Slide of the Month Extra - Philturn brand

April 2020

 Time to make: 1 hour each

 Finishing: 1 hour

 Original design: Philmont / Bill Macfarlane

Days till PhilmontCountdown

One of the symbols you can see in almost every patch, slide or any Philmont item is the brands. Heck, you can even brand something you own like a hat, a belt, a piece of leather or a mug (as long as it will take the heat). Now I'd only had seen the cattle (bar P and backward S) and horse (/ and backward S) on most of the Philmont stuff but recently I saw a brandable plastic mug with the Philturn brand from one of our Philmont crew trainers. (Yes, a brandable mug! (It had really thick plastic walls.) After doing some research, I found out that the original name of Philmont Scout Ranch was Philturn Rocky Mountain Scout Camp and this brand (the combined T and P) was the original cattle brand.

So this was an easy set of slides to make! I started with an old weathered board from a broken pallet and cut them into a reasonable size allowing for the broken parts to remain on the slide. I traced out the brand onto the board and cut the brands into the wood. Once the cuts were made, I used a soldering iron to burn the cuts to look like brands. On some of the outside edges, I roughly rounded the wood and then charred them with a lighter. Finally, I finished them off with a couple of coats of Poly.


Bonus!! While looking up brands in New Mexico I discovered an additional Philmont brand at Raydo.

Slide of the Month Extra - School Spirit

June/July 2019

Time to make: None (This is a no brainer)

Original Design: Bill Macfarlane(ish)

So a funny thing happened when I went to post this month's extra slide, I realized last month's never got published so this is a two for one month and it involves school spirit in the form of mascots.

My son recently graduated from Rochester Institute of Technology which is an excellent University; majors like Engineering, Computer Science, Digital Media and the National Technical Institute for the Deaf to name a few. (Hey who knew Packaging Science was a degree one could earn.) They also have a D1 hockey team with amazing fans (Yes, I'm looking at you Corner Crew). You see their mascot's image RITchie all over campus. But pay no mind to the "new" (smiling) mascot (whose unofficial's nickname is Tony duh tiger)  as no one likes him and we are convinced the stole the dots out of RIT.

My daughter goes to Champlain College which, while smaller, gives my daughter the chance to excel and follow her own path. Currently, a double major (and maybe a minor too?) with a specialization to boot. That's a lot of work but I'm so proud of her for making it her own. From International Business to Game Design there is a lot going on there. Also of note, the college's sports teams remain undefeated at home (inside joke).  The college's mascot is Chauncey T. Beaver. (Hey Woodbadge beavers, you can get him here.)

Ok, these slides couldn't have been easier to make. Both of these were key chains and I simply removed the key chain part. Each has a velcro sweater on that has some give to it so the neckerchief passes between the sweater and the mascot. Easy peasy