It is not his project, it is not your project, it is a "Father-Son project.
work with him, let him work with you. The good results are in the time
spent, not speed of car.

"Old Cubmaster"

"usenetdg" wrote in message
om...
I've got my first-ever Pinewood Derby coming up in a few weeks.
Following common sense and information widely available on the net, I
think my son and I have a good car. It's got a curvy wedge shape,
we've weighted it pretty good so that it's near the maximum allowed,
the center of gravity is about an inch in front of the rear axles,
we've deburred and polished the axles so that the wheels spin for a
long time on them, even unlubed...

But now I'm feeling a bit loaded down at what should be a simple step
- painting the car.

We bought some yellow and red brush-on oil-based enamel. We put a
first coat on the car and it looked kind of splotchy. Sanded it with
200-grit sandpaper, and it really looked bad. Then another coat of
enamel. That made it shinier, but still didn't look too good.

Okay, here come the questions:

1. How much paint can we get away with without making the car too
heavy? The unpainted car, weighed along with a plastic bag containing
the axles and wheels, weighed 4.90 ounces on the scale at the post
office. We are brushing the enamel on. We're not slobbering it on
thick enough for runs and drips, but we're not finessing it as nicely
as we could either.

2. We didn't "seal" or "prime" the car before painting. How bad is
this? However, we DID heat the car up in a 200 degree oven for about
15 minutes before painting, figuring that would chase a lot of the
moisture out of the wood, and that the first coat of paint would
"seal" that moisture from coming back in.

3. What is a "right" way to sand? As I said, the sanding after the
first coat of paint, using quite a bit of pressure and 200-grit paper,
really made the thing look bad.

4. We bought a spray-on lacquer to use as a final coat. How shiny
will this make the car? And should we apply this AFTER applying the
decals?

5. For next year - should we have gone with spray-on paint rather than
brush-on?

I have gone from dreading this project to being "into it" enough that
I've had to remind myself frequently that it is my son's endeavor, not
mine. I look forward to hearing some tips from a few voices of
experience.