The big project over the past month has been the Pinewood Derby. As I posted last time, we made good progress on N's car over break, and were in no danger of not getting it done for his Pack race. I can't say the same, however, for the car I did for myself. I got a good start over break, but evening meetings for work and some other activities on the weekends ate up alot of car-building time. I quickly found myself a little over a week out from the derby with alot of work yet to do. In the end, I did get it done, but it was down to the wire. I was very happy with the way it turned out, but a little disappointed to find out that our pack doesn't do the "Leader Race" mentioned in the district rules. Still, it was fun to dust off my model building skills and did get some good compliments on it.
The disappointment about the leader race was quickly erased by the surprise of how well N did in his race. We did a few speed tricks to his car, but by no means did we go all out on it. As it turns out, what we did was good enough for him to win for his age group. It was a great day to see the excitement on his face, and to be able to share it with family that came to watch.
Work on the the derby cars, and a few final ebay projects consumed most of the available shop time in January. While I did not complete any tractor projects, I did do a pretty good job of adding some more to the list.
The first was another garden tractor, this time with the intention that it will be for N to learn on. I had expressed interest in this one several months ago when a friend mentioned he had one for sale, and it took this long to finally meet up with him to get it. It's no beauty queen, but I think that is fine for someone just learning how to drive one. I have plans to do a mechanical tune up, as well as add some safety modifications that some others with similar models have done for their kids. N has already helped with changing the rear tires on it. I think it will be a good learning experience for him, and probably me too.
The next project was, surprise, surprise, yet another tractor; a 1973 Montgomery Ward. This time however, the project was to tear it down, not build it up. I got this one pretty much for just for the wheel weights that were on it, but figured I could maybe make a little off the rest of the parts and hopefully end up with a set of free weights. It was a bigger project to tear it down than the two newer lawn tractors I had done previously, and the parts were quite a bit heavier. Also, not being able to wash the tractor before working on it due to the cold was a bigger drawback than I expected. Nonetheless, I did get it disassembled to the point where I got the parts off I suspect to have some value, and left the rest in a manageable size for the scrappers.
Finally, perhaps my smartest new project acquisition, I bought one already completed. C and I have been talking for quite a while about redecorating our living room in a scheme that involves an old factory cart repurposed as a coffee table. I had come up with various plans for building one or redoing one myself, but ultimately I think just buying one was probably the best (and in reality, probably cheapest) route. Sure, the table is only part of the decorating plan that has already spawned a shelf project (primarily built by C) and undoubtedly other projects, but having that table already done gives us a nice jump-start on actually following through with redecorating.
