Saturday, April 25, 2015

Saturday Catch Up - Corner Posts and Carryall Tailgate





The last two days have not been especially cooperative with getting a lot done outside. It's been spitting rain until today when it actually rained hard a few times. Yesterday the wind was just cold enough and blowing hard enough to give me an earache but not quite cold enough to wear my fuzzy hat with the earmuffs.

My goal was to get the horizontal support boards cut and in place, pound in the metal T-posts and stretch out the first 60 some odd feet of woven wire today. I didn't quite make it. This section of the fence project is actually going to be the most labor intensive as it requires two corner posts and four gate sections. I have combined a couple of corner post supports in with the gate posts when I could and elected to go with what I call the H pattern of support posts. After everything is in place I will come back and lop the vertical posts off at uniform level.

Keep in mind I have not put in a corner or gate post in about 35 years either. I was a bit rusty ont he first few wedges I cut.




Ouch that one is a bit ugly. I can do better chainsaw work than that.




Ok a little better. I am sure I can get it even tighter with a little more practice.




Now that's a proper wedged in support beam, more or less. I still have a bit of a gap in the very back but I can live with that one.

When I get this section finished it will encompass the entire North and West sides of the barn and have gates that go out into the drive way, garden, West section of pasture and the hay field plus one walk in gate near my wood pile for curing. It also encompasses one of the Ram paddocks but when I start working on the East section of fence that paddock will be moved. The entire thing will cut my current mowing area down by about 1/3rd and by allowing me to just let the sheep out there when it needs mowing. This will be huge as mowing takes up so much of my time during the Spring and Summer months. It will also allow me to load and unload from the stock trailer in a relatively enclosed space in case some wayward sheep decide to make a run for freedom.

After getting all the support beams in place I was ready to begin stretching the woven wire when the real rains hit. Kinda put an end to my fencing work for the day which was alright as it was time to feed the bottle lambs. The rest of the afternoon ended up being wave after wave of rain with short periods of sun between them. Prime honey bee swarm weather actually but these kinds of storms are about two weeks too early. I am a bit concerned about that as it may mean we go into the dry period too early as well.

In between rain storms I worked on the tractor carry all a bit more and designed a satisfactory tail gate for it.




I had to bend some hinges I had and install them under and then used eye-hooks and a bungy cord to hold the gate in place. Simple and easy to repair if the cord wears out and it holds no matter how much bouncing around I do. All that's left now is a nice paint job and adding more tie down points to secure whatever I am hailing around the place. The entire project cost me about $35.00 and most of that is in the extra cat. 1 crossbar I had laying around. It's also given me an idea that I may make another one only custom sized to haul my electric motor cement mixer around with a small generator. Never know when that might come in handy.

Keep Prepping Everyone!!!!!!


14 comments:

  1. Can you come help us when we are ready to intall next spring? Great job!

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    1. DFW - At the rate this fencing mega-project is going I might be done by then to come help :)

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  2. Nice work pp!

    the fencing will work out great and i LOVE the carry - very clever - i can totally see why you would need/use that!

    cheers!

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    1. Jamby - I decided to make it last week when my neighbor offered to let me put swarm traps on his property. He has me blocked in on the West and the South by a good amount, I would say a mile each direction but has absolutely no internal roads, all dirt tracks. I haven't used his land before because of the difficulty of getting in and out when it's wet. This way I can use my tractor during those times and still carry some essentials.

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  3. If yer gonna haul the cement mixer, why not get a battery and an inverter and a 12 v generator that you can belt to the 540 PTO instead of a small generator? (or get a small pto driven 120V generator, but they are a lot more $)...You can belt the 540 PTO to gain a bit of speed and use a 80 amp Ford 1 wire alternator for DC to charge the battery for the inverter.

    Email me if you have questions.

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    1. B - That sounds like a great option. I only mentioned the generator because I already have one actually. However I love generators and wiring stuff like that even though I am a newb at it. I was just watching a video the other day about a water wheel and car alternator charging batteries. I will pick your brain about that kind of stuff although it will be sometime from now before I add another project to my list like that. Thank you for the offer and I will take you up on it in the future :)

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  4. PP,

    Great job on the fence my friend! I like using tree's for posts.

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    1. Sandy - I am using a combination of Cedar posts and telephone poles I been collecting. After this section is done I will need to start making more post runs :)

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  5. Progress slow and steady, long time in planning, glad its coming together.

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    1. Rob - It's allt he little set backs that cause the delays. It is taking much more time than I anticipated :(

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  6. That fence looks better than anything I see around here. I will last you a good while. Wet and muddy here so I went and worked at the brewery yesterday, the rain keeps messing up plans this spring. I have seen some bees flying around my outbuilding and suspect they are scouts of some sort as it is the same building where a hive went into the wall a couple years ago.

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    1. Sf - Bees will return and re-habit old hives. They actually prefer them. One reason why I like the removable frames of the Langstrom hives.

      I did screw up and placed the top support beam about 3 inches too high. I forgot to take into account the mound of dirt at the base of the posts :(

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  7. I was wondering why no diagonal brace on your end posts. It would seem that after a few wet springs you would have an inward leaning parallelogram, and sagging wire. It's amazing how much tension is exerted on the end posts, and it really bugs me to watch my unbraced posts gradually tip in. I dig my posts just less than 7 1/2 ft inside, and put the horizontal brace at 3 ft. That way an 8 ft brace fits diagonally with minimal trimming. End post high to inside post low. Then just for luck a wire diagonally opposite, twisted tight. Of course, your soil depth is probably much deeper than mine (if I can get 30 inches down before bedrock I'm thrilled) so it's not necessary.

    1IDFatman

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