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Hi, Alan Stratton from As Wood Turns dot com. It's Pinewood Derby time -- at least here
in the Northwest. My grandchildren came over for help with their pinewood derby cars. Now
they need to make their own -- so my son and I coach them to make their cars. But at the
same time my son challenged me to do one on my lathe. How do you do a Pinewood Derby car
on the lathe? Well, let's do one on the lathe. Actually,
I made two. To begin with, I glued up two pieces of pine
with a piece of brown paper sack between the layers. The brown paper will help me separate
the two cars when I've finished turning them. This is almost an eccentric turning project
-- kind of a faux eccentric turning. Although the turning axis is in the middle of my turning,
it's also at the bottom of each car. I will be turning only the upper contour of the car.
I've marked off the regulation length of the car and where the axels need to be. My plan
is to turn some kind of profile everywhere except that I need to leave more wood where
the axles are. Regulation width is 1.75 inches. The profile concept is low and thin in the
front and higher in the rear -- we'll see what looks good.
I'm first turning the excess wood at both ends down to a cylinder to establish the actual
length. I cannot round the whole car because I need flats on the sides at least where the
wheels will be. I'll see what shape emerges from the wood. I'll turn sort of a *** pit
area, then work on the front, and finally the back.
I'll stop frequently to visualize my progress and the possibilities.
This pine is not tooling well -- it is very rough. I'll have to sheer scrape it to get
an acceptable finish. For sanding, I'll start with 80 grit and go
up to 220 -- That's all for these cars. With the sanding done, I'll split the two
pieces apart and sand them on my 20 inch lathe mounted disc sander. After applying some dye,
I'll spray them with lacquer. Finally, I'll mount the wheels.
Will my cars win the race? Definitely not in the kids divisions -- there's too much
parental engineering there. Maybe in the friends and family division. As an answer to my son's
challenge, how are these cars? After figuring out how to make these, I'm seeing more possibilities.
Maybe the next set will use an inside out technique? What do you think?
Be sure to like this video and subscribe to my website and YouTube channel. Not wearing
a face shield is not an option. Wearing one is the only option. Until next time, this
is Alan Stratton from As Wood Turns dot com.