Slide of the Month: Watch-works

  August 2025

  Time to make: 3 hours

  Finishing: 1 hour

 
  Boy's Life October 1963, page 59

 
  Original design:  Hi Sibley



This slide finishes all the "Slide of the Month" neckerchief slides I know about from Boys life (now Scout Life) magazine. I started this project back in 2009, 14 years ago this month. From this point I'll move forward as if the Slide of the Month had continued with a combination of friends, my own, and other designs that interest me. It would be my hope that the "Slide of the Month" would return to Scout Life as there is a whole community of neckerchief slide makers still making slides. (Some of these are even offspring of contributors to the original "Slide of the Month" articles.)

Made from some of old pocket watches parts I ordered from Fire Mountain Gems, the first part that interested me was the watch face that I knew would become the center of focus. The original slide article called for the gears to be soldered to each other but I decided to use super glue to connect each up to the bridge at the top of the slide. I also glued the hand point to the 8 on the face of the watch (which is our troop number).

While many ask which is my favorite slide, that like asking a parent which is their favorite child but this slide is certainly in my top 10.

Slide of the Month Extra: Philmont Segmented Peaks

 

July 2025

Time to make: 3 hours

Finishing: none

 
Original design:  Philmont/Bill Macfarlane







I love trying to bring Philmont themes to something unexpected. When I saw the Philmont Peaks Segment Patch I knew there had to be a way not only to make the slide but to also to make it modular so I could add my own segments for my time at Philmont.

Working with Tinkercad I laid out a 6 segment circle with an inner circle then 3D printed the parts.  Next I printed out the patch (and a few extra locations) on some presentation paper, cut them out, and glued them to the segments using contact cement.  I then designed a thin base, 3D printed it and super glued small magnets into the holes I had made in the base. Lastly I used some thin metal tape (made for use with magnets) to mount to the backs of the segments.

The final build is simple as the segments stick to the baseplate and are easily changed. In fact this is so easy I got a couple of other designs that will be coming soon.

Slide of the Month: A Crow's Skull

 

July 2025

Time to make: 2 hours

Finishing: 1 hour

 
Source: Indian and Camp Handicraft

by W. Ben Hunt

Page 62

Original design:  Ben Hunt

Update: Bill Macfarlane

3D file: Crow Skull by Meligati on Thingiverse: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4121798

Ben Hunt (Whittlin Jim) made a lot of slides and not all of them were in Boy's Life. This slide was in one of the many books he wrote and during the coming months I plan to track as many down as I can.

The original design called for a real crow's skull but I don't see many dead crows around area and the thoughts of cleaning a real skull is not on my list of must do's. Enter a 3D printer and the file listed above.  

Using white PLA filament,  I printed the skull and then carved away the inner walls of the eye socket like Ben's article instructed. I then painted the skull using paint pens. 

Slide of the month: Shell

June 2025

Time to make: .5 hours

Finishing: 1 hour

 
Boy's Life April 1980, page 76

 
Original design:  Wayne Mason













Sea shells are fascinating as nature creates some of the most beautiful thing. Now most folks wont find this Scallop Shell to be that great but what makes this interesting to me is I found it digging in my back yard. (I'm no where near the ocean and we are not big shellfish fans.)

Easy slide to make as all I had to do, after cleaning it up, was to glue a loop to the back of the shell.

Slide of the Month Extra: Leather stamping-Bear Paw

 

May 2025

Time to print: 1 hour

Time to make: .5 hours

Finishing: .5

Original design:  Bill Macfarlane

Initial 3D print: Viking Bear Paw by Kenny Reniff

veg 

A friend of mine and fellow Wood Badge patrol member was complaining why I wasn't doing more Bear slides. (Yes I'm a good ole Bear.) So Ron, this one is for us. 

The bear paw here has four claws and represents the four of us in the Bear patrol who had a great time at NE-II-192 Wood Badge.  

The process of creating this slide uses a piece of tooling "veg tan" leather, a 3D printed stamp, and a method of pressing the stamp into the leather. I started by editing the Viking Bear Paw in Tinkercad to add the letters to the final stamp. 

After 3D printing the stamp, I cut a piece of leather to size based on the size of the stamp. I dampened the leather, placed the stamp on the leather, and squeezed the two of them together. Now there are many methods to do this like an arbor press, H-frame press, or C-clamp (G-clamp) home made press I found on the Scout Woggles Facebook page by Julian Ashcroft. After letting the leather dry, I treated the leather with Fiebing's Tan Vintage Gel and polished the leather with a soft cloth. Lastly, I stitched the ends together with waxed string to form a loop. 

This was a very cool method and I'll probably be making more leather slides in the future.

Slide of the Month: State

May 2025

Time to make: 2 hours

Finishing: 1 hour

 
Boy's Life: April 1984, page  71

 August 1994, page 48

 
Original design:  Bill Andrews         Jeff Springer

It's not the first time I've seen a slide idea repeated in Slide of the Month but maybe the first time I've given credit to both contributors.  Massachusetts, like many states, is a loaded with area with their own regional flavor. From Boston to where dragons live (insert Harry Potter reference here) there is a lot to do and see here.

Carved from a piece of maple, I liked the challenge of cutting the shape of Massachusetts into the wood because of the intricate detail of the outline. With the state raised above the base and ready for finishing, I had a hard time trying to decide what to put on this slide.  A Red Socks emblem (I'm a Mets fan), Mt Greylock,  Basketball Hall of Fame... to many choices so I went with a representation of the state flag. 

I used flat white spray paint to paint the background, a paint pen to outline the state and water slide paper to do the lettering.  

Slide of the Month Extra: Chicken Jockey!

April 2025

Time to make: 3 hours

Finishing: 2 hour

Original design:  Bill Macfarlane

3D file: Peter Farell - Chicken Jockey : Minecraft the Movie

Chicken Jockey! (...and the crowd goes wild!)

I couldn't resist making this slide after seeing this phenomenon and after all it's just fun. While I really wasn't interested Minecraft, my son played it right up into college.

Printed on a 3D printer with white PLA filament, based on the file above, I peeled away the base to give me the start of slide. Next i filled void on the bottom chicken's feet with super glue gel and left it to dry. I painted the slide with multi surface hobby paint. Lastly t drilled a couple of holes in the back for a coat hanger loop. Neat slide!

Slide of the Month Extra: Angry

 

April 2025

Time to make: 1 hours

Finishing: 1 hour

Original design:  Bill Macfarlane








It's April and as the snow disappears I find black walnut shells left by the squirrels in my yard. The odd part is I don't have any black walnut trees in or around my yard. I saw this half shell and it looks like an angry creature in the forbidden woods. 

The split in the shell was a natural mouth so I painted it red. I also added a couple beady eyes using a couple of quilting pins. I also filled the back to the shell with some 5 minute epoxy to keep the shells from falling apart and to give me something to mount the ring for the neckerchief 

Slide of the Month: Untitled

 

April 2025

Time to make: still working it

Finishing: when I get around to it

 
Original design:  Bill Macfarlane








OK, just a few more minutes, hours, days till this one is finished....What was I carving? 

Once again just my odd sense of humor here on the first of April. Somewhat carved from maple. Kind of painted from hobby paints. Labeled using waterslide paper and sealed with a couple of coats of ... well haven't gotten to that step yet.

Slide of the Month: Camp Lantern

 

March 2025

Time to make: 3 hours

Finishing: 1 hour

 
Boy's Life October 1983, page 68

 
Original design:  Bill Andrews

 My old Scoutmaster taught me many things and I am forever grateful. He also was the first person I knew with a propane lantern that gave us all some much more light than out Scout flashlights. I knew once I became an adult Scouter I would also own one of these marvelous bright lights.  

I wanted to try something different with this slide reusing some materials I would have normally thrown away. So I'll list what I used and what it was used for.

Contact lens cleaner container - glass globe and base

Plastic thread  spool - top or ventilator 

Paper clip - gas pipe and mantle holder

Paper towel painted yellow - mantle

Hanger nail - regulator control

Plastic squeeze bottle filled with green paint  and allow to dry- propane bottle

Shipping label printed with Coleman logo

Slide of the Month: Smiley

  February 2025

  Time to make: .5 hours

  Finishing: 1 hour

 
  Boy's Life April 1974, page 66

 
 Original design:  William Fleming & John Taylor











It's February and typically this is the month most Scouters feel down. Tired of it being cold and dark thinking they may never see the sun again. Well buck up Spring is around the corner!

A very simple slide to make! The slide is a wooden drawer knob that can be found at most hardware stores. Paint it yellow with your favorite paint. (I used some glossy spray paint I had kicking around.) When it was dry I used a black paint pen to make the happy face but you could also use a black sharpie marker too. Might be a 70's throwback but still fun to make and wear.

Slide of the Month Extra: Philmont French Henry Ore Cart

 
January 2025

Time to make: 3 hours

Finishing: 1.5 hour


Original design:  Philmont/Bill Macfarlane








Back in May of 2022, I had done a slide for French Henry with a gold mining pan based on the Philmont patch. Well didn't Philmont come out with another patch to make me scratch my head and think "how am I going to make that one?".  I worked a lot of ideas in my head some of which included some old HO train track from when I was younger. But the whole thought of both bringing this to a 3D reality while keeping the perspective was baffling me. I drew it out on paper - no good. Tried modeling programs - no good. Finally I just took a piece of basswood and started carving.

The cart is all one carving and somehow I kept it all together without having to resort to making several pieces and gluing them together. (The only exceptions are the dirt, which is some tile floor grout I had around, the pebbles painted gold from my back yard, and the pickax I carved.) I was quite pleased with the basic ore cart and was getting ready to carve the frame the hopper would pivot on when a thought came to mind. What if I used the space between the cart ends and the hopper to hold the neckerchief?

To finish this off I painted each element (except the grout) with hobby paints, labeled the lettering with water slide paper, and gave the slide a couple coats of poly. 

Slide of the Month: Abacus

  January 2025

 Time to make: 3 hours

  Finishing: 1 hour

 
  Boy's Life August 1987, page 64

 
  Original design:  Tell & Don Gubler










It is said that the Babylonian's created the abacus as one of the earliest methods of counting and calculations before written numbers. Though I can do simple addition and subtraction, apparently multiplication, division, square and cube roots can also be done on an 

abacus. The Roman abacus could even do simple fractions (ie. 1/4, 1/2,  and 1/12). I guess I'll stick to binary because after all "there are 10 kinds of people in the world who know binary".

This slide looked so simple to make...It ended up taking a lot of painstaking work.

Made from some scrap black walnut, the first task I had was to make a simple frame. Not as easy as it seems because the angle had to be nearly perfect. Next I needed to cut slots in the top and bottom for the wood on the inside and these had to line up just right. Gluing was another challenge since I did not have clamps small enough to hole the pieces in place at a right angle. The rods were drilled in place using quilting pins and as the pin penetrated the wood, I added the beads. Once the pins had come through the far side, I clipped the pins off with wire cutters. Using a fine metal file, I filed the pins flush with the wood. Butcher's wax was used to finish the slide off.

Slide of the Month Extra: Philmont 2001 A Phil Odyssey

 

December 2024

Time to make: 3 hours

Finishing: 1 hour
Boy's Life
Original design:  Bill Macfarlane





2001 A Space Odyssey was one of the first Science Fiction movies on TV I ever saw (not that I understood it then) but the images fascinated me. Years later, on a field trip for a High School English class, I got to see it again but on the big screen and there was so much more to take in. Themes included Human evolution, creation of a weapon, the beginning of weaponize war, The Blue Danube playing as the beauty of earth passes by, space vessels, space stations and  space travel as a common occurrence Pan American, artificial intelligence in the Heuristically Programmed Algorithmic Computer (HAL), and the mystery surrounding the black monoliths from some extraterrestrial life. The movie also left me with so many questions, so when Arthur Clarke published 2010: Odyssey Two, I picked up the book the first day it was available. Both the book and the following movie 2010: The Year We Make Contact while answering some of my questions, it generated many more. It also felt oh so real as the tensions between the US and the Soviet Union paralleled the conflict in the movie.  To me the best  part of the movie was the last message transmitted by HAL

ALL THESE WORLDS

ARE YOURS EXCEPT

EUROPA

ATTEMPT NO

LANDING THERE

USE THEM TOGETHER

USE THEM IN PEACE

Made from pallet Pine, carving the helmet didn't seem quite right to me but when I painted the helmet it all seemed to come together. Painted with hobby paints, lettered with waterslide paper and sealed with a couple coats of polly.

Slide of the Month: Old Tooth Nose

   December 2024

   Time to make: 3 hours

   Finishing: 1 hour

 
   Boy's Life December 1984, page 61

 
   Original design:  Lew Weston










It's that time of the season when everywhere you go you hear the same songs. Imagine if you will if you were working in retail and you had to hear the same Christmas album over and over again for 10 hours a day 7 days a week. Well that was my experience working for a electronics store in the mall. I got so sick of it, one day I went out and got A Chipmunk's Christmas by Alvin and the Chipmunks as a joke on our manager. Turns out the joke was on me because he liked it and we also played that album over and over and over...

Somehow the look of this surprised chipmunk makes me think of those days.

Carved from a block of maple it was a fun project to make. Painted with hobby paints and sealed with a couple coats of poly.

Slid of the Month Extra: Philmont Burro

 

November 2024

Time to make: 2 hours

Finishing: 1 hour

Original design:  Philmont/Bill Macfarlane







The treks that include burros take advantage of lighten the load carried for the crew as the burros can be packed with crew food and tents. These are pack animals (not for riding) just like the miners used in the early days of the area. As easy as this sounds, the crew members still carry everything else in there backpacks. Also as trained as the burros are, they still have a mind of their own and walk and stop when they want to. I have also heard stories of crews falling in love with their burros. It is rumored one crew had a plan to sneak out a burro and bring it back to large city they were from. I guess Amtrak wouldn't let them buy a seat for a burro.

Carved from pallet pine it was a quick slide to make. Painted with hobby paints, lettered with waterslide  paper, and finished with a couple coats of poly.

Slide of the Month:Chain Slide

  November 2024

  Time to make: 3 hours

  Finishing: 1 hour

 
  Boy's Life May 1966, page 54

  Original design:  Whittlin Jim













This was the other slide I missed publishing from Whittlin Jim and what a great slide  to make!

Carved from a single piece of red maple, this chain and weight took a sharp knife, keen eye, and so much patience to release each piece from the others. Sanding took almost as much time as it did in carving. Finishing was also a challenge as it needed to keep each part from touching the others while applying the poly. 

Slide of the Month Extra: Philmont Santa Fe Trail

 

October 2024

Time to make: 3 hours

Finishing: 1 hour
Boy's Life
Original design:  Bill Macfarlane

The bicentennial of the Santa Fe Trail was in 2021 and parts of Philmont are on the Santa Fe Trail.  I really liked the design of this patch and decided to make it into a slide.

Carved from pallet pine, it contains several levels, tricky painting, and some unique decals.

Slide of the Month: African Mali Mask

  October 2024

  Time to make: 2 hours

  Finishing: 1 hour

 
  Boy's Life August 1968, page 56

 
  Original design:  Whittlin Jim









So I was doing some record keeping of the slides I've made verses what I have published and I discovered 2 slides I made years ago from Whittlin Jim. I guess after 500 slides, I was bound to miss a couple.

Carved from maple this looks a lot simpler than it really was. Odd angles carve and cutting in recessed areas made me sharpen my knife over frequently. Sanded and stained with walnut stain to give the slide a dark foreboding look. I finished the slide off with a couple of coats of poly.

Slide of the Month Extra: Philmont National OA Exhibit

 

September 2024

Time to make: 3 hours

Finishing: 1 hour

Original design: Philmont/Bill Macfarlane




Contained in the National Scouting Museum at Philmont is the National OA Exhibit that is dedicated to the history of the Order of the Arrow. I got the chance to see the Museum in 2022 and it was quite interesting.

Carved from pallet pine it has several levels and was an a challenge to paint. Painted with hobby paints, lettered with water slide paper, and finished with a couple coats of poly