Wilma's Motorized Clothesline

Wilma's Motorized Clothesline FARM HOME Clothes 33-5-43 Marlon Eakins, 85, lost his job as "solar dryer operator" the day he built his wife a powered clothesline. Before that, Eakins was the motor. "Wilma likes drying clothes outside," says Eakins, who ran a 150-ft. clothesline from the wall of his house to a tree across the yard. A bicycle wheel mounts about 50 ft. up in the tree to act as a rope pulley. There's a bike wheel pulley at the house end also. Problem was a line of wet clothes gets pretty heavy, and Eakins had to stick around during laundry time to manually move the clothesline. He put himself out of a job by motorizing the pulley with a $40 12-volt mini winch and a 10-inch rubber drive tire. Eakins hooked up the winch to a 12-volt battery in the building and bolted the winch motor to the rubber tire, positioned so it rubs against the metal bike wheel. The controller moves the line at a nice speed and has forward and reverse. "Wilma thinks it's awesome, and usually someone's there that likes to push the button and be the engineer," Eakins says. With a line that high in the air, clothes dry very quickly, Eakins notes. He recommends using good quality clothesline that won't stretch. "Everyone eyeballs it," Eakins says, though people who know him aren't particularly surprised. "Everything I've got has a motor, winch or wheels on it." Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Marlon Eakins, P.O. Box 137, Estacada, Oregon 97023 (ph 503 630-7899).

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