ANYONE HAVE ANY COOL 3D FILES TO MAKE PINEWOOD DERBY CARS ON CNC? I HAVE ONE I'M WORKING ON BUT WOULD LOVE TO FIND SOMETHING ELSE LIKE A CORVETTE, VIPER, FARRARI, LAMBO, ...ETC
ANYONE HAVE ANY COOL 3D FILES TO MAKE PINEWOOD DERBY CARS ON CNC? I HAVE ONE I'M WORKING ON BUT WOULD LOVE TO FIND SOMETHING ELSE LIKE A CORVETTE, VIPER, FARRARI, LAMBO, ...ETC
Just something plain, but fun!
These are not 3D, but they are Vcarve 2D, for use with a 90 degree .5" router bit- good for wedge-type cars. I made the dragon one and filled in the negative space with 2 part resin & it turned out pretty cool. Oh, and don't forget... the speed is in the axle prep!
-Mike
Expensive tools can be cheaper than professional therapy
here's a couple pics of a finished car-
OK, I posted a couple- anyone else???
Oh, and don't forget to let your kid have some of the fun too!!!
Expensive tools can be cheaper than professional therapy
My dad used to make some sick derby cars back when I was in the cubs. He makes custom woodwork for a living so he would really get into it. I'll post some pictures if I can find them.
Matt
Just havin some fun with home router.
Hey Moog, What software are you using?
That looks pretty cool. I have yet to take that next evolutionary step towards walking fully upright (3D). I'd like to get into it without spending a zillion dollars.
Thanks, Mike
Expensive tools can be cheaper than professional therapy
Jay
I,m using Part Modeler to design and then use Edgecam to find features and create g code for Mach 3
on my cnc shark router which I built a vacuum table.:wave:
THIS IS WHAT I HAVE BEEN WORKING ON.
DESIGN IN PROE AND PROGRAMMED IN MASTERCAM.
I'LL POST COMPLETED PICS LATER
I have a few that Ive made over the years... pm me an email address and I will send you a couple if you like. Just let me know what format you would like them in.
Jeff
here is a pic of my latest car.
Here are our cars, (white one my sons, with hand tools) (red one mine done on my cnc router!
Ready for race-day!
Zoom Zoom Zoom!!!
I think they look nice, but what do you do with them?
My actual question is realy, whet the hell is a derby car ?
Cub Scouts, Boy Scouts use them to race downhill. Track is approx. 25' long.
Different catagories best looking, fastest, most unusual etc.
supposed to be father son bonding type of thing.
Just for braggin rights also!
Ow ok. Well thats nice.
Never heard of it
My son's didn't win first, nor second, nor third, but we had fun building them!
He did get BEST of SHOW!
Mine came in second in the parent's race where just about anything goes!
Now I'm workin on a wall plaque to show them off.
Got the wall plaque done!
My son just loves it, and we had fun making it!
Another version we built for display!!!
Wow, I didn't know they still did those. Years ago I made one of them. Had a lot of fun doing it, too. Balanced out the wheels and turned them on a drill against sandpaper to try to get them to truly round, worked on getting just the right weight, etc. I got the max weight down to the gram by chiseling a narrow channel down the underside and laying in lead strip weights, then covering it over with wood filler before I painted. Looked really trick too. It was a blast. The race wasn't, but building the cars with my other scouting friends sure was!
The scouts always seemed kind of like the PTA only for dads, all politics and not about the kids. I remember race day came and my car came in first every run, so one of the "queen bee" dads knocked it off the table between runs and busted a wheel off. Then proceeded to challenge me fixing it by quoting the rules that say a car after it was entered couldn't be modified - and so I shouldn't be allowed to put the wheel back on. His other judge buddies agreed and it was run the remaining heats with three wheels. Even with that, its previous performance still made it rank third overall, but since the top three spots were always traditionally reserved for the committee fathers kids it was given fourth, with more points than the third place, with no explanation.
I still hoped somehow to get something for the show part of it, as voting was done by ALL the parents, not just the special ones. Unfortunately, the committee dads had been doing this for long enough they had a system. Any cars that looked crappier than their kids cars were OK to display and vote on, any kids cars that looked better (like mine and about a third of the entries) were simply disqualified ahead of time and removed from voting as they looked too nice - and therefore must have been done by the parents and not the kids. Of course.
Come to think of it, I don't know any of my friends who stayed with scouting for long because of crap like that. I know I left pretty quick. The derby cars were cool though.
I would imagine crap like that would turn off a kid. (or at least make some Dads through down in the parking lot!)
My Tiger Scout (1st year of Cub scouts) son and I built his first car this year. He wanted a “truck” so we made him a truck. I will post photos. It was after I hand cut, glued, filled etc. that it dawned on me I could have used the Bridgeport in the shop for most of it! My buddy called up the day before the race asking if he could use it to mill some slots in his sons car. In the end I used it to pocket mill weight recesses in the bottom of the pinewood truck. The two of us stayed at my shop to 3AM the night before the race tweaking out our boys cars. I TIG’ed up a 1/8” wire roll cage for the back of his truck complete with a spare tire and a set of stainless steel off road lights. Ok a bit out of control! It did not place for speed but took 3rd for looks. (the den with the most voting kids took 1st and 2nd)
Already have plans to 3D mill a car next year for the Dad’s race. The Machinery’s Handbook lists dark cherry as one of the top woods for milling. The rule book for the pinewood derby race does not say it has to be made from pine! Loop hole and we are in!
I plan on lathe trueing the wheels and custom cutting the “nail’s” used for the axels to make straight ones with slight concave heads to limited contact to the wheel.