Cub Scout Pinewood Derby Slides

A couple years ago I made pinewood derby slides for my Cub Scout den, but I used a jigsaw to cut car shapes out of a thin piece of wood. It worked, but was time consuming and not practical for a large group of boys.

For pack meeting this month I opted to use a piece of door molding I had sitting around. I found the idea in several places online, so it's not my original idea- I'm not that good, unfortunately :) Door molding is flat on the back and narrower than crown molding, though if you had the right shape of crown, it could work also.

I cut the door molding into 20 pieces (I wanted enough for the boys and their siblings), then cut slices out of two different size dowels that I had. One site I looked at suggested using two sizes of thumbtacks for the wheels, but I couldn't find two sizes, so I opted for the wood dowels. I think they look more authentic. I used our mitre saw to make all the cuts, and they went very quickly.

After all the pieces were cut, I lightly sanded any rough spots and then broke out the spray paint. I primed the sides of the "cars" before coating with other colors. I had navy blue, white, orange, and pink spray paint, so I used those for the car bodies, and black paint for the tires. I forgot to take a picture of all the colors of the cars, but the kids liked the variety.

molding and dowels cut and waiting to be painted

One thing to be aware of: temperatures in December aren't always the most optimal for using spray paint. The day I sprayed the cars was a bit chilly, so the paint came out a bit tacky. Two days later (when it was warmer) some spots still hadn't quite dried, so I re-sprayed all the pieces and they dried properly this time.

When it came to prepping the cars for pack meeting, I painted the bodies and tires beforehand, and glued the front tires on. I was worried about the kids burning themselves (even with low-temp glue guns), so I figured it would be easier to do the smaller tires myself.

At pack meeting, we helped them glue on the back tires, driver, and conduit. They used washi tape and some pinewood derby stickers to decorate their cars. I had a hard time finding pinewood derby stickers that were small enough for these cars, since the stickers are really made for regular pinewood derby cars. I was able to find one package of small stickers, so we used those.

And here's my pictogram of materials: piece of molding, dowel wheels, pony bead, washi tape, and conduit. The only thing I purchased for these slides was the stickers- everything else I had on hand. That conduit is from the same piece I bought more than two years ago!