Slide of the Month Extra: Philmont Phillips Junction

 

February 2024

Time to make: 3 hours

Finishing: 1 hour

 
Original design:  Philmont/Bill Macfarlane




Phillips Junction is the location of one of the largest commissary's at Philmont (I did a slide about the commissary here.) Beside the commissary, there are campsites, showers and potable water but fishing?

As it turns out it is only 1.5 miles away from Fish Camp so an easy hike to go fishing. Fun tidbit about Phillips Junction, it has the worst radio reception of any of the staffed camps but also has the most vehicle traffic. Must be from all the food being brought in. 

Made from a hobby store plywood oval painted with hobby paints, lettered with waterslide paper and a large hand tied fly glued to the slide. (Yes, I tied the fly.) A couple coats of poly finish it off

Slide of the Month Extra: Pallet

 

February 2024

Time to make: 1 hours

Finishing: .5 hour

Original design:  Bill Macfarlane








I do a lot of my Philmont slides with reclaimed pallet wood so why not do a pallet slide. The ironic part is there is no pallet wood in this slide.

Using coffee stirrers I created the main 2x4 supports by gluing 3 coffee stirrers together with super glue. When dry I cut them to size and also cut the deck/bottom pieces.  To assemble, I used super glue the deck pieces to the supports and when dry, the bottom pieces were glued to the slide. Super glue was used as a finish for the slide. 

Slide of the Month - The Dolphin

February 2024

Time to make: 2 hours

Boys Life "Slide of the Month"

August 2000, page 63

Original design: Jeff Springer











With crews getting ready to go to Sea Base on school vacation, I got thinking about this slide.
Back years ago when I was a kid, during the golden age of television, there use to be a show called Flipper about a boy and his dolphin . While I loved back then, I realize how it seems corny by today's standards and to me a watery version of Lassie. "Hey Fipper, Bud fell down the well" and the dolphin just laughed.

WOW...this one looked easy but I had a hard time trying to make this one look like Jeff's with the right proportions.  Carved from maple with odd cuts and a lot of sanding. LOTS of sanding. I painted it with hobby paints and finished it off with a couple coats of poly.