</font><font color="blue" class="small">( FEL? are you kidding me? You get under a bucket and let someone mash the the t-post in. Oh no. Nope not gonna do it. Besides I work alone. No sir-ry. LOL. Huh-uh....
wait wait wait...I know you. You have an gadget you made for you FEL don't you. Something that keeps it in place while you drive it down.
Scared me for a minute there. A lady we know around the corner invited us all over one day to put up a temporary fence. She'd just bought the property. Her son was there in his gym shorts no shirt and sandles. Another guy an older fella brought his big John Deere. He told the naked guy to hold the t-post while he pushed it down. They did about 5 of the them before it got in a bind, slipped and whapped the guy on the head. He was lucky he ony got hit by the flat part. Kinda like somebody hitting you with a big pan. If a weld or a crease or even a piece of dirt would have got him, he would have gotten a quick tour of the emergency room.
So tell me you made something to hold the post...right?
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1. I use a bucket to push down t posts when I have to work with t posts.
On a skid steer there is a cross piece that's quite substantial and part of the framework that has the quick attach mechanism. So I fill the bucket with material, dirt or whatever, and have about fifteen hundred pounds of gravity to assist the push down.
My skid steer weighs about fifty four hundred pounds. Using the quick attach frame instead of the bucket places the t post as a fulcrum with the fifteen hundred pounds on one side and fifty four hundred pounds on the other. This point of contact also removes the most powerful and hazardous action of the front loader from the equasion, curl. So all we're dealing with is the up and down motion.
We don't use the bucket to drive the t posts. We use the tractor to push the t posts into the ground.
Also no one is ever standing under the bucket. The person with the t post stands off to one side clear of the bucket's path. They release the post when the tractor has initiated the pushing motion and step farther away from the operation.
I don't know what kind of post driver you have to work with.
When I have to do t posts and I can't use the tractor I make one. I can't seem to keep them around. Someone will borrow it and then it becomes part of the public domain. A good t post driver isn't a tool you need often but when you need one nothing else works as good.
On Royal in Dallas west of I35 about a block is a pipe supply yard on the north side of the road. They used to have a fifty dollar minimum and I'm sure it's at least that now.
What you will be looking for is a piece of pipe with a two and a half inch inside diameter and at least a five to six inch outside diameter. You're wanting twenty to twenty five pounds which will probably be four to six inches length of the pipe.
You want a two foot piece of two inch (2 3/8 O.D.) schedule forty pipe. You weld in a plug at one end. I recommend not only welding in plug but also drilling and putting in some half inch plugs from the sides to guarantee your safety if the weld lets go. Then you weld a short piece of two and a half inch pipe as a collar around where your plug is located.
You slide on the piece of pipe you bought that's twenty to twenty five pounds onto your two inch pipe. Then you weld another collar of two and a half inch pipe at that end. This captures your slide hammer-pipe and it also supports the end of the pipe that's going to be abused while hammering in t posts.
After you have your t post driver assembled then weld on two pieces of one inch pipe horizontally out for handles on your slide hammer.
What you have is a safer and more efficient t post driver. The weight is a bugger bear to slide onto a tall post. But basically you're lifting the weight up and letting it fall and do the work. With your hands on the slide hammer they're not as likely to become pinched and tore up like they sometimes do with the conventional t post drivers.
When it comes to doing work this thing is like working with a sixteen pound sledge versus a framing hammer when compared to the commercial t post drivers out there.
If I was doing your job and working by myself here's the way I'd do it.
I'd stab the posts far enough into the ground to stay plumb. I'd then set up my Hilti PR2000 laser level. I'd attach the laser target to the first t post at a point that when the target gave me the sign that it was dead on the top of the t post would be at my chosen grade. I'd use the skid steer to slowly push the t post into place.
I'd do all the post this way plumbing them up as I go.
I highly recommend the Hilti. It's accurate to an eleventh of an inch at one hundred feet. The target has a feature where you can see the direction arrows on the opposite side from the laser target. You can set the target facing the laser and watch or hear the action on the opposite side. This means you don't have to be off to one side where you can see the indicators like the other brands make you do.
