Electric fence tensioners

[zuiko]

I have some "white lightning" plastic and polymer coated electric fence wire that I need to put in. It has a core of 12.5ga galvanized steel wire, coated in white plastic with black veins of a conductive polymer (for the electricity) on the outside. It is maybe 1/4" thick. Anyone have any advice on the kind of tensioners to use with this kind of wire? I haven't seen anything that looks like it will work that great.

 

[stevenf]

zuiko, before I realized that the wheel had already been invented and way better then my idea I used turn buckles which for your application may be perfect. I'm switching to the tensioners like TSC sells this weekend theirs are a ratchet type wheel and a block you thread the wire thru the core of the wheel and tighten it up by rolling the wire up on the wheel and the bar flips in to the outside spockets to keep it in place. Another idea if you don't like my turnbuckle idea would be TSC sells two different sizes of theirs the larger one might have a big enough core that you could drill out the hole to fit your wire or run a small bolt with a washer or something to put your wire under thru the existing core hole or strip off just the end of the coating and thread the 12? gauge wire thru the hole and when you tighten it up the coated wire would be wrapped on the tensioner and make good contact. They are less then $2 each so you could get one and try it before investing in a bunch of them.
Steve

 

[GabeTX]

Well, there are a LOT of tensioners designed for 12.5 gauge smooth wire. Can you use wire strippers to remove the vinyl, and then use those? Kencove (I've bought from them--they're cool) has lots of different types. I've bought there "SASS" stainless-steel tighteners, and they seemed quite a bit more sturdy then the ones TSC has.

Kencove also sells vinyl-coated electric wire you bought, so you might want to call them up and ask what you should use. Since they sell it, they'll have the hardware available...