Feedback on ..."How to Mend a Barbed Wire Fence"

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Better yet, have the local welder make you a post-pounder . . . a length of pipe large enough to fit over whatever metal supports you're installing (commercial posts, iron pipe, metal tubing, etc.). The cylinder—which can be left plain or fitted with two handles—is topped with a solid iron rod welded into one end. The total weight, of course, should be suited to your strength.

Such a device makes one-person fencing or repairs easy. Just lay the post on the ground with its bottom end near the hole, ready to stand up in the proper position. Slide the pounder over the top, carefully set the whole business upright, and hammer away by raising the weight and letting it fall.

[9] If you don't have a post- or stake-pounder, a heavy old axle or straight crowbar is a good substitute. Just hold the bar upright above the post and bring it down on the support's top. Such a tool is less tiring and less likely to miss than a sledge-hammer, and you'll find it easier to keep the post straight.

[10] One trouble with working alone is that there's no one to tell you whether a post is set straight in its hole. Here's a simple test: Squat a little to sight the timber below the level of the pounder (if you're using one). Then spot a distant utility pole or the vertical edge of a budding and line up the fence support with that guide. Perhaps you can find another such marker at right angles to the line of the first, as a second check.

[11] Old barbed wire is often too brittle to be spliced in the conventional way, but still thorny enough to turn livestock. In that case, just pull the broken strand as tight as possible by hand and twine the ends together with long, gentle twists.

[12] When you use a hammer or wrecking bar to stretch wire, or when you pound in staples, be very careful not to damage the metal strands. Barbed wire—like glass—is very strong but also very hard, and breaks easily if it's slightly nicked or notched.

[13] I've stretched many a fence myself by gripping the barb in the claw of an extra hammer or wrecking bar and holding the tool's end with my body while I stapled or twisted the wire. Or you can attach the strand to your vehicle's trailer hitch—or to a heavy rope or cable fastened to the front or rear bumper or axle—and tighten it by moving the truck or whatever . . . but don't pull it too taut or you'll break even new wire. Or you can buy inexpensive pulley-and-rope fence stretchers which can be locked once you've used them to pull a strand as taut as you want it.

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