Editor’s note: this is another edition of Nils Ericksen’s Idea File. Its success depends on you, our readers, sharing your ideas with us. Just drop us a line at SAM, Box 242, North Salem, N.Y. 10560. Make it a brief description plus snapshot or very rough sketch if needed. We’ll do the rest. You and your area get recognized, and you get $10 for your interest if we use your idea. All ‘ideas’ involve custom fabrication for each situation, and no liability can be assumed by contributors, the editor or this magazine.
Retired Chairs
Our usual simple sketches couldn’t do justice to this idea which was spotted, photographed and forwarded at Snow Summit Estates in Southern California, to us by SAM stringer, Luanne Pfeiffer. There are many marketing possibilities in this idea and in variations of it. How about selling to the public the chairs off an old retired lift. Great status symbols! Original chair numbers, brass nameplates etc. would add to their value as porch swings, bar stools. . .you name it. What are they worth? $50 to $500, depending on your imagination. A nice way to partially finance a new lift or pay for updating an old one.
Rope Storing
Sunapee, N.H. has improved on the old “nail-a-wheel-to-a-tree” trick for storing trail-closing ropes. They used plastic reels that are free to rotate to allow rope to be “reeled in” when not in use. Another addition—the use of nails or pegs—allows for height adjustment for various snow depths.
Safety Gate Wands
Why not use the popular “bicycle flags” for safety gate wands? They are highly visible, strong, economical. Furthermore, they are readily available in outlets like Sears, Grants etc. In addition, they all include a mounting bracket which should be easily adapted to most switches.
