Slide of the Month Extra-Philmont Ponil (Saddle)

 

March 2022

Time to make: 2.5 hours

Finishing: 1 hour

Original design:  Philmont / Bill Macfarlane

Days till Philmont 2022Countdown

 

Ponil is one of the larger camps at Philmont featuring western lore, burro packing, trout fishing and horse riding. In fact, it was the original base camp for Philturn Rocky Mountain Scout Camp from 1938 to 1941. (It's also got a cantina for that famous Root Beer!)

Carved from southern (pallet) pine this was a challenge trying to make this look like a saddle. One thing I like the looks of was leaving the blanket area lightly sanded to give the area a textured appearance. Painted with hobby paints, lettered with waterslide paper, and sealed with a couple coats of poly.

Slide of the Month Extra-Philturn Gateway

 

March 2022

Time to make: 2 hours

Finishing: 1 hour

Original design:  Philmont Millennium 1 / Bill Macfarlane

Days till Philmont 2022Countdown

 

Over at the Philmont Millennium 1 site there are several photos of the early days when Philmont was called Philturn Rocky Mountain Scout Camp and one of the photo there was a photo of several scouts, an old truck, and my favorite part of the photo the gateway.  This is my spin of the photo as a slide. (I starting to think I have a thing for Philmont Gateways!)

Carved from reclaimed southern (pallet) pine, a very simple leveled slide painted with hobby paints, lettered with water slide paper,  and finished off with a couple coats of poly.

Slide of the Month Extra - Philmont Miranda

 November 2020

 Time to make: 3 hours

 Finishing: 1 hour

 Original design:  Philmont / Bill Macfarlane

Days till Philmont 2022Countdown

 

Miranda is one those places at Philmont that has to be experienced. Imagine yourself as an early explorer of the west where your very survival depending on your ability to throw a tomahawk, shoot a black powder gun, and live in the uncharted west.

I like this slide for the complexity it offered me. Carved from southern (pallet) pine, the different levels of the rifles', tomahawks, and teepee  were a challenge. I also kept the background rough to give the slide a rustic look. The featured items were painted with hobby paints and the lettering was done with waterslide paper. I finished it off with a couple coats of shellac to give the background a nice golden oak look as well as giving the teepee a weathered feel. 

Slide of the Month-Pancake Stack

March 2022

Time to make:

 2 hours

Finishing: 0 hour

 
Boy's Life:

 Jan. 1973, p. 63

 Original design:

  Wayne Mason?

Mmmmm...pancakes with real maple syrup, it doesn't much better (well maybe if you add bacon)! Well it's that time of year again to tap the maple trees, collect the sap, and boil, boil, boil... I spent many a late winter/early spring doing just that right up through college poised in front of the wood stove feeding it with one hand and a text book in the other.  The funny part is that I didn't like real maple syrup back then.

The original slide called for making REAL mini pancakes, drying and then using varnish to seal the pancakes. As hard as I tried, I could not seem to get this to work but I got an idea with some material that may not have existed back in 1973.  Fabric paint is a liquid plastic material which will stay thick as you put it on and some, depending on brand, will puff up with a little heat.  I started with some white fabric paint making some circles of varying size on a piece of glass. (The glass provides a smooth surface and helps when helps when removing the pancakes.) Then I filled in the circles with tan fabric paint. Then taking yellow paint, I make a small circle for the pad of butter. When the paint was dry, I put a drop of the tan paint in the middle of the largest pancake. I took the next largest pancake on top of the largest pancake and moved around to glue the pancake to the lower one. I continued that process right up to the last pancake. I put a weight on top and let them to dry overnight. The next day, I took a sharp knife to the dried yellow and cut it into a square to make a pad of butter. I put a drop of yellow pain on top of the stake of pancakes and put the square on the drop and moved it around not only to glue the pad of butter but to also simulate the melting. When this is was dry, I thinned some dark brown fabric paint and applied it with an eyedropper letting it drip down the stack of pancakes. Finally, the dried stack of pancakes were glued to a wooden backer so I could attach a loop. 

Slide of the Month Extra-Philmont Lovers Leap

 

February 2022

Time to make: 3 hours

Finishing: 1 hour

Original design:  Philmont / Bill Macfarlane

Days till Philmont 2022Countdown

 

Another Order of the Arrow trail crew project is the Lovers Leap trail  to Stonewall Pass trail. I hear the trail to Lover's Leap is the most accessible trail in all of Philmont and the view of the Tooth of Time from there is simply amazing. 

There are also stories of a spurned lover who threw himself off the cliff rather than face rejection of the woman he loved. Some say on a dark night you will see his ghost pacing near the edge of the cliff  in deep sorrow. When the spirit realizes you are there, he jumps off the cliff to his death. (Or so I'm told.)

Carved from pallet pine, this is a fairly simple slide to create with simple lines. It's painted with hobby paints, labeled with waterslide paper, and sealed with a couple coats of poly.

Slide of the Month Extra-Philmont Hunting Lodge

 

February 2022

Time to make: 3 hours

Finishing: 2 hour

Original design:  Philmont / Bill Macfarlane

Days till Philmont 2022Countdown

 

Built by Waite Phillips for his hunting trips, the cabin was reconstructed similar to the original design featuring two bedrooms, a dining room, breezeway, and kitchen.  The contents of the lodge are not the originals but have been provided by the BSA including the trophy head mountings on the wall.

Wow this was fun to make! I carved most of the slide from southern (pallet) pine and the antlers are made from plastic model sprue. I worked this slide backwards and what I mean by that is started with the background. Next, I carved the rifles and finally I shaped skull. Once the elements were refined and sanded, I drilled a couple of holes in either side of the skull for the antlers. To form the sprue to look like antlers, I heated the plastic with a lighter, pulled, pushed and molded the soft plastic quickly before it would harden again.  (Sometimes having to re-heat it again because I wasn't happy with the results.) I painted the wooden part of the slide with hobby paints and the antlers with plastic model paint. When everything was dry, I used super glue to glue the antlers in place. The lettering and Zia were done with waterslide paper. A couple coats of poly finish it off. 

Slide of the Month Extra - Philmont Black Horse Creek

 February 2022

 Time to make: 3 hours

 Finishing: 1 hour

 Original design:  Philmont / Bill Macfarlane

Days till Philmont 2022Countdown

 

Black Horse camp was a mining camp from 1885 to 1950 as part of the Baldy Mining district. Though it product relatively little gold, there was only one mine shaft with a depth of 340 feet and length of 2,500 feet. This slide is also recognizes the work put in by the Order of the Arrow tail crew who constructed the Black Horse trail (2000-2003) as one of the many tail and conservation projects the OA has accomplished.  

Carved from maple, I like the way the trees arch the scenic view of Mount Baldy.  Painted with hobby paints, labeled with waterslide paper, and sealed with a couple coats of poly.