"An airless air compressor
Pretty impressive video but I wonder if it could work so easily in the clay and shale we have here. "
Good catch SH - I stand by my comment tho, it really IS "airless" til ya plug it in
Soil - as I mentioned, I bought their bigger driver 'cause we have fairly heavy clay soil here too - you can buy a T post adapter for the bigger ones, as I did - then it isn't too hard to make your own OTHER sized/shaped adapters depending on your tools/abilities. One of the links I posted is the model I bought
http://www.rohrermfg.com/post-drivers/99e-m-post-driver/
which will drive square posts barely over 2" square (2.0329", actually
) - I then built an "adapter" from 2" square tube, capped one end, added an 8" piece of (capped) 4" square tube so I could theoretically drive 4x4's....
I cut one end of the 4x4's to a 10" long symmetrical point, soaked in preservative for a day or so, and drove 'em in -
If you have similar soil, you know there's about a 20 minute "window" when it's right to till - that's when I did this. SOME of the posts went in so quick I almost "over-drove" 'em, others I was REALLY glad all I had to do was hold the driver and wait (maybe 3-4 minutes)
And yeah, NOTHING is perfect - but even the larger one I have is about $1500 "MORE perfecter" (less expensive, that is) than some of the OTHER options :thumbsup:
Downside - there is ONE irritating "feature" I haven't figured out how to get around - these work by using the OUTER shell (and steel slug) as the hammer, so you hold the handle that's part of the INNER sleeve, then trip the "start" lever and let the long OUTER handle slide up and down thru your other hand - when it first starts, the first DOWN stroke causes the inner sleeve (and the post) to jump UP - this can make the post MOVE from where you started.
If you catch it on the first or second stroke you can move it back and start over; you can usually AVOID the "hop" by holding down HARD on the "inner" handle at the start (hence the "NOTHING is perfect" comment above...)
I just used mine yesterday, we're doing a new "permanent" garden down below my shop - 8' tall "deer" fence. Both sides have 6' wide gates, T posts with 1" conduit "extensions", diagonal conduit braces, 48" chicken wire x 2 - the 2 "ends" will be just 3 sticks of conduit with wire that can easily swing out of the way, letting me do a "drive-thru" with the 6' tiller (and later, flail mower) - I drove 6 T posts and 2 2" round gate posts in about 10 minutes TOTAL, and I'm 72 (and maybe starting to slow down a bit from when I was HALF that age :laughing: )
Sooo, there's yer "real world review" - can't tell you what the smaller "T post only" driver will do, I DO know mine will punch a T post THROUGH chunks of shale over an inch thick, just takes a few more whacks - but that's part of why I went with the bigger unit... Steve
Oh, and if my description of the "4x4 adapter" wasn't clear enough, let me know and I can grab a pic of it...
