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fence posts for wooden fence

Started by jkj, September 17, 2006, 12:38:05 AM

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jkj

I want to run fence down the side of one field next to a road and fence off pasture for goats now and later, a horse or two.  I need about 850 feet of fencing down that field.  I want to put a board fence along this field and run a couple of electric strands inside.  I can cut the boards but would need to buy posts.

Driving through the horse country around Lexington KY, it looked like most of the fences were board fences with round posts.  I didn't measure, but the posts might have been six or seven inches in diameter and the rails looked like 1x6.  Most fences were painted dark and looked great. 

Does anyone here have experience with this type of fence and especially, the posts?

- I assume the posts are pressure treated - any particular specs for the treatment?
- What diameter is typical?
- What kind of wood should I expect for the posts?
- How far apart should the posts be, is 8' OK?
- Is 3' in the ground enough for a 4' fence?

- What kind of wood is typically used for a horse fence rails?
   (I have access to red oak, white oak, tulip poplar)
- Are unplaned 1x6s OK for the rails or do I need 1.5x6 or 2x6?
- Will they go up OK with a framing nailer, or is it best to use screws?
- What kind of paint is best? 
   (I read one place to use black asphalt or coal tar based paint)

If the span is, say, 8' between posts, do all of the boards need to be cut 16' with the joins staggered, or can I get by with butting 8' boards?  Perhaps I can use 16' boards for the top rail for strength and 8' boards for the lower three rails.

Does anyone know where to get treated posts in quantity?  Between myself and a friend down the road, it might be best to find someone who could sell us a truckload.

JKJ
LT-15 for farm and fun

Kcwoodbutcher

Here's the answers to some of your questions--
Use white oak if you can - it will last longer
4 to 6 inch is fine for post diameter
16 foot staggered is best, but you can get by with eight footers
I generally use treated SYP for post, but have had some rot/failures in less than five years
Three foot burial is plenty
1x6 is ok in white or red oak 5/4 would be better
Nails or screws- either one isn't perfect. You probably have to go back and tighten screws or pound in nails as the wood dries. Nails would be cheaper , but framing gun nails are probably not heavy enough. I'd use 16 or 20d tempered pole barn nails. Screws would have to be treated decking screws.
Your right on the paint- either one acts as a preservative, but just as important it keeps horses from chewing through the wood.
I brought a whole semi load of post a few years ago through a broker in Minnisota but can't rememeber his name. Do some searching, they were less than half the retail price.
My job is to do everything nobody else felt like doing today

jkj

Quote from: Kcwoodbutcher on September 17, 2006, 02:45:37 AM
I brought a whole semi load of post a few years ago through a broker in Minnisota but can't rememeber his name. Do some searching, they were less than half the retail price.

Thanks.  Can you give me a hint as to how or where to search for a broker?  I don't even know where to start.  I've searched with Google and found companies selling posts, but they all seem to be around the same price.  Wow, if I can find one of those "less than half the retail price" deals, I'd thank you profusely, send you a Christmas turkey or some home-made fudge or a peacock or something!

Also, I read that even wooden posts are sometimes driven into the ground.  Have you done this?  I've always used the tractor/PHD and tamped with an iron rod.  If it is possible to drive the posts, it would save an amazing amount of time.

JKJ
LT-15 for farm and fun

thecfarm

I plan on building a horse fence for the wife's horses.All that I see around here are 4x4 posts,three boards and painted white.I bought 200 PT landscaping timbers from a big box store for 3 bucks each,they were on sell.These are 3½x5½,flat on 2 sides and round on the other sides.I plan on using hemlock for the boards.I have lots of it.Give the horses something to chew on.
Model 6020-20hp Manual Thomas bandsaw,TC40A 4wd 40 hp New Holland tractor, 450 Norse Winch, Heatmor 400 OWB,YCC 1978-79

scsmith42

Ditto KCWoodbutcher's comments.

I have about 5000 linear feet of horse fencing on my property, with 2000 more feet to build.  I went for a slightly different look, as my posts are yellow locust from the TN/NC mountains, and my boards are all 6/4 cedar.  The locust posts are a very durable "natural" post, but they are not perfectly straight the way that the treated posts are.

Traditional horse fencing is often treated with creosote.  In addition to being a preservative, it keeps the horses from cribbing on the boards.  It is still available from General Timber in NC  http://www.generaltimber.net/contact.html.  Since General Timber is a manufacturer, their prices are pretty reasonable.

A lot of the KY farms paint the fences black, but it's more maintenance intensive than creosote.

Southern States usually has a good price on non-creosote treated fence posts.  In areas where perfect alignment was important, I used some of these.

Yes, posts can be driven into place.  It's quicker than boring, and they often stay tighter over the years.  Do a search on post drivers and you'll find a large number of them.  These are an impact driver that use your tractor hydraulics to lift up a heavy ram, and then springs and weight slam it into the top of the post when you release it.  Some attach to a 3 point hitch, others are fixed to brackets on the front of a tractor.  I think that the fixed ones work best, as the 3 point ones tend to jump around a bit when you're pounding.  To be the most effective, you will need to modify your tractors hydraulics slightly to use them - primarily you need to be able to run a large diameter (1" - 2") return line from the driver directly to your hydraulic reservoir.  Too small a line will slow down the force of the ram when you trip it.

There are also vibratory drivers that attach to the front of a skid-steer loader.  These are really the fast and easy way to go, but all the ones that I've seen are 4X the price of the impact drivers.  You can usually find these used in local ag papers or on related web sites.   be careful of ones being sold by fencing companies - they are often worn out and jump around quite a bit.  If you're not careful, you can lose a finger or worse...

Re nails versus screws, if you have very hard posts (such as locust), you will probably need to use an air nailer.  Maze Nails makes some premium spiral shank pressure treated nails that work well here (up to 3.5").  Treated pine posts shouldn't matter too much, but be sure to use spiral or ring shank if you use nails.
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and a mix of log handling heavy equipment.

DanG

Keep in mind also, if you're going to put goats in there, you'll need to put wire on it, too.  A goat can walk right through a wood fence.  Figure on another 50¢ per foot for that.

If you go with PT pine posts, look for some that are CCA treated.  The 4x4s from the box stores are ACQ, and you'll need special fasteners.  That also wouldn't be too good for the above mentioned wire.  CCA is still allowed for farm use, so a good ag supplier should be able to fix you up, for a price.  Landscape timbers are cheap, but are not usually treated to ground-contact specs and will not last.  They're usually ACQ, too.  There are 2 treating plants around here that still do CCA.  One of them will only treat round wood with it.  The other, about 60 miles away, will do sawn wood if you sign a waiver that it is for farm use.  They're charging $150/mbf, which comes to about $1.50 per post.  If you could cut your own 4x4 posts from pine, that would be your best bet, by far!

Keep in mind too, that PT chemicals are only required to penetrate 5/8 inch, so the center of a 4x4 isn't treated.  If you cut the post off to make the top look nice and neat, you'll expose that untreated center, and the post won't last.  You can retreat those cuts with Coppr-tox to help that situation.  I've been thinking of building up posts from 2x4s by sandwiching in a short 1x4 at the in-ground end, then installing the rails between the 2x4s.  It would be labor intensive, but make a great looking fence that would be the same on both sides.  Your boards couldn't warp and pop off, either, plus the 2x4s are treated all the way through. :)
"I don't feel like an old man.  I feel like a young man who has something wrong with him."  Dick Cavett
"Beat not thy sword into a plowshare, rather beat the sword of thine enemy into a plowshare."

wesdor

I'm not sure if you have a source, but if you want posts that will last more than a life time, consider putting in osage-orange (hedge) posts.  Finding straight good looking round posts could be a problem, but if you have them cut to 4x4 they look very nice and don't have a rot problem. 

If you don't know of anyone that has some, you might try contacting Kirk Allen (on this board).  He seems to have access to a good amount of hedge and has written about them in the past.  I haven't seen much of him on the board lately, but when I was at his place in April he had quite a pile of osage orange in the lot by the house.

And if you are going to put danG goats into the pasture, well I'm not sure if even woven wire can keep them in.  But at least they'll keep the field clean.

Good luck on the fence, they sure look beautiful.

Ron Wenrich

We had a guy stop in the mill just on Thursday that had put in a fence for horses 5 years ago.  What the landowner said was the fence had 4x4 posts, mainly red oak, and were painted with some "black stuff", probably oil.  They also put on hemlock boards.

Bottom line, the fence posts are rotted off, and the horses have eaten the boards.  These are European racing horses and are very high strung.

So, he calls up the guy who put in the fence.  The original "guarantee" was that the fence would last 8 years.  Now, he wants to put in a fence with white oak posts.  He also quoted a price of posts at $10 each for red oak.  Locust "can't be found" and are very expensive.  I told him to find a new fence guy.

My experience with white oak is that it rots in less than 10 years, even when I creosoted them.  My best luck has been with treated SYP posts.  I have some in 15 years with no rot.  My white cedar lasted about 10 years, and my locust about 15-20 years.
Never under estimate the power of stupid people in large groups.

Minnesota_boy

Some of the bur oak posts on my farm were put in the ground by my father before I wa born and are still solid.  Some bur oak posts I put in the ground less than 10 years ago are rotted.  My post that rotted were round with the bark still on.  Dad's posts were hand split.  :)
I eat a high-fiber diet.  Lots of sawdust!

Dana

What DanG said about not using landscape timbers is correct. The USDA NRCS division also won't allow you to use them if you are by chance working with them.
Grass-fed beef farmer, part time sawyer

Kcwoodbutcher

I can't find the name of the broker but I found the name of the person who gave it to me. Thomasville Wood Products in southern Mo. I originally contacted them to provide the post-they were cheaper than the broker-but they had equipment problems and couldn't fill the order so he gave me this brokers name. Pm me if you want their number. I pound post in and get much better results than digging and setting. You can't pound those landscape timbers or a cheap 4x4, about half the time they just split. See if anyone around you has a post pounder and hire him, it will actually save you money over digging and setting
My job is to do everything nobody else felt like doing today

Minnesota_boy

Farmers in the know up here wait until they have good soil moisture and use the loader on their tractor to push the posts into the ground.  The posts hold good and they don't split like pounding them can unless they hit a rock or tree root.  You need two people to do it, but it goes faster that 2 people working seperately driving or digging them in. 8)
I eat a high-fiber diet.  Lots of sawdust!

jkj

Quote from: Minnesota_boy on September 18, 2006, 07:54:12 AM
Farmers in the know up here wait until they have good soil moisture and use the loader on their tractor to push the posts into the ground.

Are they pushing in 5" or 6" wooden posts with the loader?!!  Or are you referring to metal posts?  It seems to me at to push a wooden post I'd need a much bigger tractor than my 39hp kubota.

JKJ
LT-15 for farm and fun

DanG

They put wood posts in like that in some places, jkj, but I don't think it will work around here with the clay we have.  I have a hard enough time pounding in a steel T-post.
"I don't feel like an old man.  I feel like a young man who has something wrong with him."  Dick Cavett
"Beat not thy sword into a plowshare, rather beat the sword of thine enemy into a plowshare."

jkj

Quote from: DanG on September 18, 2006, 12:39:55 PM
I have a hard enough time pounding in a steel T-post.

Steel posts are pretty easy to put in around here.   It usually takes me 5 to 10 strikes with a manual driver (and I'm pretty much a wimp).  I have a much worst time getting them out.  I may try to make a tool I heard of to pull steel posts - it looked like a bar you lever against the ground.

Are wood posts usually harder to pull up?  I'm cutting a new driveway and had a DanG hard time pulling out an old wooden fence post sunk about 4 feet in the ground.  I dug down more than two ft with my backhoe and STILL couldn't push it loose or pull it out.  Turns out it flared out on the bottom end.

JKJ
LT-15 for farm and fun

Minnesota_boy

Quote from: jkj on September 18, 2006, 11:43:55 AM
Are they pushing in 5" or 6" wooden posts with the loader?!!  Or are you referring to metal posts?  It seems to me at to push a wooden post I'd need a much bigger tractor than my 39hp kubota.

Most of the farmers up here use slightly bigger tractors.  Lots of 100-200 HP tractors.  It takes something with some front-end weight to push them, but some have reported pushing in railroad ties. :o
I eat a high-fiber diet.  Lots of sawdust!

limbrat

If you can find a vibatory driver to barrow they make real good extractors.
ben

DanG

I've never found reason to put posts more than about 2 feet deep unless they are unbraced corner posts.  If lateral pressure is a problem, you can dig a little trench across the edge of the hole, then drop in a short piece of PT 2x4, laying just below the surface.  That will stop any tendency for it to lean.

To remove a T-post;  Take a 4-6ft length of 1¼" pipe and drop the handle of a large Stillson wrench in it.  Adjust the wrench to go around the post, but too small to pass the nubs on the post.  Get a piece of 4x4 or something about a foot long to use for a fulcrum, and place that a foot or less from the post.  Put the wrench around the post and push down on the pipe, and that sucker will pop right outta there. ;D
"I don't feel like an old man.  I feel like a young man who has something wrong with him."  Dick Cavett
"Beat not thy sword into a plowshare, rather beat the sword of thine enemy into a plowshare."

Cedarman

We have always used ERC or black locust.  We saw 1000's of 4x4x8 ERC and wholesale them for 8 bucks.

When I was building fence and had a good number of poststo put in, I would use my JD 450 highlift and push them in.  I have pushed in railroad ties when the ground was soft.  The ground must be wet for the soil to flow like soft plastic.  I always put the big end in the ground, even when using a driver.

When putting in corner posts we dug a  3' long x 2'wide and 4 foot plus deep.  We nailed a couple of oak 2x6 to the sides of the lower part of a 7x7 top x 8x8 base of ERC or railroad tie.  Placed a couple of big rocks on top of the oak after setting the post in the hole. Tamp the dirt and that post will never come out of the ground.

A fence is only as good as its end or corner post.
I am in the pink when sawing cedar.

JimBuis

On the family farm, southern Illinois, we had some fence posts that were untreated, not in the need of replacement, that had been in the ground for over 50 years................Osage Orange..............or hedge as we call it back home.  No wood on the planet holds up any better to the outdoors than Osage Orange and yes there are termites in southern Illinois.  If you can get it, I'd use it.  The posts can go into the ground without any treatment our fussing and will be strong long after you and I are dead and gone.

IMHO,
Jim
Jim Buis                             Peterson 10" WPF swingmill

tcsmpsi

JKJ,





Not sure what treatment you have available there, but this is a fence of landscape timbers and treated 1X4's, screwed together with galv. decking screws.  Let's see, this is 2006, and that was put in around...'87.  So, that's nearly 20 yrs.  Where I had installed barbed wire and creosote posts on other parts of the property about the same time, the creosote posts have rotted out some time ago. 
\\\"In the end, it is a moral question as to whether man applies what he has learned or not.\\\" - C. Jung

Dana

Thought this thread should be updated with DanG's information. It may save someone a lot of money and time.https://forestryforum.com/board/index.php?topic=24538.msg350530#msg350530
Grass-fed beef farmer, part time sawyer

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