No more planning, it's time to build.
After a two hour foray to Lowes (where the hardware lady thought I was nuts) and Tractor Supply (motto: Please Wear Pants), I began building the components that will power the Yoshi Mountain rope tow (naming rights still available). It's a fairly simple contraption once you break it down, but it's taken an insane amount of planning, sketching, rejecting and re-engineering to get to something that I think will work.
Yesterday I built the guide-rims that hold the rope on the way down the hill, and tested the support ramps that get the tractor wheel (or the 'bull wheel', because I know you want to use the technical term when you retell this to your children) off the ground to drive the rope. And I've worked out the kill switch for emergency shut-downs (advice to rope tow hobbyists...don't call it a dead man's switch around your wife). Finally, I designed the counterweight to keep tension on the rope. All that's left is to lay it out on the hill, get a precise rope measurement, splice the rope into a loop and fire it up. I figure a full day, maybe two if my splicing skills come up short.
One of four guide rims:
The 'catch' wheels at the top of the hill
Tractor, lifted. The jack is too narrow but remove one ramp and you
have a bullwheel where the rope loops around (rope guides will be used to
keep in on).
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