BUY or BUILD?

Each year your club has borrowed a pinewood derby track or resuscitated an old clunker. You've tired of this hassle and the time has come to own your own new track. The question you face is 'Should we buy or should we build?'. Given the necessary investment in dies and tooling it would be rather impractical to try and build your own aluminum track. For a wooden track, though, it would seem simple enough to buy a sheet of plywood at your local lumber yard, gather a group of parents, and follow the Scouting 'How-to-book' instructions.

The first problem you would encounter is at the local lumberyard. The types of plywood commonly available are not conducive to the construction of a quality track. The best cabinet grades sold will have birch face panels with softwood cores. The softwood cores will allow the fasteners to loosen, egg-shape, and depress the face panels. After your first session you will end up rebuilding this track, too. There may be some solid core 'Baltic Birch' or 'Finnish Birch' plywood available but unfortunately this only comes in a European size of 5'x5' sheets rather than the traditional USA size of 4'x8'. The simple facts are that the way lumber is distributed; the 4x8 sheets of plywood that we purchase with glass smooth maple faces and seven interior laminations of solid alder are only available by special order in bulk quantities from the largest wholesale distributors. If you did gain access to the same stock we use it is likely that the price you pay for a small quantity would be exorbitant.

If you did obtain the material you then face the hurdle of accurately machining the stock. Who among your group has the floor space, table saw (with the appropriate plywood blade), accurate fence, power feed, and in-feed and out-feed system to handle expensive 8' sheets of plywood? Affixing the car guides may seem simple; and it is using our custom clamping jigs, alignment fixtures, and pneumatic staplers. Mechanical staple guns will not suffice. Nailing or screwing will skew the alignment.

Wood vs. Aluminum

As with many choices this is one based on aesthetics. Our 'Freedom Series' aluminum track is by nature more durable. Our 'Classic Series' wooden tracks have been described as beautiful pieces of furniture. Both series carry a lifetime guarantee. All of our tracks are built to the same specifications in the Cub Scout Leader How To Book.

We robotically drill all the holes and mill all the slots in the tracks on a custom configured 5' x 10' gantry CNC milling center and various CNC driven three axis vertical mills. The joining plates, starting gates, and elevating legs are all processed on a CNC driven three-axis turret punch. We can guarantee clean, accurate holes with positive no-fuss alignment. There is bound to be someone in your group who claims to be able to do this with a hand drill and router. As I mentioned before, after one season you will be rebuilding this track, too.

Remember, the investment you make in one of our tracks will be paying dividends for decades. It is likely that your grandchildren will race their cars on the track you purchase today. We are professional craftsmen, we take pride in our work, and we stand by our products.