Rainbow Trout Pinewood Derby Car

[MathFish]

So I have completed the "grand slam" of trout derby cars finally...

Last year I made a brown trout derby car that was modeled after a photo of the first wild brown trout that I caught. That car was a follow up to the brookie derby car from the year before.

Link to Brown Trout Derby Car post on PAFF

I wasn't sure if I would get around to making a rainbow trout car this year since my son has graduated from cub scouts and is finishing up his first year as a boy scout - and there is no pinewood derby in boy scouts... However, I drove by a BSA regional sight and stopped in and picked up two derby car kits a month ago in the hopes that I would find the time to make a rainbow car this week.

I didn't catch any wild rainbows this past season. Nor did I have any particularly good photos of any notable rainbows that I felt I should model this year's car after, so I found some images using a Google image search and came up with this scheme for this car.

I think it turned out much better than the previous years' cars because I paid way more attention to the eyes and gill plate than I did in the previous years.

Now that I have a brook, brown and rainbow, I'm thinking I should take a stab at making a tiger trout car... (Or perhaps, dare I say, a golden rainbow car) I know that there have been some beautiful photos of wild tigers caught by members on PAFF, so I know where to look for models for the tiger car!

 

[ryansheehan]

Impressive

 

[MathFish]

I forgot to add that the previous cars were racing in my son's pack's outlaw class - a race set up to appease overzealous fathers ambitions of grandeur in pinewood derby racing...

The rainbow car was made just to be displayed along with the other two cars and it will not be racing in this year's outlaw race.

 

[salmo]

I’m not very good with my hands. Most of my hand tied flies cannot be identified by the casual observer. When my son was in Cubs we made Pinewood Derby’s cars. We never won any awards for artistic merit, but his car won a 1st and 3rd place in the races. Wish I had the skill to make some of the cars in this thread. Nice work.

 

[djs12354]

Danged Nice!

 

[DriftingDunn]

All nice.

You really nailed the colors on the brown trout!

 

[poopdeck]

I remember the 1st one you posted. Nice job on all three. Nice touch with the flies in the corner of the mouths.

 

[Out4Trout]

As a cub scout leader in my younger days, I can say that those are the most original and beautiful pinewood derby cars I have ever seen. When I was a cub scout leader we rented our track out to other cubs so I have seen my share of cars. I have a collection of cars I made with all of my sons but NONE are close to the ones you made.

Very well done I only wish I would have thought to do my cars that way : )

 

[MathFish]

Thanks for the compliments everyone!

I was never able to help my son to be able to make any particularly fast cars, but the cars he made for the official derby races won in the creative and most original categories in his pack. I think it's way tougher to make those cars go fast than it is to sculpt them! But painting them is tougher for me than sculpting.

Some people I've shown them to tell me about hat I should try my hand at wood carving. Maybe someday I will, but I have to say that it's easier to get forgiveness on the proportions of a fish carving when making a pinewood derby car because you are constrained by the wheelbase. I would imagine it's way tougher with just a random block of wood! So for now I'm sticking with derby carving.

Hey Out4Trout, the tiger trout in your avatar looks like it might make a good model for my next car. Is it a wild tiger that you caught? If you wouldn't mind, could you past a photo of it on this thread so I could use it to help paint the next car?

 

[Out4Trout]

Its a wild one caught in Mud Run this fall.

http://www.paflyfish.com/uploads/xforum/18509_5a234001d570a.jpg

 

[MathFish]

Thanks for the link and congrats on your catch. If this winter is going to be like what it is right now for most of the season, I may have time to work on the tiger car sooner than I thought...

 

[CRB]

Very nice, makes for some nice art work for your man room.

 

[Dave_W]

DriftingDunn wrote:
All nice.

You really nailed the colors on the brown trout!

Agree. Browns are tougher to paint than brookies and rainbows IMO.

Nice job (again)!