FENCE IN, FENCE OUT
(Page 5 of 9)
September/October 1975
Jim Fairfield
Rather than pay someone just to make your postholes, you might look for a farmer with a hydraulic post-driver. Such a machine rams a 3- to 4-inch timber into the ground as fast as an auger can drill the hole, and the driven posts stay put better in soft soil.
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Posts can also be hand-driven into conical holes punched or "spudded" in soft earth with a heavy iron. This method is Bill's favorite. "I like to spud posts in, 'stead of diggin' 'em," he says. "They go in tight and stay that way. Frost don't heave 'em as easy as dug posts. But the ground's got to be right."
"Right" is damp to juicy. Earth that's too dry will jar your brains out with every blow, but in springtime, when the frost is coming out of the soil, you can punch a 2-foot cone every few minutes. I've jabbed a hole in ground so wet it spit water in my face.
Bill Deavers made his own 5-foot-long spudding iron by cutting off an 18-inch length of an old 3-inch-diameter transmission shaft and welding the piece to a prybar. Then he heated the heavy nose in a forge and pounded a bullet tip on it.
With a tool like that, spudding in a post doesn't take long, but it does take sweat. Pick a spot on the line of your future fence, one post radius from the stretched twine (so that the planted upright will just touch the string tangentially). Drop the iron straight down to mark the center of the spot and use a shovel to lift a 4- to 5-inch circle of sod and topsoil from around the point. Then begin to punch in the spudding iron, rolling the top of the tool in a widening circle with each drop. This action squeezes the earth out of the way in a cone shape which deepens by repeated jabs. Get the hole down 2 feet, if possible, before you pound in the post.
Bill showed me how to sharpen the ends of fenceposts that are to be driven. I set a concrete block on the tailgate of our pickup and slide the bottom end of a timber through the hole, which holds the length of wood while I remove bevel shaped slices from the tip with a lightweight Stihl chain saw. Four of these cuts and the upright is pointed like a pencil.
Deavers stands on a stepladder and drives in posts with a 16-pound hammer. I prefer the more steady footing of my pickup's tailgate, even though I have to admit that there are places a truck just won't go.
You may be tempted at times to smack a post with the broad flat side of your sledgehammer, especially when you're swinging down from shoulder height or higher. Don't! You'll be hitting across the grain of the handle instead of with it, and a solid swat will snap the wood at the head.
Caution: A 16-pound hammer can break a leg if you accidentally miss a post with a healthy swing. I learned from a few close calls to keep my line of swing such that—if I did goof—I wouldn't take off a kneecap in the follow-through.
If the ground is tough, your hammer may begin to splinter a post after you've driven it a couple of feet. That's no real problem. It just means you'll have to trim the top later.
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