Fun with Paint and Wood

Ladies, start your engines! Our local Girl Scout organization hosted their 3rd annual pinewood derby race last week. Which means that once again, I had to clean the sawdust from my tools from last year's car and help Sweet Pea create another wheeled work of art. Each year I let SP choose how she wants her car to look. I try to cut, sand and chisel her wood block into a reasonably similar shape to her idea. Then I let her work her magic with paint and accessories.

To view previous pinewood derby cars just click here and here.

This year SP decided she wanted her car to look like one of the minions from the animated movie, 'Despicable Me'. A minion is a cute yellow Tylenol-shaped worker who wears goggles and denim overalls. This design was actually much simpler for me because I only had to round off the corners of her block and glue a round, washer holding cup to look like a one eyed goggle. Did I mention that some minions have one eye and some have two eyes?

So, using the DVD case as a guide, SP created a very believable likeness with bendaroos used as arms.

SP decided that her minion would have a smug, contented look about him so she drew an eye with a half closed lid. You can't see from the picture but her minion has one black curlicue hair on top of his head.

Our cars usually are not made for speed, but this year SP won her first heat and got second in her other two heats. Not good enough for a trophy but still OK.

So when SP wasn't racing, I had plenty of time to view the competition. About 160+ cars of competition.

There was evidence of much creativity among the wheeled wood blocks. Some cars had better paint jobs than the van we drive.Each girl scout got to vote for their favorite cars. This walrus car won for 'Most Creative.'

Here is some more of the girl scout's artistic ability. Someone actually carved that panda bear riding a toboggan. We also saw a car with working headlights.

With all of the talent and creativity on display, SP got some good ideas for next year. I will have to look into how to install headlights and probably add a working radio too. Hmmm...a derby car in the design of an Ipod perhaps?

Vrooooooooooom!

Ladies, start your engines! On Saturday, Sweet Pea and I entered her pine wood derby car in her girl scout race.

My dad helped me build my own pine wood derby car when I was in cub scouts. So I was excited to relive those memories with my daughter.

First, I asked SP to pick out a few of her favorite toy cars to use as a template. Out of those, I chose a design I felt my woodworking skills could live up to.

Here is the body design with it's first coat of paint.

It is a convertible sports car and it already looks fast. After SP applied the Malibu Barbie pink, I asked her if she wanted any skulls or flames or lightning bolts on her car. She opted for jewels, sparkle snowflakes and flowers.

She also wanted to paint a picture of a girl with a green dress on the hood. She said it was a picture of Mommy. I said, "Well, if your car travels as fast as when Mommy is driving, you will set a new record."

Once at the race, we weighed in. Her car needed to be as close to 5 ounces as we could get it. I needed to remove one of the cars washers for weight and it brought us to 4.8oz. Just street legal enough. They also made me remove the small turbo charged motor I had added at the last minute. Apparently, they have some bogus rule about fairness and no cheating.

We were told to arrive early for weigh-in because over 100 cars were entered for the race. That meant 100 little scouts and their parents squeezing into about half as many chairs. Luckily, SP had a 'Pit Pass' and could kneel next to the track to watch. Before the race, all of the cars were lined up on the table to inspect and vote for in categories such as 'Prettiest', 'Most Unique', 'Most Colorful' and others. Two scouts made cars that looked like bathtubs and two others made their cars look like Orca whales. The organizer of the derby said that he had done many cub scout derbies but this was his first girl scout derby. "There is a lot more pink and purple to the cars today.", he observed.

Since we had a little time to spend before the races started, I told SP she could get a doughnut to snack on. Of course, she had to pick the messiest one they had.

So I told her to stroll over to her car and brush some of her powdered sugar onto her car's axles to make it faster. She didn't want to waste good powdered sugar on that.

So I sent her in undercover to dig up some secrets that the other scouts used on their cars. She came back to report that other girls painted their cars really pretty too.

At the end of the day, our car was built more for beauty than speed. She didn't win any of her heats, but her car's times averaged right in the middle of the pack. She was a little disappointed that she didn't win anything, but said she still had fun.

The scouts were then offered a chance to build their own wooden car stand. I pre-drilled some holes in the pieces and handed SP the screwdriver. She gave it a good try, but we had to resort to the power drill. She then had to wrestle paintbrushes away from the dozens of scouts all trying to do the same. And guess what? More pink and purple.

All in all it was a memorable day. Even though we didn't win anything we still get to keep the car we made together as father and daughter. And next year, we're going to be faster, smarter and sneakier.