Rat-Trap Race Cars

Cool but how many fingers do you loose racing them?

-- Wood is not velveeta

Jeepers ! . . . I remember making these when I was a whole lot younger. But these are a whole lot cooler.

-- - " If you want square work, You don't cut corners. " - -- Tom Goodman, Santa Maria, CA. woodworkertom@gmail.com

Now those are cool …!

-- Eric M. Saperstein, Master Craftsman www.artisansofthevalley.com

pretty nifty

-- Roger from KY. Work/Play/Travel Safe. Kentuk55@bellsouth.net

This is great! Never seen it before.
It gives a whole new dimension to ‘joining the ratrace’.

-- Douwe

Those are some cool looking models, nice job!

-- - Power is not revealed by striking hard or often, but by striking true. -

Darkhollow, I have never seen these before, please explane how these work.
I love the cars, this reminds me of the Pine Car Derbe.

Pabull.

-- rhykenologist and plant grower

explanation of function… There is a string that goes through a hole at the back-end of the car. This string is wrapped around the back axle of the car. there is still a bit of string sticking up through the hole, with a small hook on it. The trap is set in the usual manner, and the hook is placed over the bail-arm of the rat trap. The hook make it safer than it would be if one were to try to wind the string around the axle after the trap was set, or to attempt to tie the string around the arm of the set trap. the car is placed on the ground, and the trap is sprung with a small stick, dropped weight, or whatever is at hand that will do the job (NOT a finger, not even a friend’s finger!) When the trap goes off, it pulls the string that is wound around the back axle, causing the wheels to spin and the car to go. There are no brakes, nor is there steering. These are actual, large, Rat-traps (almost seven inches long), not mouse traps, and thus it would be easy for one to break a finger with them if not careful. When working on them or displaying them, it is easy and necessary to disconnect the springs from the arm. one need simply lift the spring end off of the arm, putting it back on race-day. this will make more sense when you look at a trap. or course, the idea works just as well with mousetraps; I first heard about mousetrap cars, have never seen one, but came across these traps at a hardware store and decided to have some fun with the idea.

-- You say Luddite like it's a bad thing ...

My students make mousetrap cars, but these look way cooler then the ones we make. If you search YouTube for Mousetrap cars you will find lots of videos of mousetrap races. We use mousetraps becasue I don’t want any broken fingers from rat traps.
nice job on these, how far do they go?

-- ----- www.KNWoodworking.com ----- --

NOW THATS COOL! I need to make a few of these :)

-- Martin ....always count the number of fingers you have before, and after using the saw.