Zip line

[Jason James Gairn]

I've been wanting to set a zipline up in the inlaws garden for some time. Has anyone sucessfully set one up? Any chance of knowing how you went about it?

In the meantime look at this.

[ame]http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=3r0pROzHY5M[/ame]

[Rowan the Bruce]

That looks wicked, would love to have a go on that one.

Making you own requires a nice long bit of wire rope 16mm is good and cranking it up with a winch to something strong. We made one on my mates farm using his unimog's winch, you had to swing you legs up half way down to clear a hedge, it was great fun.

[gibbon]

I have built and designed a few zip lines in the tropics over the years. You will need to work out your cable weight/tension/safety factors and all that but there are a few rules of thumb to follow:

 

You will probably find that 10-12mm 7/19 aircraft cable will be more than strong enough (but do your own calculations) and will run most affordable pulleys. A ratio of 20/1 distance to hieght is what we worked too for tree to tree zip lines. Thats 1m drop for every 20m of zip. If you are running it to the ground then you can build in a bigger drop to make it faster (use 12mm for steeper drops) but you will need to make a brake with a block of wood with rubber stoppers tied off with bungee cord. Set the end higher than you think to not hit the ground.

 

If you are using bulldog clips make sure you use 4 on each termination and set the first about 3 times the diameter of the trunk, away from the trunk if you are wrapping it around the tree. Thats where I have seen most ameutur cables done wrong

 

Oh and send down a weighted rucksack on the pulley before you go.

 

Odviously on commercial projects there is more to it, but for a garden project that could get you started

[skyhuck]

We made one when I was a boy.

 

We tied a rope to near the top of a sycamore, pulled it with a tractor, then drove a 6' bar into the field to secure it.

 

We then took the handle of an old petrol lawn mower and an 18" bicycle wheel.

 

We removed the tyre and tub from the wheel, put the "forked" part of the lawn mower handle over the rope, fitted the wheel too the handle.

 

The rim of the wheel ran on the rope, it went like stink and we had much fun!!!!!

[nz paul]

i wana have a go on that,looks lots of fun

[penfold]

that looks rather tame compared to the one we had at the last northern get together:001_tongue:

[Dave the dog]

I remember one at Kielder when i was young,it looked massive and ran from the castle down the hillside.I would love to have a go on that one in the vid.

[treequip]

Speed lines that run past static objects give a great impression of speed and are hugely entertaining

[kipperfeet]

I went down one when i was dead wooding some trees that zip lines were tied up in at Lakeside on Windermere a while back.

 

I finished the tree and decides to zip down the steel cable to get in to the other tree it was attatched too to deadwood that.

 

So i clipped on with a petzle fixed cheek alloy pulley expecting it to zip down super fast. In fact, to my horror, the shards of alloy that came off the pully on the steel line was very worrying. I thought i was going to be on the rivits in a matter of seconds! Stopped in the middle about 30feet from the end and 30feet up and had to lower myself on my rope which one of the lads had to throw up to me.

 

Cacked my pants and felt very silly for using an alloy pulley. Safety went out of the window momentarily for the sake of a quick thrill. Oops

[old snake]

Went zip lining through the sitka spruces in Alaska last year,was awesome,was alot of black bears roaming about with cubs too which was amazing to see as your flying through the air. the wire that they used was coated in a type of plastic,you used your hand with a glove on as the break. If you didn't fancy that idea though you could just crash into the tree fas at speed.......weeeee....crash.....owwww.....nee naw,nee naw