My ski lift project

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Dbest
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Chair number 116 is my small piece of local history from Boulder Colorado.

This 1971 triple chair was manufactured by Hall Ski-Lift Company out of Turin, New York. It was originally installed on Bald Mountain at the Sun Valley Resort in Idaho where it ran as the "River Run" lift from 1970-1992 ski seasons before being relocated to Eldora in Nederland, Colorado where it ran as the Challenge lift from 1992 until 2017. April 9th, 2017 was its final day of service before retiring after 47 ski seasons.

On May 5th, 2017 I picked up my chair from Eldora and brought it home to re-purpose it. After a brief stay in my backyard while pondering exactly what I wanted to do, it got little bit of a face lift. The chair was welded into a single solid piece (as opposed to 3 pieces bolted together), the brackets for the non existent lap bar were cut off, bench height legs were fabricated and welded on, and then it was media blasted and powder coated. After getting it right off my local mountain it was important to me to not change the character of the chair. Existing welds were not cleaned up and ground down, dents and dings were not fixed, imperfections and inconsistencies were not corrected, the mounting arm was not cut down and shortened to accommodate a specific ceiling height, the original brass bushing and grease fitting were cleaned up and reinstalled. It’s perfectly imperfect.

After powder coating I brought back home and started on the finishing touches. Next up was replacing the warped and swollen plywood seat base with a new piece of 3/4” birch. I like the wood but the final step is a new cushion heavily inspired by the original but made from very high quality Crypton upholstery with a much higher degree of craftsmanship and detail in the fit and finish. My mom, used to be a seamstress so while she out in Colorado for a visit she took pictures, measurements, and made a template to work off of back home. The cushion should be done in the next month or so.

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That's badass!
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goIftdibrad
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....why not make a swing out of it with the original busing?

also obligatory :whalecum: New forum who dis
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Dbest
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Big Brain Bradley wrote: Mon Nov 06, 2017 7:39 am ....why not make a swing out of it with the original busing?

also obligatory :whalecum: New forum who dis

Multiple reasons, for 1 I didn’t want a swing, but my wife did so we considered it. The biggest hurdle is the size. The triple chair is roughly 200 lbs, it can seat 3 adults at lets say 200 lbs each. So realistically it would need to support at least 800 lbs reliably from 1 point. From a safety point of view bump that to 1000 lbs.

Our first thought was a single pipe out of the ground coming up, bending over and having the chair attach at the end. After consulting a few metal fabrication places wothnatructal engineers on staff it just wasn’t a realistic option cost wise to have it built and permanemtly cemented in as deep as it would need to be.

A double a frame setup with the arms set wide enough apart to not be an arm guillotine with almost half a ton of swinging weight behind it your now looking at a massive structure. 11 feet tall with a foot print of a the space a large SUV takes up.

Then there is the brass bushing itself. It would allows movement but it certainly wouldn’t be free moving enough to act like an actual swing.

In the end our front room has 17.5 foot ceilings and we’ve been looking for some sort of seating to put by the entryway. This was a good fit to make it a bench. The carpet is gonna go so, it’s admittedly strange to have an entryway bench on carpet.
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Jaxper
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Nice work! Pretty neat idea for repurposing.
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MexicanYarisTK
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quite the project!
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Melon
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Oh dang, that's pretty sweet, 12' ceiling required doe.
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goIftdibrad
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Dbest wrote: Mon Nov 06, 2017 8:36 am
Big Brain Bradley wrote: Mon Nov 06, 2017 7:39 am ....why not make a swing out of it with the original busing?

also obligatory :whalecum: New forum who dis

Multiple reasons, for 1 I didn’t want a swing, but my wife did so we considered it. The biggest hurdle is the size. The triple chair is roughly 200 lbs, it can seat 3 adults at lets say 200 lbs each. So realistically it would need to support at least 800 lbs reliably from 1 point. From a safety point of view bump that to 1000 lbs.

Our first thought was a single pipe out of the ground coming up, bending over and having the chair attach at the end. After consulting a few metal fabrication places wothnatructal engineers on staff it just wasn’t a realistic option cost wise to have it built and permanemtly cemented in as deep as it would need to be.

A double a frame setup with the arms set wide enough apart to not be an arm guillotine with almost half a ton of swinging weight behind it your now looking at a massive structure. 11 feet tall with a foot print of a the space a large SUV takes up.

Then there is the brass bushing itself. It would allows movement but it certainly wouldn’t be free moving enough to act like an actual swing.

In the end our front room has 17.5 foot ceilings and we’ve been looking for some sort of seating to put by the entryway. This was a good fit to make it a bench. The carpet is gonna go so, it’s admittedly strange to have an entryway bench on carpet.
sound reasoning was used then, I like it. Googling it looks like real lifts are on a cable, so that affords the extra degrees of freedom to keep the bushing from binding. Recreating that for a swing would be....difficult.
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Big Brain Bradley wrote: Mon Nov 06, 2017 9:56 am
Dbest wrote: Mon Nov 06, 2017 8:36 am


Multiple reasons, for 1 I didn’t want a swing, but my wife did so we considered it. The biggest hurdle is the size. The triple chair is roughly 200 lbs, it can seat 3 adults at lets say 200 lbs each. So realistically it would need to support at least 800 lbs reliably from 1 point. From a safety point of view bump that to 1000 lbs.

Our first thought was a single pipe out of the ground coming up, bending over and having the chair attach at the end. After consulting a few metal fabrication places wothnatructal engineers on staff it just wasn’t a realistic option cost wise to have it built and permanemtly cemented in as deep as it would need to be.

A double a frame setup with the arms set wide enough apart to not be an arm guillotine with almost half a ton of swinging weight behind it your now looking at a massive structure. 11 feet tall with a foot print of a the space a large SUV takes up.

Then there is the brass bushing itself. It would allows movement but it certainly wouldn’t be free moving enough to act like an actual swing.

In the end our front room has 17.5 foot ceilings and we’ve been looking for some sort of seating to put by the entryway. This was a good fit to make it a bench. The carpet is gonna go so, it’s admittedly strange to have an entryway bench on carpet.
sound reasoning was used then, I like it. Googling it looks like real lifts are on a cable, so that affords the extra degrees of freedom to keep the bushing from binding. Recreating that for a swing would be....difficult.
Turning it into a swing was my inital thought too. Makes sense why it didn't happen doe.
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