Posthole Digger POST HOLE DIGGER INPUT PLEASE

akman · Mar 28, 2003

We have a B2910 with a Befco Mole PHD and a 12" and 6" auger. Our soil sounds similar to yours. The Befco is a heavy duty machine and we have already gotten our money's worth !

We installed over 90 posts last year (during hot dry summer !) for our deer fence.

You can see in the attachment that we are now in process of installing first two acres of our ten+ acre vineyard. Planted 70 end posts last weekend, with over 300 line posts to go in by next month.

Good luck.

Tony

wroughtn_harv · Mar 29, 2003

I dig holes for a living. Yesterday I dug one sixteen inches wide and seven plus feet deep for a gate post. I'll set it today along with about thirty other posts I dug holes for yesterday.

The first thing about post hole digging is there's no one magic bit for everything. My rock teeth ain't worth a flip in clay. And the teeth I use in the clay aren't capable in rock.

In clay the rock bit catches a root or just a layer under the cutting edge and the bit won't go down. It just sits there and spins.

In rock and shale it takes two things to successfully dig a post hole. The first is a blade that will cut rock. The second is crowd. Crowd is weight or down force.

There is a thread on this subject from last year. It has pictures and descriptions of augers and options. Don (centex) is one of the smartest guys here and he fought your battle with rock repeatedly and often.

click here for the discussion

Taylortractornut · Mar 29, 2003

Hey Harv i need to send you some pictures of the miniexcavatr ive been running for my uncl. He had a retaining wall on te lake that was put in 30 years ago with bad RR ties, he bough relay ties and We rented a bobcat bucket and auger but i told hime we d need the excavator to. I told him that the bobcat wouldnt be stable on the slopes and have a time digging the roads out on the bank. I went to work making a quick attach clamp one mount for the babcat auger. The didnt beleive it would dig the chert because when they built it the chert took 3 months to hand dig the the post holes. he was amazed that i could reach up high on te banks then dri,ll a 4 foot hole in 25 to 45 seconds. WHile i was up there several other fols stopped by wanting holes poked in the ground. Id like to buy a ppower head like yours one day but my neighbor has a wreck utility truck with one on it i may be able to get it right.
I made my first post hole digger when i was 16 dad brought a gear motor home from work and i mounted some bearings on a shaft and added reinforced combine auger to it. and a some handles and had a flip on switch for drilling a few holes near the shop. One day hit a root and the handles got away from me had and it was between me and the shop dor had to wait till it wound enough cord up to pull its own plug.