Star picket lifter design - simple, easy DIY

[gragra_in_oz]

Hi, newbie here. Looking for a simple DIY star picket lifter design to weld up. Any images or ideas appreciated. Bit of a novice welder, but with more than 20 pickets to remove out of solid clay, I'd like to be able to make my own rather than buy an overpriced old design crudely-built, cheap import. G

[Cliff Rogers]

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http://www.woodworkforums.com/f65/star-picket-iron-post-puller-59085/
Stringy's link has died in that thread.

Try google.

[gragra_in_oz]

Thanks for the tips. Yes, I followed that link but it went nowhere. I've googled several times, even tried youtube. There are three commercial ones available in Oz; probably best value is at Sneddons 6-in-one (driver/lifter/log-roller etc), at $310, but prefer to design/build a simple lifter myself.
Appreciate the input.
G

[sjm]

We had one like this when I was a kid, basically two cams that gripped either side of the vertical rib and lifted straight up. Would be easy to knock together.

STAR PICKET PULLER [P/N 12200, P/N PPL0001] : Concrete Products, Tools & Formwork for the Concreting Industry, FORM DIRECT (http://www.formdirect.com.au/product/star-picket-puller-p-122.html)

[Cliff Rogers]

Thanks for the tips. Yes, I followed that link but it went nowhere. I've googled several times, even tried youtube. There are three commercial ones available in Oz; probably best value is at Sneddons 6-in-one (driver/lifter/log-roller etc), at $310, but prefer to design/build a simple lifter myself.
Appreciate the input.
G
Pick one & copy it. :D

[fxst]

loop a chain around the picket and a hi-lift jack easy & cheap
Pete

[BobL]

loop a chain around the picket and a hi-lift jack easy & cheap
Pete

Hi-lift jacks are incredibly useful gizmos.
Here is just one thing I do with mine.
195080
195079
195078

[Kentower]

As an old farmer and having lifted out numerous star posts by various means. Can I suggest a lump of say half or three quarter inch steel pipe, block one end off and attach some high pressure water to the other end. (I happened to have an engine driven weed spray outfit that put out about 180 p.s.i at about 5 litres a minute) to power mine. Make the pipe about 3 foot long so that you can reach the bottom of star post in ground. Drill one or two holes in blocked off end, so they point downwards (experiment with this, mine were about 2 or 3 mm diameter). Turn your water pressure on and work this bit of pipe that is squirting water downwards beside post. In a couple of minutes your should have a hole down beside post and be able to wiggle post out by hand. You could use town mains pressure but you will need bigger holes. This will get any post out, even large wooden ones. You just have to work your way half way around it. I once had a star post in the ground that I couldn't lift out with a 4 tonne capacity front end loader. I didn't have this simple tool, then so I had to leave it.

[jhovel]

I love the idea of the 'hydro drill'. I don't have access to portable high pressure water, but I like the out-of-the sqaure thinking.

This one is much like the one my neigbour has - and that I use when I need to pull some posts...
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/250863770336 (http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/250863770336)
If his wasn't so easily accessible, I would have copied that one in a flash. It works very well. THe one I borrow doesn't have a plate foot, but just a cross bar. I find I often need to pull posts from sloping ground and would have bent that flat foot in lots of situations. Mind you the price on eBay is pretty good too.
Joe

[Woodlee]

I've only ever used a pair of large bolt cutters and apiece of 2" pipe to pull star pickets .

kev

[jhovel]

How does that work, Kev? Or do you mean you just cut them off at ground level? :)
Joe

[Optimark]

I'll second the Hi-lift jack, pulled some concrete house stumps out over Christmas for the neighbour, they tried their Bobcat but it was too much and kept lifting the rear wheels, then when they held the wheels down by putting six fellas on the rear, the hydraulics wouldn't or couldn't do it, the operator said too hard and was worried about bursting a seal.

I came in and we managed to pull one out with the Bobcat fellas chain, then we did the rest.

Know anyone local, with a Hi-Lift jack on their 4WD?

They are brilliant on star pickets.

Mine has a 1,000kg + lifting ability.

Mick.

[Pete F]

Agree with using water. I have lifted large fence posts out of the ground using this method. One time a gang of guys was struggling with one post for hours, gave up and told me to get them out. Had the row out in about 20 minutes. Once the water gets down next to the post or picket it can be wriggled and then pulled out easily. I like the idea of using a high pressure fitting to drill the hole and can imagine it would work well as I have used high pressure water to similarly "drill" holes under concrete slabs to run pipes, a much longer horizontal distance than a star picket.

Pete

[franco]

Hi, newbie here. Looking for a simple DIY star picket lifter design to weld up. Any images or ideas appreciated. Bit of a novice welder, but with more than 20 pickets to remove out of solid clay, I'd like to be able to make my own rather than buy an overpriced old design crudely-built, cheap import. G

Here's one I made about 40 years ago. I saw the original commercial version advertised somewhere - Power Farming, I think. It is quite portable and takes up very little storage space. Dimensions can be altered to suit what is in the scrap box.

It is very easy to make, and definitely not precision engineering! It is a reverse slide hammer arrangement, with two main assemblies. The slide portion is a piece of 2" pipe about about 375mm long. Two handles at least 200x25 of solid round bar (for extra weight - 30 mm would be even better) are welded on about 75 below the top, and a piece of 3/4 pipe about 100 long welded parallel to the axis of the 2" pipe with the bottom of it level with the bottom of the 2"pipe.

The second piece is made from a scrapped 3/4" bolt with nut about 450 long, with two bits of about 30x30x10 welded onto the lower end about 6mm apart, and drilled to take a pin which will fit through the holes in a star picket. The bolt needs to be slid through the 3/4" pipe guide before these pieces are welded on. If it is not a very free running fit use a bigger pipe.

In use the puller is slid down the star picket with the side of the picket with the punched holes between the two bits of 30x30x10 until a hole at a convenient height is found, and the pin inserted. Pulling the slide hard up against the bolt head stop will gradually "drive" the star picket out without bending it so it is suitable for re-use.

Will it pull star pickets out?
Yes, definitely. The only thing which stopped it, or rather the operator (me) was several pickets in hard dry clay which had been in the ground long enough for tree roots to grow through the buried lower holes.

Do you need to have few spare pins?
Yes. in heavy dry soil it will bend the occasional pin.

Is it hard work?
Yes!

I wouldn't even think of one of these for a major fencing job, but for pulling the occasional 20 or 30 pickets it is an easily made, easily stored, and cheap alternative to the modern commercial ones.

Frank

[BobL]

Mine has a 1,000kg + lifting ability.

Mine says it will lift 3500 kg. I don't know how accurate that is but I have lifted one end of a ~4 ton log with it without any problem.

[Woodlee]

No not cut them off .
Lay the pipe at the base of the star picket so that one of the webs on the picket is at 90deg to the pipe .
Grip on the web of the picket with the bolt cutters just below and behind the pipe,close them but don't cut through just so they bite the steel , and use the pipe as fulcrum to lever the picket out, by levering down on the bolt cutter handles.
Probably not the best way to treat bolt cutters ,but they are a roughie tool anyway.

Kev.

[jhovel]

Thanks Kev, now I get it.
Joe

[Grandad-5]

Do you need to have few spare pins?
Yes. in heavy dry soil it will bend the occasional pin.

The star stake lifter I used to use also relied on a pin in the holes. The ground was heavy clay and a bolt bent in no time flat.
I found a stem of a car engine valve worked a treat. Never had to replace the pin again.
Cheers
Jim

[rhancock]

I made a number of models out of timber as I don't really do metalwork. The biggest problem is gripping the star picket. Eventually I ended up using a scissor jack out of the car, on a piece of sleeper, pushing against a piece of timber bolted through the holes in the star picket. Slow, but effective. I wouldn't want to do a hundred, but it did the three I needed at zero cost. Any more and I'd buy a picket puller - Bunnings sell them.

[Farmer Geoff]

Whatever method you use to pull the post out, for recalcitrant ones it is often easier if you drive the post an inch further into the ground first. Especially for ones that have been in place for ages. It breaks the grip between the side of the post and the dirt, rust, roots, etc.