Slide of the Month - Rainbow Loom slide

February 2018

Time to make: 15 minutes

Original design: A. C.













This design was created by one of my Scouts (who's name I can't use because he is under 18). Back story, it was memorial day and we were gathering before the parade. A.C. came to the parade wearing a slide like this one. Being a slide guy, I was fascinated by the slide and had given him several compliments about it. He admitted to me he had built it about 10 minutes before having to leave for the parade. I asked how he made it and he told me about his sisters Rainbow Loom. A few years latter, after the fad had died down, I was able to find a few deals on a loom and supplies.

This literally took about 15 minutes to learn and I had a slide ready to go. Made from dark grey, dark green and white bands, I made the strip and then tied the ends together. Quick and easy! With so many colors out there, this could be a great Cub Scout project.

Slide of the Month - Mess Kit

February 2018

Time to carve: 1 hour

Finishing: .5 hour

Boy's Life -August 1989, page 79

Design: Bill Andrews







Oh boy, when I saw this slide in my notebook I was taken back to my days as a Scout trying to clean the remnant out of the fry pan after questionably cooked hamburger. From the Second Class requirement at that time;

" 10c  . . . . cook—without utensils—a
meal from raw meat (or fish or poultry)
and at least one raw vegetable. "

I don't remember how I ever got that black charred cement like substance out but I do remember it took a long time.  I carried the official aluminum mess kit all through my Scout time and still have it less the red cover.

Carved from a 1 and a half inch dowel it's an easy tapered cut on both sides with one being more tapered at the center line. This gives the slide the look of two different pans which made up the outside of the closed mess kit. The metal fry panhandle is a piece of cardboard cut and glued to the wood. The slide is painted with a silver handicraft paint and a coat wire loop finishes it off.

Slide of the Month - Orion Space Capsule

 January 2018

Time to print: 4 hours

Finishing: 2 hour

Thingiverse - NASA

Design:NasaModels

Try it yourself





Having finished the current manned spacecraft, I go forward with some upcoming capsules starting with the Orion. The Orion is NASA's next generation spacecraft for deep space missions. It's first unmanned launch was on December 5th, 2014 splashing down in the Pacific Ocean after a successful mission. The first planned manned mission, if it survives budget cuts, will be in  2023 through the team working on it hopes for a launch in 2021.

Printed on the Ultimaker 2 (The Orion CRM was out of service) and touched up with some UV glue this was an easy model to print. Spray painted with white primer, the other painted details were done with paint pens and the lettering done with water slide paper.

Slide of the month - Canoe Paddle

January 2019

Time to carve: 1 hour

Finishing: .5 hour

Boy's Life - January 1991

Design: Terry Gilbert








I had some time to kill one night while waiting for a call so grabbed my knife and a scrap piece of maple. An hour later I had a canoe paddle slide. I coated the slide with polyurethane and attached a leather loop with some glue.

Slide of the month Extra - Ship in a Bottle

December 2018

Time to make: 3 hours

Original design: Mike Ward 

Find it here

Going only on a picture and knowing it was built in a small hand sanitizer bottle, I sought out as many instructional videos I could find on YouTube and How to sites. The journey was a fascinating odyssey as I learned how to make a ship in a bottle. The ship you see here is a variation of a fishing boat in the early 1900's before many converted to powered sailing.

The ship was carved from a piece of scrape maple and painted using craft paints. The mast is a wooden skewer and the hinge is a bent pin.  I used some standard methods of hinging the mast, pulling the mast and sails up using long threads coming out the mouth of the bottle. The water is tinted EasyCast epoxy that I very carefully poured into the bottle first and let setup a bit before putting in the ship. Once the epoxy was hard, I pulled up the mast and sails and while holding them tight, I added a drop of super glue to areas holding the thread. One of the most challenging aspects of this project was cutting the unnecessary threads. To do this, I took apart a multi blade razor blade head and taped it to a skewer. (If you do this wear gloves during the disassemble of the razor blade head and attachment to the skewer.) Very carefully I reached in and cut away the excess thread using my cutting tool. Next, to hide the screw top, I tied a woogle and placed it on the neck of the bottle then added the cork to seal the bottle. Finally I glued a wooden loop to the back of the bottle.

EDIT 10/31/2020:Thanks to John Alexy for reminding me where I saw this slide so I could give proper credit!

Slide of the Month - Snowman

December 2018

Time to make: 2 hours

Boys Life "Slide of the Month"

December 1993, page 67

Original design: Jeff Springer






The calendar said fall but Mother Nature say "Hold my coffee". Holy cow, was there even a fall this year as snow came before the leaves were raked (or even off the tree).

A fun little chip slide made of maple and it's lightly sanded so the texture would still be there when I painted it with hobby paint. The nose is a dowel that was sanded into a cone shape to look like a carrot. Its finished up with a wooden loop and a couple of coats of poly.

Slide of the Month Extra - Stratos

 November 2018

Time to print: 4 hours

Modifications: 1.5 hours

Finishing: 2 hours

Boy's Life -

Design:





"Mission to the edge of Space" was what was claimed by Red Bull when the Stratos capsule carried Felix Baumgartner  to a height of 38.9694 kilometres (24.2145 mi). In a televised event, Baumgartner set a records for the highest altitude free fall and the fastest vertical speed (breaking the sound barrier). This was 65 years after Chuck Yeager first broke the sound barrier in the Bell X-1.  His record for highest altitude free fall was broken by Alan Eustace  two years later.

One thing to note, the scientific community considers the Karman line (100 kilometres or 62 miles)  to be the edge of space.

I found this model out there on the Internet but I wont post the link to the file because I had to make so many modifications, I don't think it is worth all the time I spent getting this model prepared for painting. The model was spray painted black originally and the outside was hand painted silver. The decals  extensive and were done with water slide paper.