Pinewood Derby Trophies From Wood Scraps

I made 19 trophies for an upcoming Pinewood derby out of scraps of wood. I started by dumping out the scrap barrel and looking through what kinds of wood I had available.

Supplies

• Scrap wood
• Drum Sander
• Table saw
• Miter saw
• Router Table & Router
• Drill Press
• Belt Sander
• Palm Sander
• Laser Engraver
• Driver and 2" screws
• Wipe on Polyurethane
• Nail Gun with 1" nails
• Pin Nailer with 1/4" pin nails

Step 1: The Bases

I decided to use some scrap flooring for the base of all of the trophies. So I started by using the table saw to rip some scrap hardwood flooring into 4" wide pieces and after that cut them into 4" squares. After getting them into squares I realized that I should have sanded off the finish, I used a very coarse sand paper in a drum sander to run them through. It took a few passes and I ran them through diagonally and rotating them 90 degrees between passes. It took a few passes to remove all of the finish and left angled grooves. Then I used the router to round over the edges and finished these pieces up with a palm sander. I liked how the angled grooves looked so I didn't fully sand them off.

Step 2: The Trophy Tops

For the trophy tops I decided to make an angled wedge design and had some pieces of cedar logs that had been discarded into a burn pile when a cabin was built. As luck would have it, all I needed to do with them was to cut them into pieces that were about 1 3/4" wide and I did that with the miter saw. After that it was just some sanding with a belt sander and then finishing with a palm sander.

Step 3: Middle Pieces

I squared up some cherry cut offs from some furniture construction to be approx 1 3/4" square and approx 2" tall. After cutting them to size I marked the centers and drilled a hole all the way through so that I could screw them up into the wedge. After drilling them I used a counter sink bit so that the screws would be counter suck and then I set them aside and them got to work cutting some mahogany cutting board cutoffs into 2" squares. Once those were cut, I took all of these pieces to the router and rounded over the corners. After routing was done, it was sanding with a belt sander and palm sander.

Step 4: Stop Block/placard

The last piece was the stop block/placard that would hold the car in place on top of the trophy. For this I used some thin strips of mahogany that was left over from a cabinet construction. I used them as they were, thickness wide and simply ripped them down to 1 3/4" wide and then using the miter saw cut them 2 1/4" long. Then I sanded them all with the palm sander.

Step 5: Test Fit

Time to set the pieces together and see how they look. Each trophy gets a wedge and a base. The 2nd place trophies also have a smaller square between the wedge and base. And for the 1st place and judged trophies, they also have an upright piece that is attached to the wedge.

Step 6: Engraving

I used a laser engraver to engrave the placards and the sides of the wedges but this could have been done with a wood burner as well. Or you could paint them instead. The makerspace I belong to has a LS1630 Boss Laser so that it what I used.

Step 7: Final Assembly and Finishing

I applied a little bit of wood glue to each wedge and then screwed them together with 2" screws. For the flat pieces, I just used a nail gun and nailed the bases and smaller square on.

It was then that I realized that I had made the mistake of assembling the main body of the trophies before applying the finish. I would not suggest that, it made it more difficult to get the finish into the corners of where the different pieces met up. I ended up using a small brush to apply the finish into the corners and then applied the rest of the finish with a rag. Luckily I hadn't put the placards on so I was able to apply the finish to them separately. Once the first coat was dry I used a small amount of wood glue and pin nails to attach the placards and then wiped on another coat of finish.

Step 8: Finished

Here are the final results. I'm very happy with how they turned out and I'm sure that the cub scouts will enjoy showing off their cars on these trophies.