Danuser Post driver

[JerryG]

Saturday I tried out my, new to me, Danuser post driver. My father-in-law called and wanted me to help put in some posts around his bale pen. It works great even in our rocky soil. I don’t think that I will be using my post auger very much any more.

 

[MChalkley]

Hmmm. Interesting. Can ya plant trees with 'em, too? /w3tcompact/icons/wink.gif

 

[cowboydoc]

Jerry,
You will love it. I don't have that brand but a worksaver. Absolutely it is one of the best implements that I have.

 

[JerryG]

Not unless you like broad flat trees. I don't plant trees, or have'nt yet. I just put in posts./w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

 

[JerryG]

Richard,
I think that you will be right. It will cut down on a lot of work. I had wanted one for quite a while. I found a used one that had not been used very much for about half of what a new one would run.

 

[poorboy]

You will love it. My neighbor bought the driver and I bought the auger, both Danuser. We trade off. Changes the way that you look at fencing. Especially the question of how can I get the tractor in there. Good luck!

 

[BBearden]

How rocky is your soil? Have you hit any big rocks? I am looking at fencing about 10 acres in very rocky soil in the Texas hill country. The rocks are not very hard, but they're still rocks. So, I'm looking at either trying to drive them in the ground, or renting a bell-tec and drilling every hole. I would prefer driving them in.

 

[DavidH]

I glad you asked that question. I probably live 10 miles from you in Hays County, Texas and need to cross fence 45 acres. I could put a hydraulic auger on my bucket for about the same cost as a worksaver 16. I'd prefer the post driver, but worry if the driver would drive 2 7/8 pipe in rocky hill country soil. I'd really be interested if anyone has used them in this area.

 

[JerryG]

DavidH, bbearden
My soil is very rocky it consists mostly of flint rock (the size of a man’s head and smaller) and red clay. The driver does a good job putting the 4-6” posts in. I haven’t put in any steel posts or pipe yet, but I have watched two different people in my area put them in. They seem to go in in about half the time that the wood ones do. In other words, really fast.
I did hit one rock that was larger than the post in diameter. I had to pull the post back out. When I looked at the bottom of the post, you could see that the whole bottom of the post had been contacting the rock

 

[gerard]

Do the posts have tapered bottoms like a pencil point or can you drive them squared off?

 

[cowboydoc]

Gerard,
They don't have to be pointed but may help some in the rocky soil. I have put thousands in and never tapered them.

 

[JerryG]

We didn’t sharpen them per say. There were so many rocks, what we did was just cut the corners off of the bottom. That way the post had a chance to go around or push the rocks to the side. Hope that makes seems. It seemed to work well.

 

[DavidH]

Jerry. I see you have a post hole digger too, and I assume the post driver does a better job in the rocky soil than your phd. What type of post driver do you have?

 

[JerryG]

Dave,
Yes, the Danuser MD6 driver does a better job, so far.
My digger is Bush Hog model 2101 with the bear claw points. It I hit a rock just right (or not so right) it will just sit there and spin. I am going to try to fix part of the problem this summer. I am going to put about 110 lbs of weight just above gear box.

 

[cowboydoc]

Well if you really want to get around the rocks... Back when I was growing up we did some fencing contracts for the BLM. Alot of the fence line went right through rocks and you had to build the fence on line. We would drill a small hole in the rock and put dynamite in it. If you did it right it blew a hole straight down. Sometimes we would have to do it twice. Not that I'd recommend this but it was effective. /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

 

[Anonymous Poster]

If you are using large posts I would recommend blunts if you can drive
them in your soil. I bought a load of 5 to 6" 8' posts that are pointed.
The problem is, they are heavy enough that once you turn them up on
the pointed end they dig into the soil just by virute of their weight, and it
becomes a chore to get the bottom aligned underneath the postdriver.

While I'm thinking of it, this is a big consideration when it comes to driving
round posts with the Worksaver/Shaver design, that is a where the post
rests in a square channel in the ram. It takes some practice to get the posts
to go in just right. I was very concerned with appearance and I may be
deflecting off of the copious rocks in my soil. If you are just looking to
get lots of posts in fast, then maybe this doesn't matter so much. I
suspect 3 to 4" posts driver better too, though I haven't tried them yet.

Another thing to keep in mind is that the post will tend to lean towards
the tractor. The Worksaver manual recommends that you cheat a little
bit, and this is good advice. Also, if the post starts leaning left, you move
the top of the ram to the _right_, so that the right edge of the ram channel
moves the post back to the left. I mention this because it's opposite of
what you would do with a hammer. Maybe a good way to state this in
just a few words is: do your least visible post line first!

If I remember right, the Danuser has a round channel to hold the post.
Anyone who has experience with this please let me know how it is for
driving posts straight.