneer on top of the 1/4" pine for added support? 1/4" is pretty thin. How are you able to route out enough for the weights???
 
Be sure and make your veneer out of the official BSA block
After reading your rules, how much sanding of the wheel do you think is OK? Wheel weight out of the box is 2.6-2.9 gr. ( yep, 2.9 for some Chinese wheels)
Now if i sand those imperfections down, I think I can leave the rolling surface looking like it was just lightly sanded, but my wheel weight might drop to 1 gr. Your rules do not say how much the wheel must weigh. What do you think is allowed? A 1 gr. wheel will give you almost 3 car lengths advantage.
If you want a wheel that looks super normal, but has the imperfections carefully removed down to 1.8 gr, it gives you 2.5 cars advantage.
If you go this route, bring extra sets of wheels not lightened in case they make up rules on the spot to disqualify you.
 
I actually have a set of 1g wheels I was going to put on my car for the den leader race. I was worried about putting it on my sons car for that reason. From the people I talked to, the issue with sanding was that people were sanding down so that the wheel would come to a point. There didn't seem to be any issue on sanding the wheel down to the 1g wheel spec. If there is, I can just cut/sand from the inside and leave the wheel tred alone
 
I usually do my cut at 10/32 thin and sand down to about 9/32. The 9/32 leaves good room in the back for the wheel to still touch good flat surface at the top. The veneer method is good, but at times I need then to drill my back holes down to 4.5/32 to get the wheel good surface to touch.
 
I cut the wedge down to the exact size of the 1/4 tungsten cubes, then cover the top of the car either with MonoKote or 1/64 balsa or birch.
I then resand the bottom of the car so that the wood and the tungsten are perfectly flat and then apply only MonoKote.
With weight, I leave a bit of leeway so I can add a small piece of 1/15th lead (which is thin enough so you can cut it with scissors.
That leaves enough room so you can move the bottom lead weight back and forth so that with testing, along with experimenting with the drift, you can find the "sweet spot"
 
You guys must be some master wood workers with tools to be able to route out the perfect space for the 1/4" tungsten cubes. I dont know if I have the skill /images/boards/smilies/smile.gif... yet
 
As I posted elsewhere, NO PROBLEM. Just order one from John (DD4H). He will do it to your specs, plus with nail holes that are absolutely perfect. Also anything else you specify. Even though I usually do the wood work at home, often I don't have time, and what I get from John is pretty much guaranteed to be right. And, not that expensive.

Obsessedderbydad said:
You guys must be some master wood workers with tools to be able to route out the perfect space for the 1/4" tungsten cubes. I dont know if I have the skill /images/boards/smilies/smile.gif... yet
 
Although I'm sure john is excellent working with wood and everything is perfect because of his experience, I don't want to take away from the building experience with my son. Sure it'd be nice to build off an exact block with perfect holes, but I wouldn't trade building the car with my son for any trophey.
 
5Kids has an excellent step by step guide on his site for cutting out weight pockets that I've used to great success (and you don't need a router!)
Obsessedderbydad said:
Although I'm sure john is excellent working with wood and everything is perfect because of his experience, I don't want to take away from the building experience with my son. Sure it'd be nice to build off an exact block with perfect holes, but I wouldn't trade building the car with my son for any trophey.