Pro Rail Rider Tool Compatible with Pinewood Derby Cars

Disclaimer. I’m a newby at building pinewood derby cars but not to building, fixing and tools. I had high hopes for this tool but was left a little disappointed. The milling of the tool I think was a bit off. The slot for the nail to straighten seemed to small. When the two pieces are put together with the nail in, there was about a saw blade thickness gap between the two half’s. I wasn’t to worried about this to straiten the nail because it doesn’t take much to do that. This did cause an issue later for the head shaping side. When it came to using the side to change the nail head shape, the gap was an issue. That saw blade thickness caused the head to get burr lines on it. No I did not Thor’s hammer it. Slow and steady taps, rotating the nail as I went. After 8 nails (I built two cars) I noticed the inside edges on the taper of the tool for the nail heads, the metal started to mush and created a burr on the inside edge of the tool also. I ended up taking a file to remove the burrs off the tool at the end. I assume this occurred because of the gap and the steel used was fairly soft. The last part was the angle bending attachment. I assume it worked fine. I don’t have a way to measure a 2.5degree bend on a nail. I will say like other posts said, make a mark on the head before you remove it from the tool. Once out, it’s almost impossible to see the bend and find top center of the bend. In all, the tools was useful but I have a feeling it’s not going to hold up and I will have to alter the nail bore size which I know will throw off the degree of the bending tool. If the milling was a little better and the tools steal was slightly harder I think it would be an amazing tool. As is, it’s subpar with I expect a short life span that cost to much with a short life span.

Ok scouts and parents this is the axle bending tool to get unless you want to spend 3x as much for the levered bending tool that does the same thing. In fact I think this is better because it is SO SOLID. Make sure you don't get the ones that are just the axle straightener (bottom two pieces) without the bending u-block pictured up top if you're gonna rail ride (which by the way you *should*, if rules permit). Clamp the bottom bits down to a sturdy surface and give it a good hit with a heavy mallet or hammer and you're done. If you use a hammer, put something like a folded towel on top of this so you don't get huge hammer marks on it. This thing will literally last forever and your scout can pass it down to the next generation when the time comes. Happy racing and good luck!

Great tool for pinewood derby racers. The tool came with easy to follow instructions and it was simple to perform the axle bends. A few smacks with the hammer and viola!It was easy to perform the recommended alignment steps also to get the car to run the rail well.We had a perfectly tuned car, unfortunately our design placed us just out of the top 5 in a field of 50. That was fine by me because my son had a great time winning all night.Glad I added this tool to our bag!

Product is solid. We tried to bend a few sets of axle's but we couldn't deem to get the correct bend. Ended up bending by hand.

I was a little disappointed in this product. I have used their products before and they worked well. This one was not as effective as I would have thought. It didn't slip together very well and had to be forced. The machining was not as accurate as I was expecting.

it works fine. but mark nails with something like nail polish first. sharpee rubbed off the nails and had trouble finding 12' O'clock again.

Perfect for straightening the axles

great for pinewood derby axles