Homemade Post Driver

midsetberg · Jun 15, 2011

Thought I would share with you the post driver I just made. It is mounted on my John Deere 3650 FEL and uses gravity to align the posts and a hydraulic jack and the weight of the tractor to push the posts down. I have used it with 40mm L-angle iron posts and 70mm wood posts with great results.
Here is a video of it in action, sorry I had one hand on the camera so the tractor movements are not as smooth as when I have two hands on the controls.

I got the idea when I made a bracket to mount a simple pipe to the FEL bucket to push down the posts and to control how far I push them into the ground - it worked great but the FEL does not go down in a straight line when lowered so the posts were not always vertical and in line.

Here is the pipe thing I originally made

So I got the idea to hang a JCB hydraulic jack I got cheap to the bucket and use it to push the posts vertically down so I made a bracket that was easy to bolt on and off the bucket and moved the jack to the side of the tractor so I could drive along the fence line and that would allow the jack to move freely in all directions to compensate for the contours of the ground the tractor was standing on

Here the tractor is standing at an angle to the side and to the front but the jack is always vertical

Here are some pictures from when I was building it

There is always room for improvement so all comments are welcome!

powerstroke444e · Jun 15, 2011

Looks good, sure beats pounding them by hand.

JD5210 · Jun 15, 2011

Very nicely done and well thought out! Thank you for share it. The video was great always nice to see it in action. Having pound in a number of posts this is the way to go. As you indicated trying to push them in with the loader bends them.

acme97 · Jun 15, 2011

Very nice! I need to do fencing around 20 acres, something like that would be great!

acme97 · Jun 15, 2011

Very nice! I need to do fencing around 20 acres, something like that would be great!

Brad_Blazer · Jun 18, 2011

It looks like it works great in your video! Nice looking fabrication. Of course it's no fair using a mag drill on the farm.

I was recently pushing in some T-posts unsupported with my bucket and had a few episodes of posts buckling. A driver like yours would have done much better.

kebo · Jun 18, 2011

Very slick!!! Lordy, that's a lot of fence posts there too, just think of all the backaches you saved that poor fellow who was lining up the posts from lol!! How deep does it set the posts? Judging by the length of the posts before and after driving, I am guessing about 20-24 inches??

midsetberg · Jun 19, 2011

kebo said:
Very slick!!! Lordy, that's a lot of fence posts there too, just think of all the backaches you saved that poor fellow who was lining up the posts from lol!! How deep does it set the posts? Judging by the length of the posts before and after driving, I am guessing about 20-24 inches??

Thanks Kebo - so far we have set up 450 posts with 12 feet between posts and no backaches - the only aches come from smiling ear to ear because the Post Driver works so beautifully! The posts are set 27 inches deep so your not far off.

Kyle_in_Tex · Jun 19, 2011

Thats a real worksaver. Very inventive. Looks like you have a bunch of tools so that you can DIY (do it yourself). I'd ask a million questions but I don't want to scare you away. Just 2 for now.

What type of agriculture/farming are you involved in?

How long have you (or your family) been involved with it?

I love coming on here and reading about people from all around the world. Glad you speak English so well. Thank you for posting!

jinman · Jun 19, 2011

midsetberg said:
. . . so far we have set up 450 posts with 12 feet between posts and no backaches. . . .The posts are set 27 inches deep so your not far off.

That's a fantastic piece of equipment and it seems like something that could be built and sold the world over. Extremely nice and professionally made.

I noticed your posts were not very tall above the ground (maybe 1 meter?). Are you fencing for sheep? Do you use some kind of stretching posts anchored in concrete or crushed rock to pull your fencing tight? How do you handle corners? I have a good friend who has a Shaver brand post driver on the 3PH of his tractor and builds farm fences for a living. Your post pusher is much easier to use, quicker, and probably a lot safer.:thumbsup: