Yea! My New Chairlift Swing!!!

I'm so excited!!! I just finished making my own chairlift swing!  I'm kicking myself because I don't have a before picture.  Everybody (Especially my husband) wondered what I was going to do with that rusted out, moss growing piece of junk!

Here she is!



http://i227.photobucket.com/albums/dd294/snowmiser/anneschair003.jpg

Looks great.  Nice view also!  Congratulations!

Thats really cool!

Sweet!

Wooohooo!  What's the story behind the chair?

 I wanna swing on that!  Can I Can I Can I pppppleeeaze!

Looks great, Is that now the off load ramp for water skiing?

All ski resorts should paint their chairs with those colors! 

I want to get an "Unload Here" sign for the pole!

"I Like It Alot !"

Very very nice!  Great sight for it.  No safty bar?

No safety bars at our old area!   I should have placed it closer to the shoreline.  It would have been cool to have the boat pull me skiing starting from the chair!

Nice installation. Nice chair, classic design. Nice colors, nice view, well done!

 Great post. Tell us a story...where did you get it....what did you pay..how much elbow grease did it take....help us get through summer with a an antiques roadshow type story....

i want one....but i live in an apt.

O.K. kbuzz!  (Remember, you asked for it) :D

I teach skiing full-time at a small ski area in Southeast Michigan.  I've skied there since I was a child and over the years have come to know and like pretty much everyone who works there.  Last summer they removed the very first lift that the ski area had.  Scrap metal last summer was pretty valuable, so the entire lift (with the exception of just a few chairs) was sent to the scrap yard.

This past season, I was talking to one of my friends who works year round at the area and I mentioned how bummed out I was that I missed out of getting a chairlift, and that I was going to start looking online for one.  Then just about 4 weeks ago, I got a call from this friend saying that a chair was waiting for me, but it needed a lot of work.  I'm so mad at myself for not getting a before picture, but it was really rough!  All of the wood was rotted and had an inch of moss growing on it.  The arm rails were all bent up and any paint that was left was peeling off. 

The first thing I did was to power wash the heck out of it.  That pretty much took care of getting all of the critters that had made their homes on the chair over the past decade or so.  Then I had to use bolt cutters to get the screws out of the frame that had held the wooden slats for the seat and back rest.  That was followed by using a good steel brush to get any remaining paint off of the entire chair and lift.  Next came the hand sanding.  That took a few days.  My arms are still sore! :)   Priming was fun and easy.  Home Depot came through with the exact size boards that I wanted,  they were even rounded on the edges.   Choosing the colors was tough.  I wound up on my Facebook page asking my fellow instructor friends to help me out with that one.  The snowboard instructors helped me out the most on this part.  They all decided that it should be done in a Rasta theme!  (Bob Marley -- Big Surprise ! LOL :D).  So there's the chair part.

As to the creation of the tower to hang it from, that credit goes to my terrific husband and his buddy.  They found a 14 foot steel beam and a 3 foot beam to match.  Welded it togeter and put a support in the corner and Wha La, chairlift tower.

Total cost for everything; under $100 in the wood, sand paper, primer and paint.  Hours spent on it; probably 30. 

I would totally do a project like that if I found an old chair.  Cool Story! 

Beautiful!

Looks like a fun project, SM.

Before they had chairlifts, they had ropelifts. 

I took pix there for a newspaper I worked for when they got their first snowmaking setup. 

Nicely done Anne.  How about a picture with the little one in it ?  It looks like a team effort paid off .

Love your new icon GarryZ.

Here's a couple of new photos.

Hey, how come that kid's not wearing a helmet?

LOCATION LOCATION LOCATION !!

Carly's not one of those kids who might take her footwear  off and try to eat it is she ?

Thanks for sharing.

GarryZ -  You sound like a man who's had some experience!!!!   Yes,  she is one of those kids!  In fact, check her out on youtube video chewing on my great dane's tail.  The video is called "tail teether". :D

She doesn't have many teeth but knows how to use them .

Sorry about the hijack but she's too cool not to share this.   The dog just pretends to ignore her.

that is pretty cool

Nice swing! And location.

We have a chairlift swing too. It is from the old Loge chair at Aspen Highlands.

jl

Cool Set-up Bootech, Inc,  How long have you had it?

 Here is a thread by Pete No Idaho from last year with his chairlift pic.
I was tempted to merge the threads, to see how many cool back yard chairlift pics we could get, but....
http://www.epicski.com/forum/thread/72312/chairlift-in-backyard-pic-attempt

You should put one of the signs they have on lift towers telling people not to swing the chair just to confuse people ;)