Miniature Stratocaster Pinewood Derby Car

Here is the car that I built for last year's pinewood derby.

It is a miniature Stratocaster Guitar mounted on a chassis that is shaped like a guitar case.  I never raced the car because of fears of destruction as it ran down the track, but it sure looked good!  It is made with a basswood body and maple neck.  A photo of a stratocaster was downloaded from the Internet and scaled to the proper size on the computer before being printed out.  The printed copy was cut up into neck and body sections and pasted onto wood to allow for exact cutouts to be made.  I used grinders, files, sandpaper and other tools to shape the body and neck and then individual fret lines were incised into the finger board with an x-acto knife.  Some 0.25mm wire was glued into each of these fret slots to make actual metal frets and even finer wire was used for the strings of the guitar.  Some scrap sprue from plastic model kits was turned to make the knobs and sheet styrene was used for the finger guard.  Lastly, copper wire and brass tubing were used to make the cable and 1/4 inch jacks to finish out the project.  The body is painted with flaming red lacquer with clear coat over the top.  Here are a couple of other photos of the finished project.