I am going to construct a new area on my layout. It will be a ski village and a ski lift going up a 3’ mountain.
The problem is I have never attemped this type on animation. I do not want a commercial one as they are very expensive. It will all be scratch built.
Has any one built one and if so what did you use for slow motor power and do you have any designs. I am working on some but would certainly not mind some good advice.
Scratchbuilding a ski lift is certainly not an easy undertaking and even the commercially made ones somehow do not look right.
The Brawa ski lift manual will give you some ideas on how to build your own one, just follow this link:
My mountain top Ski & Skate resort is on the top of a 2ft’ high mountain, with a Walther’s WS ski lift. The ski lift is not cheap, but would be rather difficult to scratch build. One could buy slow motion motor from Micro Motors The string is elastic, It fits in a groove in two fine pulley wheels that are about three inches in diameter.The four chairs are suspended from the tension “wire loop” by overhead slots in the back bar of each chair, (so that they can ride over the support wire supports and pass around the two pulleys. That would be difficult to scratch build. My HO scale ski slop is made of Hydrocal plaster I have about 10 HO scale ski figures, either in ski position on the slope, or seated in the double-seat chair lifts. I used bare Scenic Express super trees on the sidelines, and small warming shacks at the top and bottom of the mountain. On the level top of the mountain I installed a random motion magnetic skating pond, with HO scale skaters figure skating on the pond. The fancy resort is a Marklin three story “farmhouse”, with resorters seated at tables drinking beer and children at supervised play with a matron. I also used conifer trees on the top and sides of the mountain. A sloped roadway circles the mountain, as a tunnel on half of it. My mountain is made of arcs of plywood, with access portals and five tracks beneath the mountain, that service a three-stall railroad mine loader, and the main line. This mountain is free-standing, on a central peninsula (to hide view of other parts of the layout, so that one has to go around the aisles to see the entire layout… Click on the photos to enlarge them. Then, click on “Previous” or “Next” to see other views of my 24’x24’ garage loft around the room layout. 
[URL=http://s173.photobucket.com/
I’m a skier. My whole family loves the sport, and we spend a lot of time on the slopes and on the lifts.
When I look at the commercially-made models, they look really silly. For one thing, they have only a few chairs. Real lifts have a hundred or more. Another thing that bothers me is the skiers riding down on the lift. Most mountains don’t even allow that. If you look carefully at the poles, you’ll see that most have more support on the uphill side to carry the extra weight of the skiers.
Lifts do break down, though. Mostly, they get them running again, but occasionally they have to evacuate people from the chairs with ropes. Instead of trying for an operating lift, how about one that’s broken down? That would let you put full chairs on the uphill side, empty ones on the downhill side, and some ski patrol types getting stranded skiers off a couple of the chairs.
Thanks guys for your help.
Bob, I have a question for you . Which Link did you use on Photo Bucket to get a picture on your post as well as a link back to Photo Bucket?
You guys still have not sold me on commercial so keep ideas coming in.
Thanks
Harold
OK. If I were going to do a ski lift, I would do a T-bar instead of a chair, particularly for a short hill in earlier eras. The overhead stuff is simpler to model. To first order, I would just set up a simple loop, with the lower bull-wheel hidden inside a structure, and the upper one behind some trees. That way, you don’t even need to make it rotate. The “cable” doesn’t need to move. Of course, it would be easy to animate both top and bottom wheels, but leave the “cable” static.
The skiers would be on a belt which would rotate vertically, with the belt returning beneath the layout. Both the loading and unloading points would be hidden by scenery, so you wouldn’t see the skiers flip upside-down for their trip back down the mountain, or come up from below on their trip up. The lines from the T-bars to the cable would be rigid wires, attached to the skiers only.
In reality, the wheels, cable and T-bars are not connected, but the illusion is a cable turned by the rotating wheels, and the skiers pulled up the mountain by the T-bars “attached” to the cable.
I like it. As the rest of the layout is not winter this fits into my thinking.
Using the one side only on the lift I can attach mountain bikes to the back of the chairs and continue with the season of the layout. As my layout is a 10’X16’ it would fit in better. I really like the stranded idea as I have been on a lift that broke down.
If someone has the answer to the Photo Bucket question above I will send pictures.
Thanks
Harold
Any pic in photobucket has some codes. You’ll find a pop-out menu with the codes when you hoover over the picture.Then copy / paste the " image-code " into your posting.
Paul
Here in Oregon at Timberline Lodge (the one from The Shining) we have one lift, The Palmer Chairlift, that used for summer skiing or you can go up it for a sight seeing trip and that one would have people come down it as well as going up it. Looking at pictures it might be easy to scratch build
There are 4 codes you can copy Which is the corret code to move the picture and have it link back to Photo Bucket as in one of the posts above?
Thanks
Harold
Hi Harold, You use the bottom IMG link to get the code from Photobucket to your Thread. By clicking on the IMG option, the lengthy photo code will appear. You then type in your text, Right click and then click on Copy. Scroll down to POST and click on it to get the text and photo on your New Thread , or Reply to someone else’s Post. If you want to Edit your Post, you click on the “pencil” image at the lower left. If you want to add text or another photo, click on Photobucket.com login. Then click on “Image Hosting free photo sharing & video sharing at Photobucket” to get to your album of photos. Make your additions or corrections and the Post again. To delete something, you must highlight the part you want corrected and type in “delete photo”, before you click on the Delete key. Bob Hahn
This is the area that the lift will go. It will replace the mountain in the corner with a higher and longer mountain with 2 tunnels over the current track and going down to where the stock yard is now. A new village will be built at the base.
If you thumb through the flicks you will also see the completed Wolfcreek Trestle with the white water rafters. Also note the skinny dipper.
If you want empty chairs returning I would make two separate sides and make each one a loop returning under the scenery. It would require a way to hide the return loops but there are lots of trees at ski slopes. A gondola with a reverse circuit would be a lot easier.
Question. I did what you said and the image came out fine. The only problem is when you click on the photo to link back to Photo Bucket it only went back to the image and not the album. What did I do wrong?
Custom made ski lifts always look best. Ebay now has carriages for the DIY type.
I know this tread is old but every time I search google for model chairlifts this link pops up.
The 3D printed gondola on ebay looks horrible. It needs to be cleaned up and painted. Jaegerndorfer makes nice ones but they are very expensive and are mostly in G scale. Brawa used to make them but they are hard to find but they are out there. You can buy the gondolas individually which are pretty nice but the chairs are all sold out since they are discontinued.
As far as the lift being broken: I am an avid skier and used to work at a ski area and never have I seen a lift that was broken down and people having to be evacuated by rope or ladder. Twice I have seen ski areas, Mountain High and Squaw Valley lose electricity and have to evacuate the lifts by using the auxiliary diesel motors which are exactly for that purpose.
What I can tell you that chair lifts stop frequently especially on the beginner runs. Every time a skier has trouble getting on or off the lift the operator has to push the big red stop button, assist the skier in trouble and then when it is all clear they can push the start button.
I think I’m going to make my own from scratch. It will be stopped because of a fallen skier so there will only be skiers riding up the hill, not down.
I would like to see an update on other people’s models that they made. Thanks.