Thread: tensioning farm fencing!

Just to throw my 2 cents worth in again BHP no longer make any steel products. They completely divested themselves of the steel industry about seven years ago. Steel star posts are made by One Steel/Waratah along with the wire. And the Chinese also make them from cheap steel.

Vernon I can't see the point arguing with a boy who knows everything (NOT). Don't you realise he is a professional fencer that has not even finished his apprenticeship and you should know that God takes a boys brain out at 14 and doesn't put it back until he is 30.

Originally Posted by Barry_White

... you should know that God takes a boys brain out at 14 and doesn't put it back until he is 30.

Yeah, I think we were all there once.
Carl, please don't take what I have said personally, as I certainly didn't intend it that way. And besides you honestly appear to be a very generous person, who (although misguided at times) is a great asset to this forum. I was merely trying to clarify a couple of, what I believe to be, factual errors.

Who would have thought something as simple as a rural fencing could cause such debate.

aprentaship what aprentaship you can do a fencing aprentaship. i started helping my father full time 4 years ago. never new there was an aprentaship for fencing.


i never take anything presonaly. id be a wreck by now if i did.

if bhp dont make steel products why are so many things still stampled with bhp on the packet.

Originally Posted by weisyboy

aprentaship what aprentaship you can do a fencing aprentaship. i started helping my father full time 4 years ago. never new there was an aprentaship for fencing.

Carl I was just using it as a figure of speech but at four years you would be just coming out of your apprenticeship, but as it turns out surprise! surprise! you can get an apprenticeship in fencing, here you go this a fencing apprenticeship only problem it is in Victoria.

http://jobsearch.gov.au/findajob/job...chresults.aspx


Fencing doesn't just cover rural fencing. There is domestic paling fencing, domestic Colorbond fencing. Industrial fencing, Security fencing and the list goes on

When I was your age I reckoned I knew everything but as I got older and older I realised I knew less and less and at the age of 70 I'm still learning new things every day.

There is a lot of knowledge on this forum and just as there is more than one way of killing a cat by beating it to death, just as there is more than one way of erecting a fence and it doesn't mean that my way is better than yours but it just shows there are at least two ways of putting a fence up and they both work.

Originally Posted by weisyboy

i never take anything presonaly. id be a wreck by now if i did.

I glad you have a sense of humour and you don't take things too seriously.

Originally Posted by weisyboy

if bhp dont make steel products why are so many things still stampled with bhp on the packet.

One Steel used to be part of BHP Steel and they would be using all the equipment that belonged to BHP Steel and the name would be worth having on star posts anyway.

You mentioned strainer posts shouldn't be bigger than 200mm diam.

Here are a couple of New England strainer posts that are 350mm in diameter. The first one has been in place for 30 years and the other one has been in place about 25 years.

We don't use anything much smaller around here because when you are running a kilometre or more of fence line you need a decent strainer post. Also when you hang a 14 foot gate on a post even with a strainer that big the gate will start to drag on the ground after several years.

The other thing is you need a bit of meat on the strainer post for the white ants to chew on anyway.

I removed 10 timbers posts out of the ground with my chain block and and bit of 3 inch pipe tekked onto a piece of hardwood.
This post was embedded in the ground ~1200
I didnt dig anything and I didnt hurt myself
The only thing I would like to say about this removal tool is that it base need to be x shape and not just in 1 plane like mine and steel would be the go as my bit of timber split in half!
This worked but it would of worked a lot better if it had that extra support.
How do the pros remove posts????
cheers rileyp

we use teh post hole boer on the tractor to lift posts out. but if we are pulling a fence down normaly we jsut drive over he post with the tractor and it pushes them out.

or if we happen to have the bobcat man on the job clearing lines or sompthign well get him to do it.

steel stakes are esily taken out by hand. apart from some of teh old time fences put in round here by farmers. driving 7' takes 3' into the ground with a sleadge hamme sint my cuppa tea but i gues tehy wanted it to be good and strong.

Originally Posted by weisyboy

steel stakes are easily taken out by hand..

Who tells you this stuff?
Because you obivisily havent put many in the ground then attempted to remove them.
My wife and I put up some steel stakes for the school fair in march
I drove them about 1.5 ~ 2 feet into the ground .
1 is still sitting in the side of the road.....
I guess thats why they sell star picket removal tools...
All the farmers would be so impressed with you running over the old posts... leaving bits of hardwood in the dirt for their ploughing equipment to hit.
You say the staples will take the strain on the one hand and on the other you say you always put on inline tensioners....so do they take the strain or not?

cheers rileyp

to remove steel stakes by hand you have to push tehm back and forth in the ground to make a hole around them and then pull them out. sometimes you might only get 4" up at a time then have to make the hole bigger. if they still wont come a couple of whacks at ground level with a sledbe halmmer usualy losen them up. otherwise a chain and the tractor.

i did not say anything about breaking post off. i said we pushed them out. normaly if we push teh top with teh tractoy the post will fall over and the bottom will rip out of the ground still attached again tis might require a push from either side a few times to acomplish.

you have miss understood me about inline strainers. inline strainers are little ratcher things you put on the line that you fit a spanner on to tighten them up (they stay there forever) see pic. we usualy use these because it alows people to kep there fences tigh themselves and not have to get us back in whenever the wires go slack.

when we use chain strainers. if the customer dose not want inline strainers on the fence (don't ask me why). and on most fences out in the scrub round here because makes the ence cheeper when its jsut to keep mangy cows in and a tree is probly going to fall over it in teh next westily or bushfier. the wires are strained up and held with staploes wile it is tied.

forgot the pic..

I lift out steel posts with a back hoe. I have smashed reasonable strength chain whilst trying to lift some.

Soft wet ground may be ok for hand pulling but any dry clay type ground, you would have to be kidding.

Ripped one post in half before I eventually dug the bottom bit out with the backhoe.
A manual post remover was not in the race.

ps: If you need to use the tensioners as above then use gripples as they are cheaper.

I know how to wiggle a star picket and it didnt work,... it just bent... I did hit it at ground level with my sledge hammer.. It didnt help....Sometimes when the ground is hard star pickets are hard to put in and 3 times as hard to remove.
This is the bottom line.
I knew what you meant by inline strainer ( the ratchety thingamagic in you photo)..
I have been told by my fencer friend that strain posts often wont lift out with the tractor rammer thingo when it lifts up...and so I wouldn't have a hope in hell off removing that post of mine without digging it out or a machine and that my chain block wouldn't have a hope in hell....I thought my chain block would work and it did...
I haven't seen the rammer things on tractors apart from driving past one once and so I have no knowledge of them whatsoever apart from you will get the sack straight away if the boss ever sees you rest a hand on the top of a post. game over...



cheers rileyp

there are always exceptions to the rule. yes a star picket driven in deep whne the ground was wet will be almost imposable to remove when the ground has contracted atound it. we onece bent the 4" steel tube that makes up teh arm on the jib pulling stakes. it is now reinforced with a peice of big angle abouve and below. id like to see it bend now.

inline strainers are verry easy to put on the line. by the time yo have the wire tight and tied the strainers is on and winding only takes a few seconds.

i depends on the customer what method is used. but if we are given no spesiforcations we put in inlines.

that post wasnt going to fall out in a hurry.

This is the tool that i use to lift star posts out with. The hook that has the square "C" section on it locks into a notch in the back of the curved plate by tightening the bolt at the other end of the hook.

You then put the "C" section around the starpost and just lever backwards and forwards and it lifts the star post out without bending it.

I used this to remove a star post that was 3'6" in the ground at an angle that had been in there for about 4 years into partial clay.


https://www.woodworkforums.com/showpo...3&postcount=11

bot of a one size fits all tool that .

we also use a crawbar and chain if nothing else is around works on the same principal as that gizmo. only more tim consuming.