The Evil Eye Ferris Wheel
Built by Santiago Plicio in October 2024
Having constructed at least 14 different Ferris Wheel-based models in the past, I needed to come up with something different if I was to build yet another, and that was the thought I had on my mind when I chose to revisit them.
The classic amusement park ride is a long-established iconic mainstay installation at most fairs, and in most cases they always promise an experience that’s rather polite and civilised, and the experience of those who ride it is usually the furthest thing from feeling terrorised.
I guess I have always entertained the thought of doing something different, and yet for as many different thrill-enhanced incarnations of this model as I have achieved in the past, I felt in my bones that perhaps in their skeletons they weren’t so very much different!
I had to reinvent the very nature of the model’s carcass, if I was going to truly at long last slay that beast, and that thought alone was enough to get me started.
To free up available parts and also the necessary storage space, I started dismantling one of my earlier fairground based models (Hell’s Halo) but decided on keeping the front main entrance, archway, and a good part of the base (though I had to increase its dimensions).
I built the two supporting high towers between which I planned the wheel to sit, but I was hesitant knowing the size and weight would only allow me to use a heavy-duty axle with the central hub made with two 118 parts. Was that going to really give me a core that was different to all that had come in the before?
I set upon another idea which was to use eight axles bolted to these two hubs, which then allowed me to construct the inner part of the wheel as much more of a narrow structure than I’ve ever come up with before, and which afforded me lots of so this part of the wheel will be narrow having a lot of free space in the inner half of the rotating wheel.
From the end of these axles I then constructed a wider and bigger frame more typical of the Ferris Wheel standing, but instead of mounting the passenger cars in the usual way, I thought to hang them instead from red boilers giving the outer part of the rotating wheel a very distinctive and muscular feel, but also meaning I had to construct the outer half as much as 8” wide, in contrast to its much sleeker supporting skeleton.
The eight boilers with the attached passenger carriages are made to be easily detachable which these days is a must for the ease of movement and transportation.
Thanks to the ample space afforded by the design of the axles from the hub to main frame, it allowed me to fit a motor to the tower and made for easy reach of the two inches to employ use of elastic bands as a drive mechanism from the hub engaged in pulleys which are attached to the motor.
Having built so many of these before and always been a passionate fan of the fairground myself, I believe I have achieved a first in this type of Ferris wheel configuration, and even though I have always sought in all of my previous similar wheel-themed models that they differ significantly from the traditional and nothing to fear of respectable shape, this time I can feel in my bones, the core of this one is different!
A new scourge of the polite and the civil is coming to the fairground, and after years of delight, and in the blink of an evil eye; the Ferris Wheel will have to move over.
Queue up to make the Ferris Wheel cry; a new incarnation is here at the fair. Dare you to look in its Evil Eye?