Tuesday, June 1, 2021

Slide of the Month-Sundial


 


June 2021

Time to make: 2 hours

Finishing: 1 hour 

Original design:  George E. Haddad 





June 20, 2021 is the beginning of summer and the longest day of the year. What better time to make a sundial! It is simple to use and you can tell the time by simply looking at the shadow on the dial. I know what you are thinking, how do you know the time at night?  If it is dark out, its time to go to bed.


Simple to use but a bit tricky to set up as the slide has to be cut on an angle in accordance to the latitude where you are located. For example, the latitude of Boston, MA 42.3601° N, so with this in mind, the angle of the slide would be cut at 42 degrees. I used a block of pine and cut the angle for my area first before drilling a 3/4 inch hole in the top of the slide. For the scale, I screen printed the  from boys life and brought it into MS Paint to enhance the lines and numbers. Once I was happy with it, I cropped the scale and printed it to waterslide paper. The next step was to drill a hole and glue the dowel in place. I painted it with white paint and, when dry, the decal to the slide. Next, a couple of coats of polly were applied. To finish off the slide, I took a fine line sharpie marker and wrote instructions on the back of the slide reminding me to point the dowel to the north while holding the slide flat.

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