Raising the Past, Restoring the Future - Part 3 of 3

A job like this, you don’t rush. You listen. You watch. You make the right move at the right time, or you risk losing the whole thing.

We started with the foundation—wedge lifts, placed just right, raising the feet of the structure a fraction at a time. It was slow work.

Careful work.

But it wasn’t enough.

To get the central column up, we needed more than muscle. We needed precision. That’s where the hydraulic lifts came in—powerful, steady, controlled. It gave us the height we needed, the stability we lacked.

Finding the Alignment

Lifting was one thing. Finding alignment was another.

Decades of misalignment don’t fix themselves overnight. The gears had worn in ways the original engineers never planned for. We had to read them—test after test, paper-thin adjustments, watching how the machine responded.

Some solutions weren’t in the manuals. Some we had to find in the work itself.

The wedge lifts, the hydraulic system, the delicate testing—it all led to this moment. The moment we let the machine breathe again. The moment it turned smoothly, like it had decades before.

The Final Turn

Restoration isn’t just mechanics. It’s knowing when to listen. When to push. When to let a machine tell you what it needs.

We weren’t just fixing a ride. We were bringing history back to life.

The gears locked into place. The horses rose and fell, effortless.

And for the first time in years, the Camp Aldersgate carousel was alive again.

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