Pulling posts

wroughtn_harv · Feb 4, 2003

Today I had some real fun pulling cedar posts, just limbs put in the ground many years ago that had barbwire and field fence nailed to them.

The old boy next door to where I'm working let me know them posts were in there forever and wished me luck. I explained I had a trick up my sleeve and I didn't think they'd be much. I then offered to pull a post sitting in his line. It was an old telephone pole piece. He told me they'd tried to pull it with a back hoe and hadn't had any luck.

Using this technique I pulled the post in a minit. I just slid the curved piece over the post. Rocked it back and forth a time or two or three, and then pulled it right out.

It beats the heck out of using a chain. Especially if you're old like me. /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

ScottAR · Feb 4, 2003

Really slick...

JTD · Feb 5, 2003

Slick. I assume you made this since your design and welding projects are nicely done. How about a couple of closeups of it?

herbenus · Feb 5, 2003

Neat. I pulled up a 4x4 post the other day that I planted 2 years ago, 3 feet deep and cemented in 9" augered hole. It came right up with chain and fel. No rocking. I was expecting it to be a bear. Now ground was wet which was key. Not sure how it would do in summer.

Anonymous Poster · Feb 8, 2003

Help a beginner out here. I've got a ton of 4" to 6" posts to pull, along with old barbed wire and mesh fencing. I have yet to buy my tractor, but I will end up with a 20-25 hp 4wd machine (probably Kioti, Kubota, or Mahindra) with FEL. Do I need any special attachments on the FEL to pull a fence? How do you use a chain on the FEL to lift the fence posts? If you could spell the whole process out (and I mean every detail), I would greatly appreciate it.

Bird · Feb 8, 2003

I never had that "curved piece" on my buckets like Harv, but I had chain hooks on either end of the top edge of the bucket. So I just drove up to a post with the bucket dumped forward and with the post right in the center of the bucket, then ran a chain from one bucket hook, took a loop around the post, and on to the other bucket hook; i.e., chained the post to the center of the bucket. In many cases, I could then simply lift the post out of the ground, but if not, I gently rocked the tractor forward and backward, while maintaining a lifting force with the FEL. In other words, I did about the same thing as Harv, but with a chain. The advantage to his system is not having to get off the tractor to hook up a chain to each post (or have a helper to do it). I have only encountered one single post that I could not pull up and that was a steel t-post that had been there so long, it was completely encased in a very large tree root.

Just be sure you have it pretty well centered instead of pulling from one corner of the bucket. Of course, for those who have a chain hook in the center of the bucket instead of just the two top corners; no problem.

ns_in_tex · Feb 8, 2003

I like WHarv's ring on top of bucket for removing clean post to save.
If you have old fence & post to discard, or are grown up badly, I like how I cleaned up over a mile of fence row this year.
I cut the fence with bolt cutters about every 100/150', then used my treegetter to pull the post/brush out by the roots while pushing, wire/post/brush to small pile near the center of the wire cuts. Later would come back with forks & load on dump truck or trailer to haul off.

One man can do this without getting off the tractor except to cut the wire.