Re: welding succor rod
Wow, ya'll ain't too far from me. I'm over here in wide awake Wylie.
I've had great luck welding succor rod and having it stay straight.
The problem is most folks start at the top and weld down. That means the last place to cool off and shrink, it just does that, the welds, is the bottom. So you have the weld pulling the rod down.
Another thing folks do is they cut the rod too long so it's a tight fit. Bad, again, sag, ugly.
What I do is I cut the rod short so it's an eighth of an inch at least short at each post. I start my pass at the bottom and work it up. It's a better weld and the pull of the weld is up which is usually compensated for by gravity working on pulling everything down.
I never weld succor rod to the face of the post. It just doesn't hold over time. It looks bad and unprofessional also.
I've got eight little do thingys bent and welded up. That way I can have someone cutting and placing the rods in place ahead of me as I go. Or if I'm by myself I can cut out four sections at a time. When they're welded up I can then set up the next four.
They're quarter inch cold rolled rods with the top shaped like a coat hanger hook. That fits over the top rail. Since I weld between the posts it has to be shaped like a coat hanger versus being shaped like a cane to help keep the rods in line with the center of the posts. Then I have pieces welded to that main piece to space out the succor rods evenly. Those pieces are welded with just a little up angle to them. That keeps the rod in place without grabbing it too tightly.
If you ever get over to Community High School in Nevada you can see a pipe and rod fence that I did that's all galvanized. It's maintenance free and pretty in a dusty silver kind of way.
A way to cut your costs for four or five rail pipe fence is to do what I've done many times.
I like galvanized. It's tuff for some to weld but then that's life.
So the strongest part of the fence should be the posts and the top rail. Those I use schedule forty. But the rails I come back with in sixteen gauge. It looks the same and if welded up properly it dents and doesn't bend if hit.
Again, most folks don't like welding galvanized and they can't weld sixteen gauge with a stick out in the field to begin with.
But it makes a great fence that lives a long long time.
If ya'll are in the blackland you might keep in mind a little secret I have for drilling posts. I keep a hundred gallon propylene tank full of water on top of the tractor. It gives me about eight hundred pounds extra down pressure and when that clay starts to gum things up about a quart of water shot into the hole makes it easier on the equipment and operator let me tell you. You won't believe what a little water will do.
I figured that out one day in Parker Texas. I was using my Little Beaver Hydraulic auger drilling twelve inch holes. At about two feet it would just bog up something fierce. Each hole was a nightmare.
As I stood there cussing I thought I wished there was a way to either teflon the flights or WD40 the auger. Then it hit me. When that [censored] clay is wet you can't hardly stand up on it. So I poured a little water on it and I haven't looked back since.
Don't use too much water tho, you'll end up covered head to toe and the excess sitting in your hole just delighting in causing you future heartache.