May 2022
Time to make: 3 hours
Finishing: 1 hour
Original design: Philmont / Bill Macfarlane
Just below Baldy Mountain stands the
French Henry Camp. Named for a man from France named Henry Burell who founded an ore mine around 1869. Now the funny part about the this is the location of the mine is at Aztec Ponil 1.
What an unique opportunity, not only can a Scout experience what it was like for prospector to
pan for gold but they get to keep anything they find at French Henry. Let's see gold is going for between $55 to $60 dollars a gram, should I find some gold (a mere speck I'm sure) I might be able to buy a cup of tea.
Bob Ross use to talk about
"happy accidents" and that's kind of what happened with this slide. This started out as something different and I just wasn't happy with the way it was shaping up so I set it aside as a piece of scrap wood. Some weeks later I was trying out a curved blade and before knew it, I had carved the inside of the pan. Hmmm...I thought, this looks like a mining pan. Remembering a Philmont patch for French Henry, I went ahead and carved the outside, sanded and painted the silver and blue. For the gold, I painted some sand and when it was dry, I used super glue to form a puddle pan. Working quickly, I sprinkled the painted sand carefully into the pan. The lettering was done with waterslide paper and a couple of coats of poly finish it off.