101 replies to this topic

[Kicking Horse]

I think a gas or diesel engine would be better........

just my 2 cents

[Alexvb222000]

I almost have everything down on paper (what I need and what I'm useing).

I started clearing the trail a little.

I also finally found were some telephone poles are. I am going to try a stop by the place tomarrow and see if I can get about 5 or so. (its at some guys house, he's got 20ft. piles of them!)

This is proveing to be yet another expensive project of mine.

And if your interested, I finally got the first layer of fiber glass on my fan gun!

Is body filler cheap, because it looks like I'll need a good bit of it if I want it looking "Smooth"/"Round"? I heard that I could use "mud" instead, Like for your walls, as long as I covered it back up with fiberglass and resin (allowing no water to go though). Dose this sound like a good idea?

[Kicking Horse]

Any updates on this project?

[Alexvb222000]

Not really,

Still working hard at trying to clear a path Not fun

I did find that a 7.5 Hp motor would work with a 1500lbs. max work load, But I think I still may go with a 10 hp motor because you need to assume 80% operation due to friction losses and other such things.

My question is if a 7.5 Hp motor spining at 3450 rpm can pull 1500lbs. up a 150 vertical ft. hill, When I reduce the speed of the motor with gears (16:1) will it increase the work load of the system by 16 x's, so 24,000lbs. max??? It just moves up the hill slower (8-10 fps).

I also am looking at a 1 in. rope thats 1200 ft. long for 350 dollers.

I also am looking into what it is going to cost to run a 200 amp 240 volt and a 100 amp 120 volt service out about 500 ft. to the "shack" (side of halfpipe if you saw it in the pics) from my house. Any thought?

Thanks,
Alex

Ps - any Idea on a good cheap filler to use for my snow gun in order to smooth it out? Not body filler (too expensive for the amount I'll need on this project, Like 5-8 gals of filler for the whole thing I think.)

[hyak.net]

I haven't read all the details here, just skimmed the messages ....but it seems it might be cheaper to invest in a piece of crap car/truck and use that to run your tow. Just cut the body off and use the drive wheels. When I visited the Meany Hut ski area last summer they showed me their big rope tow and it was run by a chevy 327 with tranny and drive attached....basically the same thing... You can find a crap car for $100 or $200.....just my thoughts.....

[iceberg210]

If anyone needs telephone poles in the Seattle region for a project contact me my Grandma would be happy to get rid of her piles of them. Also in stead of a car you may want an old tractor which will give you better torque which you'll need more comparitively to speed i think also the tractor engines run forever need very little matnience and can be found for insanely cheap.

[Alexvb222000]

Ok,

Have to take my tractor away for a while and do a job so there will be no more clearing for at least 2 weeks I would say Sucks, But I need to save up a little money for this project.

Thats my status on this as of now.

I'm Thinkin SNOW SNOW SNOW!!!
CAN"T WAIT!

Alex

[Alexvb222000]

Ok,

I have 750$ saved up so far for this project and I'am about to start SOON. Hopefully by the end of october. I think that I'am going to use 4x4's or 4x6's that are 16 foot in length. Also I am Looking at the "real hubs, but there just a little $$$ (about $45.00 for one hub and spare hub holder). Although I only need about 7 or so I think and there at Lowes. Any suggestions on what else I could use that is Cheaper.

The rope and motor are what is really going to take me down. I already know where and what rope I'm buying, but I still havent found a motor.
Somthing that really angerd me was that on another forum this guy got a 7.5 Single Phase! electric motor for 1$ that was in PERFECT condition. And it works great. Awesome for him, only If I could find that. I found plenty of 7.5 Hp 3 phase motor for 50$ to 100$. But I Can't seem to find a VFD to power it :(

Any help with this?

Please help,
Alex

[Alexvb222000]

Ok,

I have decided to say Screw the Electric Motor deal. It's just too $$$.

But the good news is that I HAVE a Hydrostaticl drivin "cement carrier". Basicly a Wheel barrel that to can ride. It carries loads over 2000LBS. With ease and uses Little Horse power to do so. It not a new one of couse, but one that has givin up. The motor any way. And they just did not fix it. It comes with a Valve assembly and all of the hydrostatic "drives" and another Hydrolic cylinder. Which might be of use for something, if not this the surly somthing else (tractor attachment).

I will try to have Pics soon. The project is about to go "underway"!!! :)
-bout time-

Alex

[Alexvb222000]

I'am about 9/10 done now (Finally) :---:

This wed. should be the very last day that I have to work on the trail portion. I'm have about 6 people over to help carrie the last of the remains (and there is a ton, I have enough fire wood to last about 2 winter seasons now . The brush is the biggest problem, theres a 30 by 20 foot by 8 foot high pile of extreamlly packed together brush. I think I may just have a little bond fire to celebratee the opening of the slope )

One of my friends is bringing a stump grinder and possible his wood chipper (not sure if he can or not). I have about 30 stumps to grind and most should be no problem.

Pics real soon I hope, If I can get the time.

The trail is now about 1000Ft. by 40 ft. wide. and there is a direct stright line for the rope tow on the side.

I have the drive motor finally. I got it last friday. It weighs over 600 pounds (imagine 2 guys trying to pick it up at night while another guy backs the truck up into it so we don't have to lift it "too" far) It's actually the drive assembly off of the hydrostatic wheel barrel I was talking about earlier. Has one shaft, and tow hydrostatic 'drivers'/wheels and a valve assembly with the hydrolic tank (think there was still hydrolic oil in it when we picked it up ) Soon I will be working diligently on that piece of work. :)

Updates later on how far It has come (once I have the rope and posts in the grond, so don't exspect another post for about 2 weeks.) Maybe then I could be making a little snow (made it twice so far this year :P )

Alex

[BellHollowSkiBowl]

Alex:
I apologize for not finding this website -- I build a wireropetow in my backyard. Here are the stats:

I can attached pictures for you as well, let me know if you have any questions.

Chris


Rope Tow Stats:
Wire 3/8'’ 7X19GAC Tensil 7.5 tons
Length Continuous 2100'
Splice Long, 6 strand 90 feet overlap, 18' tucks.
Speed Variable 0.75 MPH to 2.86 MPH.
Engine Kohler K241A 10HP, Mounted on a CC109.
Return Wheels 4
Guide Wheels 4
Skiers Per Hour 10


Skiing Stats for Bell Hollow
Vertical Decent 315 ft
In-Bounds Terrain 12 acres
Out-Bounds Terrain ~35 acres
Distance 1050 ft
Average Pitch 18°
Est. Pitch Range 11°-29°
Average Slope 28%
Base Elev. 1305 ft
Summit Elev. 1620 ft
Sandy Ridge Summit 2518 ft.(used for cloud seeding)
Exposure N 5°

 A_BaseLavrich.jpg (160.95K)
Number of downloads: 100

[bc powder]

There is a Russian guy in the Toronto area that is manufacturing rope tows. I'm looking into his project and would be curious to hear if anyone has had contact with him and used his rope tow. I'll see if I can post his website in the next couple of days.

[Kelly]

This looks like a nice unit-
I have a couple of suggestions.
"Entrance sheave is too small of a diameter – this will wear too fast and have a tendency to "unlay" the wirerope.
Run a loop from the stop switch around the wirerope at the entrance sheave area so when your glove (with or with out your hand) approaches this sheave the tow will stop.

Attached File(s)

•  rope_tow__small_sheave_with_arrow.JPG (148.63K)
  Number of downloads: 38

[BellHollowSkiBowl]

Ryan B, on Oct 2 2005, 09:52 PM, said:

This looks like a nice unit-
I have a couple of suggestions.
"Entrance sheave is too small of a diameter – this will wear too fast and have a tendency to "unlay" the wirerope.
Run a loop from the stop switch around the wirerope at the entrance sheave area so when your glove (with or with out your hand) approaches this sheave the tow will stop.

Ryan B:
On the entrance sheave, you are right on – I had to find that out empirically, that is, we were getting zinc wearing off of the galvanized wire rope in a little pile below the wheel. These wheels are made of zinc so they are not mean to carry the whole weight, just to guide the wire rope. This wheel was ripped to shreds by the end of the season and it had broken one wire in the strand at the splice. To fix this we did the following:
Lowered the wheel by 1’’ (installed new wheel)
Put 2’’ lift on the drive wheel
Relaxed tension on the wire
My original thought (which now seems silly) was that the wire rope would slip on the drive wheel because the circumference was only 62.5” and we used a non-biased spare tire to put over the motorcycle wheel and I thought that might slip. The idea was to increase the contact surface of the wire on the wheel from 180° to 200° or more degrees of contact. The above points did work to resolve the problem of wire/sheave wear.

This year (our third season) we are going to install a relay switch to kill the mower before we increase the speed of the lift. We have put a shed around the lift to keep skiers as far from the wheels as possible (attached picture). Our ideas was to use 10 lengths of 100’ foot extension cords, plug them all in and basically pull the cord to kill the lift – with your suggestion we will make sure that there is a kill switch in case a skier gets too close to the drive wheel –

Thanks for your help – we are praying for powder…. Chris.

Attached File(s)

•  20050309_073.jpg (459.18K)
  Number of downloads: 87

[djspookman]

Nice looking tow you have there! I'd love to put a tow on my land (once I buy of course) but that won't be for a few years!

That looks like a VT plate on that truck in the pic.. is the tow in Vermont?

dave

[BellHollowSkiBowl]

djspookman, on Oct 3 2005, 08:37 AM, said:

Nice looking tow you have there! I'd love to put a tow on my land (once I buy of course) but that won't be for a few years!

That looks like a VT plate on that truck in the pic.. is the tow in Vermont?

dave

Thanks Dave -- nope I lived in VT for 7 years skiing at Mad River and moved in '97 to PA. Down here you are only required to have a rear plate so I have my old SKI MAD VT plate on the front of the truck. Very observant --all I can see in that picture is a green blur.

When you do decide to put in a lift let me know, I'll be more than happy to help -- We did it for the fresh powder -- I daydream about buying land in the Northeast Kindom and putting in a 5,000 ft ropetow. Chris.

Attached File(s)

•  D_ChrisDown.jpg (59.8K)
  Number of downloads: 40

[djspookman]

BellHollowSkiBowl, on Oct 3 2005, 05:14 PM, said:

Thanks Dave -- nope I lived in VT for 7 years skiing at Mad River and moved in '97 to PA. Down here you are only required to have a rear plate so I have my old SKI MAD VT plate on the front of the truck. Very observant --all I can see in that picture is a green blur.

When you do decide to put in a lift let me know, I'll be more than happy to help -- We did it for the fresh powder -- I daydream about buying land in the Northeast Kindom and putting in a 5,000 ft ropetow. Chris.

Chris,

It was a wild guess actually, I saw the green on the plate and just guessed! Nice plate text though! My tow probably won't be going in for another 5-10 years unfortunately though.. I gotta figure out what i'm doing with my life first! Thanks for the pics and info!

dave

[Yaoma]

saw something about a question about keeping tension on the line...
i helped in the fabricate and install on our ropetow for our superpipe lastyear...

length 650'
vert. 140'

bottom tension
boat trailler winch see attached
700 fpm
800fpm upon completion of service brake (per inspector)
bumble bee fiber rope ill be up there next month to get it ready
for this season
the 1st pic is the design we went with to keep the rope from jumping out of sheaves when loadinf and unloading

other is bottom tension

 rope1.jpg (1.36MB)
Number of downloads: 44  rope.jpg (1.56MB)
Number of downloads: 49

[edmontonguy]

the rope tows i've seen do not have tension, they simply use the catenary in the cable to match the slope of the pitch they travel over. unfortunately this limits length as eventually the line becomes too steep for riders to grasp. The system of tension looks like it'd work very well. is it able to keep the rope parrallel with the ground?

[BellHollowSkiBowl]

edmontonguy, on Oct 5 2005, 07:09 PM, said:

the rope tows i've seen do not have tension, they simply use the catenary in the cable to match the slope of the pitch they travel over. unfortunately this limits length as eventually the line becomes too steep for riders to grasp. The system of tension looks like it'd work very well. is it able to keep the rope parrallel with the ground?

We used a 1-ton chain hoist, but the wire would be impossible to grasp (see picture). We happen to bump into Glenn Plake and he mentioned that a ski area in New Zealand uses removable clamps to hold onto the rope (http://www.craigieburn.co.nz/home.htm) see attached picture from the website. This does not however meet ANSI B77.1 requirements for several reasons, #1 atttachment to the rope, #2 guide wheels were used on the trip up -- so for public use its not feasible.

Attached File(s)

•  Return.jpg (461.33K)
  Number of downloads: 63
•  B_LiftMark.jpg (62.11K)
  Number of downloads: 57
•  craigieburn.jpg (36.52K)
  Number of downloads: 60