JimI, someone quite awhile ago posted a message saying that he hammered the posts in with him front end loader. Theoretically at least, seems like it should work, but when I tried it, I couldn't get the bucket to drop fast enough to do any hammering with it.
Jim,
Every fall my neighbors and I put up about 1/4 mile of snow fence on our private road. What I would do is put my counterweight for the FEL in the bucket and have my backblade on the rear for weight. With the weight in the bucket we can drive the T-post in most times, unless you hit a rock. This year we used my neighbors new NH T-33D with the heavyduty bucket. We still had to use the counterweight and we use a flat steel plate with about 10" of pipe welded on it over the top of the T-post to spread out the load. I got to drive the tractor since my neighbor had never been on it yet, His wife drives it! We can get all the fence up in about 2 hours with about 10 of us working. One guy would set the post and I would drive them in, as others would follow us and set up the fence. We have about 4 or 5 compact tractors with trailers and loaders carting the fence and post around! It makes for quite the operation. This year we had great weather for doing it, but some years it would be just plain rotten out on the Sat. morning that we pick to do it. Just one small part of rural life in western N.Y.!
Von and Gerard: It seems like both of you say the same thing with slight variations about using weight ballast in the loader. My TC45d is about 5000# with the loader and since I have a 72" bucket, I would fill it full of t-posts with two lengths of chain to hold them in the bucket as they get jostled. If I put a flat plate on top of my t-post driver like the one you put on the pipe, Von, I should be able to align the bucket better. I just wonder if I can get all this rigged securely enough to make it a 1-man operation? That's what I'm aiming for.
Bird: I'm with you on the bucket speed issue. I used to have an old Ford 4000 with a loader bucket so heavy that it dropped like a bomb over Afghanistan, but I don't think my 16LA loader bucket comes down that fast. Post drivers normally have this huge return line for the hydraulics that lets the fluid easily dump into the reservoir. I have bad vibes about trying to "hammer" with my bucket. If steady down-pressure won't do it, I'd probably just use the old hand-drive method.
Actually, I plan to buy a post driver, but that will have to wait until I get my house built and I see if I have any money left for more "toys"./w3tcompact/icons/wink.gif
JimI,
You don't need to pound the post in, the down pressure is all you need with the extra weight in the bucket. we drive them in slow so you know if you are on a rock or not. It would be a pain to do this as a "one man operation" you would be hopping on and off the tractor every 30 seconds, as that is how fast you can go with two people. I think with a post driver you still would want two people, one to drive the tractor and one setting the post.
I agree with Von. Driving the posts is not a one person operation. It's much easier for the second person to position the post and verify the bucket is aligned correctly.
I have the standard duty bucket and did not have any weight in it and the posts went in the ground fine just using the down pressure of the bucket lowering. Which reminds me, the second person can also tell you when the stake is in the ground far enough.
When we hit a rock, I tried pounding with the bucket once or twice and the other guys are right. It didn't help. So we just pulled the post out, repositioned and tried again. This is another thing the second person can do. Basically, one person stays on the tractor and the other one deals with the posts. Guess which person has more fun? /w3tcompact/icons/wink.gif
Von, Bird, Mike: Thanks for the info. As soon as it stops raining here /w3tcompact/icons/frown.gif/w3tcompact/icons/tongue.gif I'll give it a try. I agree that it is a pain to jump on/off the tractor. Honestly, I don't really have anyone to help me unless I "enlist" my girlfriend. She probably won't figure it's a cool date building fence./w3tcompact/icons/mad.gif/w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif That's actually not true. If I asked her, she'd be right there in a flash. Actually, my ground is so easy to drive posts into when it's wet, that the rain we have had the last couple of days would make it easy to drive posts by hand. In the summer when it's dry and 100+ is the time the ground gets hard and driving posts becomes unbearable.
