Old Barn Cleaner Makes Great Ski-Tow

Old Barn Cleaner Makes Great Ski-Tow FARM HOME recreation 8-2-33 What do you get when you combine a great hill for skiing and tobogganing with an old barn cleaner lying in a junkyard? A Minnesota farmer ended up with a great recreational spot for family and friends. Good Thunder farmer Wayne Knewtson, friend Henry Quade and a group of other friends built a leg-saving ski tow for the hill using the gear box from a 1950's Jamesway shuttle-stroke barncleaner that Knewtson found in a junkpile. He and his friends used the gearsbut not the shuttle stroke action of the barn cleaner, reducing the gear ratio to about 45 to 1 so it moves the rope at the pace of a slow walk. Powered by a 2-hp. electric motor, a pulley from a Deere combine puts pressure on the 5/8-in. polypropylene rope. At the bottom of the hill, a simple barn rope pulley is tied with cable to a tree. Now, when anyone wants to toboggan, they just clip the sled to a clamp on the tow rope and up the 250-ft. hill they go. Skiers hold onto the rope just like a regular rope tow.

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