Slide Ideas

[struax]

Was just wondering if Dens out there create their own slides as another form of cohesion of unit.

 

I am thinking about doing a Turks Head Slide for a promotion idea for the den and was looking for feed back. There might be some of you out there that say no dont do it, it could be confused with the WB Woggle but if I do a three strand instead of a two strand i think that would suffice as the difference.

 

any thoughts or comments.

 

Scott

[rjscout]

I think the Turks Head knot looks pretty cool as a slide, but I would think that you might get some flack from Wood Badge Scouters.

 

For Indian Nations, we made an arrowhead slide with a decent looking Arrowhead, with a string and some beads hanging. We glued it to a 1/2" (ID) PVC pipe, which was held on to the neckerchief with a twisted rubber band.

 

For pinewood Derby, we glued a Hot Wheels car to the pvc pipe.

 

I can't claim these as original ideas. I read about them on various sites when I started reading more about Cub Scouts.

 

[msnowman]

Turks heads are very popular here and there is no conflict (here anyway) w/ Woodbadgers as ours are not made out of leather. A turks head from parachute cord looks entirely different than one made from leather. The Troop SM even held a Turks head making class for the youth and any adults who wanted to learn.

 

Maybe you can pick a "Den Color" and make all the slides out of that. Nephew has a variety of turks heads, in a variety of colors. For summer camp he takes a zip lock baggie full of rope slides...then he has a spare for anybody who loses one.

 

YMMV

 

YiS

Michelle

[struax]

I tell ya I love working with line.......

 

I figured it out, I can differentiate my slides by finishing the Turks HEad with a Monkeys Fist. Dangle it about an inch below and it makes for a very smart looking fancy knot combination.

 

And definately not going to be confused by all those WB'ers out there.

 

scott

 

 

[Stosh]

WB does not hold any patent on Turk's Head knots. Anyone can have a TH knot made of any material of any color they wish.

 

4 strand TH knot is the basis for the BSA generic metal slide.

 

TH woggles are pretty nice and yes, if one wishes to weave a 2nd or 3rd color (Red, White, & Blue) into a 3 strand TH they look great. I use Parachute cord and if one gets white, it can be dyed with a nylon dye to any color. Parachute cord also fuses off very nicely and the ends of the knot can be sewn together inside and out of sight.

 

For those who don't want to mess with the multiple weaving of the threads, make a 2-3' thread of each color, sew together at one end and then tie the knot once.

 

The nice thing about the TH knot is that it can be worn horizontal and vertical. Vertical with a square knot in the ends of the necker make it impossible to lose the woggle.

 

Stosh

[SSScout]

 

Easy, impressive slide ideas:

 

Build out of Legos: Walls can have things/small figures sitting on them. House w/ chimney & smoke.

 

Find a rail road modeler. Ask about N gauge or Z gauge and see if any of their broken rolling stock might lend itself to a slide. Take an HO scale caboose and CAREFULLY drill/melt a proper size hole THRU it.

 

Coin Collector? Get/find a small plastic snap fit box, hot glue to a PVC tube. Change your display in the box periodically.

 

Found a set of miniature Slinkies at a Dollar store (ooo-ooo five and dime?) and boy did we have fun twisting them into slides.

 

Find some old Scout(er)s and have them do a display of days gone by slides... for inspiration.

 

Get the boys involved...

 

 

[scottteng]

Quick and easy slides can be made by cutting appx 2" lengths of 3/4 " pvc pipe and using a hot glue gun to attach items too them. We followed the theme for the month Pinewood we had little plastic matchbox type cars on our slides, when we did geology we had sticky fabric dino's the possibilities are endless.

[Herms]

A cool slide I helped my Wolf Cub Scouts with a couple years ago was a racing helmet. I found a bubblegum machine that had different Nascar helmets, shelled out a bunch of quarters to he machine, and we drill holes through the top. The boys love wearing them at Pinewood Derby time!

[CaveEagle]

Been away for a while! (busy scouting)

 

Here goes...

 

I also am a fan of the TH using parachute or thin climbing cord. The high quality climing cord makes a really nice slide. I periodically keep an eye on the clearance tables for such things. Bass pro also carries this. My favorite story was a our councils "Tiger Growl" campout. I brought a few pre-cut lengths of cord in my pocket and tied them into a TH to avoid boredom. I gave away two to tigers that had lost there tiger slide and a third to a cub that showed interest while I was tying the TH.

 

I have gotten a wise crack from an ill advised WB policeman.

 

Another Idea I have used: I call this one the WRS (woggle restraint system)

 

I start with one of the precut wood animal shapes you can find in craft stores in bags of 4-5. I use a dremel with a sanding wheel to round and rough up the critter. This gives it a hand-carved look. A small block of wood glued to the back needs to have three holes predriled in it. a ~1/2" hole for the necker and two ~1/8" holes for the cord or strap. The holes should be oriented kind of like mickie-mouse ears. I then put a lenth of leather cord through the two small holes and terminate the ends with two beads and knots. Imagine a bolo tie and you've got the idea. I used this as a den project preparing the pieces prior to the meeting. The cubs got to paint the critters themselves, glue on the back and put the strap through the holes. The cord/strap goes around their collar(neck) and works just like a bolo tie. The necker goes through the big hole just like a traditional slide. You let the knoted ends hang down about 6-8" below the slide. You can also tie the ends together to prevent slippage.

NO MORE lost slides. And they end up looking pretty cool. I have used the fish and turtle shapes. The prep work is not too bad if you are handy with wood tools. The carved look from the dremel affect fools most into thinking they were carved.

 

I have a few other slide project if anyone is interested.

 

CE

[mtm25653]

The coolest cub slide I've seen/made is a Wolf head made from a turkey neck bone (the bone looks like a wolf - add beads for the eyes, plus felt ears and tongue if you want). Paint the bone grey or brown or leave bone white. Add a piece of pipe cleaner to the back to hold the neckerchief.

[Bob White]

A friend had one made out of a a squirrel's skull he found in the woods. He bleached it and clear coated it. It was pretty fearsome looking.

 

 

[pixiewife]

I am a Tiger leader, and we make a new slide each month, to coincide with the BSA theme. First let me say, our pack does not heavily rely on the theme, but we are trying to incorporate it more and more. Us Tigers use it, because it gives us a jumping off point.

 

For Indian Nations we took the plastic ring from a water bottle, covered it 1/2 way around with a peice of red fun foam (about 3/4'' wide)using hot glue. The boys then rolled it in tacky glue, and then rolled it in beads. This gave the beaded portion of an Indian head dress. They then glued small feathers to the inside of the beaded band, with the feathers sticking up. Then we glued jute twine hanging down from eack side, with feathers on the end of them. They looked fantastic!

For december they made reindeers using 3 puzzle peices, googly eyes, and a red pom pom nose. The reindeer was then hot glued to the front of a water bottle ring.

In January I took the kind of wooden clothespin that does not have a spring. I sawed off the two 'legs', and used a rotary tool to kind of shape the wooden peice left into a basic car outline. Really I just had to smooth some off the top right to make the hood of the car, and a bit off the bottom left, to make the part where a car comes up behind the wheel. The boys then sanded them, and colored them with markers. We glue on black wheels made of fun foam, and glued them to the front of our rings.

For march we are going to use pop can tabs, and weave them together with pipe cleaners, so that they encircle the neckercheif. We are also going to hang a small enamal charm from the front.

 

We found that not only do our boys love making them, but they also love wearing them, and now many people from the pack are looking forward each month to seeing what we have come up with! Oh yeah, we are also working towards our collecting BL with them!

~Pixie

[Eagle732]

I give a green Turks Head knot slide to each new scout to go with his new red neckerchief. You can buy cord in different colors at the big box hardware stores. Search online to see how to tie them, after a few tries youll be able to do it without the instructions.