Fence bashers

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Mary-Jane

Joined: 13 Jan 2005
Posts: 18397
Location: The Fishing Strumpet is from Ceredigion in West Wales

Posted: Fri Mar 17, 06 12:34 pm Post subject: Re: Fence bashers

ruby wrote:

Does anyone use those gadgets for hammering in fence posts - metal tubes with handles on either side that you drop over the fence post. I am wondering if it's worth investing my meagre salary in one of them? I (ok we) use a sledge hammer usually and then can't move the following day and the posts are so high it's very difficult to start them off straight... fencing, bl****y horses grumble grumble

I want to do a really good job then protect it all with leccy stuff

We've got one of those - hard work on your own though unless you're a really big, tough, cream puff! My friend Kath and I knocked all the fence posts in with it around the chicken run. We found that if one of us held the handles high up, and the other below, we could knock in the posts quite successfully with a rythm going (and it made it easier to get the knocker over the top of high posts and get 'em started). We'd do 10 hard knocks and stop, 10 hard knocks and stop...we even sang mining songs whilst we were doing it.

Two days later we had aches where we never even knew we had muscles though. Defo not for the weak, nor faint hearted

Gervase

Joined: 17 Nov 2004
Posts: 8655

Posted: Fri Mar 17, 06 12:47 pm Post subject:

Use a milk-crate to stand on if you're worried about being a bit runty. Don't use stepladders and the like as they're too likely to topple.
The tube knockers are excellent. Not as good as a hydraulic, tractor-mounted job, but FAR better than a sledge.
Remember to start the post off by whacking an iron bar into the ground where you want your post and wiggling it around to make a pilot hole (That's when the sledge comes into its own. Drill a large hole in stout piece of timber and thread the bar through that - then you can steady the bar with your hands well out of the way of the sledge).
The general rule is one foot down for every two foot showing, so a four-foot fence needs six foot posts.

Oh, and don't listen to M-J - she's just a gurly wuss-wuss wot couldn't blow the skin of a rice pudding!

Blacksmith

Joined: 25 Jan 2005
Posts: 5025
Location: Berkshire

Posted: Fri Mar 17, 06 1:40 pm Post subject:
An old hydraulic ram cylinder ,with a couple of tubular handles welded on makes a cheap post thumper. Worth asking at a local scrap yard or plant depot ?

Cathryn

Joined: 16 Jul 2005
Posts: 19856
Location: Ceredigion

Posted: Fri Mar 17, 06 1:46 pm Post subject:

I just can't wait to get started now

Thanks - they are all great tips. (Sometimes I wish I could just get a man in - but as mine has a bad back... to be fair he does tend to come over all macho when we finally accept we have to to do this job)

My sister had a wonderfull black eye after helping hold the post steady once - it was during the week she had to meet all her fiances important clients at a big agri show

creeper

Joined: 06 Feb 2006
Posts: 83
Location: Vale of Belvoir - Leicestershire

Posted: Fri Mar 17, 06 8:49 pm Post subject:
I wouldn't be without mine - but I have got carried away a couple of times and over lifted it and its caught the top of the post and fallen foward and knocked me on the head - at least I know my fillings are secure

Paddington Bear

Joined: 31 Jan 2005
Posts: 170
Location: Shropshire

Posted: Sat Mar 18, 06 8:00 pm Post subject:
Get the biggest you can (in width), we have two, one for stakes 3-4" as they are called here, an one for posts - 4"-6". There's nothing worse than using a sledgehammer for the final knock when the post splits from top to bottom!

Rob R

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 31902
Location: York

Posted: Sat Mar 18, 06 8:01 pm Post subject:

Paddington Bear wrote:

Get the biggest you can (in width), we have two, one for stakes 3-4" as they are called here, an one for posts - 4"-6".
There's nothing worse than using a sledgehammer for the final knock when the post splits from top to bottom!

What do you use for 7"-8"?

dpack

Joined: 02 Jul 2005
Posts: 46348
Location: yes

Posted: Sat Mar 18, 06 8:07 pm Post subject:
carried then ?

Paddington Bear

Joined: 31 Jan 2005
Posts: 170
Location: Shropshire

Posted: Sun Mar 19, 06 10:54 am Post subject:

Quote:

What do you use for 7"-8"?

Thinking about this one at present as we want to put up a couple of field gates sometime..probably back to a sledgehammer

and a bit of 4 by 2 to take the knock after digging a hole with a shoveholer.

nettie

Joined: 02 Dec 2004
Posts: 5888
Location: Suffolk

Posted: Mon Mar 20, 06 12:14 am Post subject:
You can hire them if you don't think you need to spend the forty odd quid - we got one for about seven.

Paddington Bear

Joined: 31 Jan 2005
Posts: 170
Location: Shropshire

Posted: Mon Mar 20, 06 10:34 am Post subject:
It's worth looking on ebay, we got one for around a tenner, as long as you can collect and save on the postage.

Nick

Joined: 02 Nov 2004
Posts: 34535
Location: Hereford

Posted: Mon Mar 20, 06 12:40 pm Post subject:

Rob R wrote:

Paddington Bear wrote:

What do you use for 7"-8"?

I'll bet he gets a man in.

dougal

Joined: 15 Jan 2005
Posts: 7184
Location: South Kent

Posted: Mon Mar 20, 06 7:38 pm Post subject:

Gervase wrote:

...Remember to start the post off by whacking an iron bar into the ground where you want your post and wiggling it around to make a pilot hole (That's when the sledge comes into its own....).

An alternative starting technique involves the use of a hosepipe to soften/excavate at least the first few inches... (water permitting, of course), but even a watering can does help to loosen things initially...

Gervase

Joined: 17 Nov 2004
Posts: 8655

Posted: Mon Mar 20, 06 7:57 pm Post subject:

dougal wrote:

An alternative starting technique involves the use of a hosepipe to

Steady on, old chap; you'll have those poor, desiccated southerners frothing at the mouth and in a frightful tizz, what with their hosepipe bans and all. What you've just suggested borders on pornography for the likes of Tahir!

Gervase

Joined: 17 Nov 2004
Posts: 8655

Posted: Mon Mar 20, 06 7:59 pm Post subject:
...in fact I can see a market for a premium-rate phone number: "Dial 09XXX and let me talk moist to you..." Oh bum! I've probably set Northern Lad's treatment back by at least a month by mentioning that word.

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