zip line/wire diy

Jul 16, 2014 10 Replies

Anyone built one?



Lots of expensive kits abound... how hard can it be?



Jim K


You could ask in the shed ...

Made one many years ago when the children were young. It stretched from a suitable tree to almost ground level and used a block style pulley. A few days later I woke up in a sweat from a dream where one of the children had got their neck caught in the wire :( Needless to say I took it down that very same morning and blow being late for work.

Andrew

Made one many years ago when the children were young. It stretched from a suitable tree to almost ground level and used a block style pulley. A few days later I woke up in a sweat from a dream where one of the children had got their neck caught in the wire :( Needless to say I took it down that very same morning and blow being late for work.

Andrew/q

Mmm can't quite imagine how they would do that? Can you regress yourself and elaborate please?

Cheers

Jim K

Used to do one regularly when I was a Scout Leader. The wire (60m) and tackle hasd to be inspected before use and an adult tried it out before the kids went on it. I suspect that nowadays it wouldn't be allowed.

I have one. 100 meters of 10mm stainless rope, double anchored at each end. No trees, two triangles at the ends. Front end of a childs bike for the ro ller and a big fishing bouy to sit on. Drop of about 3m Children are 10 yea rs old. The speed varies greatly with the wind direction. I supervise when it is being used. Rugby tackling them gently when there is a following wind . They are never far from the ground. Highlight was one of their friends wh o could only talk gibberish when she got to the end with all the adrenalin. I have pulleys to tension it. I can tension it by hand, just. It goes slig htly faster if it is not as tight as I can make it. I tested it first, but I am too heavy to sit on the Bouy so I hung off a strap attached to the bik e forks. Felt like my arms were going to come out of the sockets as I hit t he motorbike tire that is the stop.

too right, can't have adults having fun can we :)

I set one up a couple of years ago for getting logs down from the woods behind the house. I used some old glider winch cable and a small pulley block. Top anchored to a tree, bottom to the tow hitch on the Land Rover. It was 300 ft long with a 20 ft drop (thereabouts) I was tempted to try it myself but untethered baskets of logs went down at frightening speed so decided against the idea! I did have some video of it but sadly lost in in the great hard drive crash of 2013.

Mike

/ Used to do one regularly when I was a Scout Leader. The wire (60m) and tackle hasd to be inspected before use and an adult tried it out before the kids went on it. I suspect that nowadays it wouldn't be allowed./q

For the sprouts maybe..... ;-)

Trolley ordered!

Jim K

That rather depends on how much tension you put into the cable, doesn't it?

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