Slide of the month - Bucking Burro

September 2018

Time to make: 5 hours

Boys Life "Slide of the Month"

May 1985, page 65

Original design: Lew Weston






It's funny when my son first saw this slide, he instantly thought it was Pedro from Boy's Life and looking at it now I can see the resemblance. Perhaps it's time to send off a letter to Pedro, lets see;

Dear alfalfa milkshake drinker,

Any chance this slide of the month was based on you?

Carved from a very hard piece of maple and caused me a lot of time resharpening my knife.  I painted the body of the burro with hobby paint and the details with paint pens. I sealed the slide with a couple of coats of poly and glued a wooden loop to the back. The main and tail are made from 325 black paracord with the center cords removed. I then super glued to drilled holes and frayed the cord with a pin.

Slide of the Month Extra - Coleman Lantern

August 2018

Time to make: 1 hours

Slides N' Woggles Issue 2

Original design: Greg Firestone May 2000

Modified version: Bill Macfarlane  August 2018













When I was a Scout it seemed every Scoutmaster worth their salt had a Coleman Lamp in the campsite. While some were white gas others were propane. It was my first purchase as a Scoutmaster years later in a Troop in Ogdensburg, NY and I still use it today in my current Troop.

Try as I might I could not find a key chain version of the Coleman Lantern Greg Firestone referenced but one day wandering though Dick's Sporting Goods or Walmart, I came upon a string of Coleman Lantern LED lights that was suppose to be used around the RV. I had found my source! First I cut off one of  the lights leaving enough wire to use. Popping off the top, I removed the wires from the sides and drilled a hole in the back to pass the wires through.  Next I cut out the base using a Dremel tool and drilled a hole in the back to pass the wires though. I sourced some parts from Radio Shack years ago (anybody remember when there was a store or two locally?) including a micro push button switch, a button battery holder, and a button battery. Stripping the ends of the wires I  checked the polarity of the LED by touching each side of the wires to the positive and negative side of the battery. I marked the wires and then created a simple circuit by soldering one wire to same polarity on battery holder, the other LED wire to one side of the switch, and a spare wire from the other side of the switch and battery holder. I put the battery in and tested the circuit before hot gluing the batter holder into the base of the lamp. (I make sure the open side was out so I could change the battery in the future.)

With a quick push of the button the Lantern lights up!

Slide of the Month - Whistle Slide

August 2018

Time to make: 1 hours

Boys Life "Slide of the Month"

August 1979,  page 52

Original design: Tom Dwyer









A fun functional little slide with high note and a lower note that kind of reminds me of an English Bobby's whistle. I not sure how a whistle really stops crime but I'm sure if that didn't work there is always "Stop or I'll say Stop again"

I started with a scrap piece of maple that just happened to be the size I needed. I marked the centers on both sides and drilled a 1/4 in hole  2 inches deep on one side and 2 1/2 inches on the other side. (The difference in the depth give the whistle the different tones.) Next I cut the 90 degree with a coping saw the cut the angle cut down to the 90 cut. To make the whistle work I cut a 1/4 inch dowel an inch long and flattened just the top down the length of the dowel. A lot of how much to take off is trial and error so I would put the dowel into the mouth piece, blow into it and if it didn't work take off a little more. When I got a sound I glued it in place and repeated the process on the other side. Now when gluing, the plug wasn't inserted deeper that the mouth piece so about a half inch will stick out of the whistle. When everything was dry, I cut off the excess plug and then began to shape the whistle. A bit of sanding to finish the shaping and round the rough edges before finishing with some shellac. A word of warning here, there is a good chance that any hard finish may block the little hole in the mouth piece as it dries. So if I had to do it again, I might use some foil to block the hole (hindsight).  To finish it off, I drilled some holes, in the half inch section with no other holes, and super glued a coat hanger loop into them

Slide of the Month Extra - Shenzhou

 2018

Time to print: 3 hours

Finishing: 1.5 hour

Thingiverse 2013

Design: Craig_H
Modifications:  Bill Macfarlane






Shenzhou is the capsule from Chinese manned space program and translation I like the best is "magic boat". Similar to the Russian Soyuz spacecraft but on a larger in scale. On October 15, 2003  Yang Liwei became the first Chinese astronaut to be launched into space. He orbited the earth 14 before reentry and landing in Inner Mongolia.

Based off a design by  Craig_H, I added a second set of solar panels on the orbital module to more closely resemble the Shenzhou 5 mission. The solar panels are super glued on the craft with a slight rotation. The slide is painted with paint pens and the flag was done using water slide paper.

Slide of the Month - Liberty Bell

July 2018

Time to make: 4 hours

Boys Life "Slide of the Month"

July 1999, page 50

Original design: Will Scarlet






"Proclaim Liberty Throughout All the Land Unto All the Inhabitants thereof" is the inscription on the Liberty Bell. And you can find more information on the Liberty Bell at the Nation Park System's web site here or listen to the podcast. Also what to hear what they think the bell sounded like before it cracked (base on computer models)?


I really like this one! Carved from maple this took a long time to carve and even when I was done carving I still felt like I could have done more. I wasn't really sure until I applied some Early American stain to the slide and WOW the feel of the bell came through. I attached a wooden loop and finished it off with a couple of coats of Poly.

From old to new - Survival kit updated

2018

Time to make: 2 hours


Original design: Bill Macfarlane

So I was thinking, what would I like in a survival kit that could fit inside a neckerchief slide like the one from William Poese. Well I would want a good length of paracord but where to put it? I had seen some pouches done by Stormdrane and decided to make my own survival pouch without the tin.

I started with a whistle buckle for emergency signaling. Next I tied a double wide Dragon Tongue  paracord bracelet. This became the sides of the pouch. The front and the back of the slide used the bracelet for anchor point in a simple basket weave. The loop is also made out of paracord.

  The contents include band-aids, a 2x2 gauze pad, antiseptic ointment, roller gauze, matches, striker, hot spark, cotton,  button compass, folding knife (the key), water purification tablets, fishing line, hooks, foam, flashlight, a needle and safety pins. The paracord, with reflective ribbon, is also a survival tool and can be used in many ways. For example, the strands of paracord can be used to/as;

lash together a shelter
make fishing line or a fishing net
make a snare for small animals
the string in a bow drill to make fire
a string for bow and arrows
make a tourniquet for extreme blood loss
mark your path
create a early warning system along with a can and some stones
thread for sewing repairs
dental floss
replacement shoe laces

Slide of the Month - Survival Kit

June 2018

Time to make: 2 hours

Boys Life "Slide of the Month"

March 1963,  page 30

Original design: William Poese

A survival kit in a neckerchief slide! This project has a coat hanger "pack frame" to hold the shape of the pack, a leather pack, and a wooden peg closure. The loop is a strip of leather also sewed to the pack. The contents include band-aids, a 2x2 gauze pad, burn ointment, matches, striker, button compass, folding knife (the key), water purification tablets, fishing line, hooks, bobber, pencil (not shown), and safety pins. The one additional item added, for the time, was a nickel for a payphone call. A side note here, the last nickel public payphone was at Taconic Telephone Company and were retired in 2000.