My pipe fence project is under way

[Kodiak]

Hi Harv.:

As usual I was just trying to inject some form of corny humor into your thread. But I just can't seem to master it like you.

Actually I have a cousin in Missouri that is a rural weldor and builds a lot of those fences. Question he installs most of his posts with a hydraulic post driver. What are the pros and cons to that method versus post holes and maximizer?

Sorry to hear about that young man versus the cow on the dark road. Every year you here about incidents like that up in Alaska. Only its some one sweeping the legs out from under a moose. Those critters are so tall that even a full size pickup Usually ends up with one in the windsheild. They usually try to turn from you, so you get the idea of which end is going to join you inside first. Also since the impact usually breaks their legs first an doesn't kill them, you still have to deal with an angry Bullwinkle.

 

[wroughtn_harv]

Evening Ron,

I don't recommend varying from my principle of splicing the top rail over a joint. I go by fences all the time where they spliced the top rail where ever the joint hit. And for one reason or another the weld failed, the material around the weld failed, or something just plain broke. It just isn't near as likely to happen when the joint if over a post.

Another thing to consider is the natural warpage of metal due to the weld heat. Unless you weld it just right and then come back with a torch to compensate you're going to have a whoop. Whoops are fun for kids on motorcycles to jump. They're also appropriate when hearing a great joke. But they look like heck in a fence line.

If you're gonna use sleeves get them to fit as tight as possible. And plan on blowing a hole in each piece of pipe and to a plug weld or two just to keep it all together. You might also consider using solid bar for your sleeve.

I don't recommend expansion joints. I know they're about as popular as sex. But unlike sex I've never needed one yet it seems. I don't use them and the lines stay straight while some of the pros who use them can't say that, about straight, wouldn't believe them about sex anyway.

I've heard all kinds of theories about driven posts versus concrete ones. About ninety nine point nine percent of those conversations have been about costs. I've heard that you only need to concrete in the corner, gate, and brace posts. The rest of them can be driven.

Based upon that theory it does seem to me one could assume that concreting in posts that you think are important says it all.
Another thought one might add to the driven post theories is that t posts work primarily because they have a flag to help keep them from falling over when the ground loses it's resistance or stability. So I guess a properly designed driven fence post would have flags both directions with about the same surface area as accepted concrete footings for that size of post and fence.

I had an old boy come into the shop here awhile back. He asked if I made gates and I confirmed I was so afflicted. He then explained how his fenceman had told him that a gate over twelve feet wide would always sag, guer roan teed. The good old boy wanted a second opinion. He really wanted a fourteen foot gate cause he was full aware of the fun one can have chasing two seven foot gates some days.

I asked him if he was sure his fenceman had told him that. He confirmed it again. I shook my head and asked him if he'd help me take down that twenty six foot single he'd just passed through. It'd been up five years and was surely bound to fail any minute.

He gave me his "sorry I asked a wise guy" look and left, not in a huff, I think it was a Ford.

If he'd hung around I'd pointed out that the gate had been hit at least three times by trucks. It's got as many dings as an auditorium full of blonds and still swings just as freely.

Ron can confirm all this about the gate. He'll also confirm there isn't an angle brace or cable or anything else but common sense keeping it from sagging.

What I didn't point out to Ron was how the barbwire on the gate is stapled on.

Yup, you heard right. Pipe verticals with the barbwire stapled on with wood staples, number two if'n I recall correctly.

In fact if you want to have a good fence and you're real partial to barbwire cause you don't partial to the neightbor.
Ppe posts with the barbwire stapled to it. It's ton more stout than wood or t posts and you will have the satisfaction of steaming up his field glasses as he stands there in the kitchen staring at you driving in wood staples into pipe posts.

It's not magic. A simple five sixteenths hole in the pipe. You take the wood staple. Slide it over the wire. Squeeze the points of the staple together. Put those points into the five sixteenths hole. Hit the staple with your hammer. You just did the deed like it usually isn't done.

The beauty of using wood staples to hold barbwire in pipe posts is what happens when you hit the staple with your hammer. The points cross each other right after they git into the dark. The only way to pull that puppy is with sidecutters or boltcutters. Because it isn't coming out, not even on a bet.

I learned that from my dad. He learned it from someone smarter than just about anyone else I'm sure. Dad had a way of expressing thing where you just took them for fact and wouldn't dream of questioning him about his source. If he'd been born later he'd been a perfect politician on that score.

 

[wroughtn_harv]

<font color=blue>As usual I was just trying to inject some form of corny humor into your thread. But I just can't seem to master it like you.</font color=blue>

Russ you're just not trying. I am trying. In fact there are folks who say I'm very trying. But the heck with them I say./w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif

 

[Kodiak]

Yes I've come under that analogy also.

Getting back to the driven post question. My cousin uses a large hydraulic driver, truck mounted, the same type as guard rail companies use. He also has some smaller 3pt hydraulic drivers. But most commonly he is driving 3" post, with bigger corner post. Do you see any pros or cons to that method?

 

[wroughtn_harv]

Evening Russ,

I'm sure it's fine for your cousin in Missouri.

I have a friend here in town that has done everything but stand on his head and wiggle his ears to get me to validate his driven post fence.

When you read a commercial or industrial request for bid on a fence they call the holes and concrete "footings". I doubt very seriously it's a slip of the tongue or pen if you will. Experience and engineering has determined over many years that a good fence has good footings. In fact I've read some engineering specs for fencing that suggested three foot footings for four foot fence and an additional foot of footing for each additional foot of height.

For me it's simple logic. A six inch post driven is gonna be just as strong against lean as a post with a six inch concrete footing. But there's no way a two and a half inch pipe post driven three feet is gonna be just as strong against lean as one that's in a one foot by three foot concrete footing.

I'm forever be criticised for being stubborn and doing things the hard way. They're probably right. But for me there is this little bit of satisfaction when folks ask me why my fences don't seem to lean like most of the others out there do.

I'm sure driven post fences have their place. I have never seen them an option except when costs had to be cut period. I think that says all there needs to be said about that.

Now about me being stubborn I have to tell you a story that happened earlier this week. Customer comes in and is showing off his stuff I'm doing. His cousin if the biggest doggone Indian from India I've ever seen. He's a retired colonel in the Indian army with an attitude like a retired Marine DI.

But I was polite.

Was until they started whupping up conversation in something not quite understandable to me. I came off with a "say what?"

My friend apologized and then told me his friend had pointed out that my hands were not like everyone elses.

I agreed and blamed it on losing part of the thumb and how the dog had ate it, the part of the thumb I lost.

Then his cousin pointed to my hand and explained that I didn't have all the lines like most folks do in their palm. Now this was a first for me. I've been accused of being short of many things but never a line, hand or otherwise.

The cousin stood there and you could see his gears really turning. Diplomacy can really make a racket when it's got the straight gears of conversation in a bind. He finally explained that I was evidently a very stubborn individual according to my palm. Hardheaded even.

I had to start laughing. He was obviously confusing obstinance with persistance and stubborness with character.