FENCE IN, FENCE OUT
(Page 8 of 9)
September/October 1975
Jim Fairfield
It's also possible to construct your own stretcher. A simple clamping arrangement can be made from two 5-foot 2x4s, with holes for 3/8-inch carriage bolts drilled at bottom and top and at points that will fall between each pair of horizontal strands when the clamp is attached to the mesh. Grip the wire between the boards, avoiding vertical stays, and tighten the nuts. The wood should be protected with washers.
RELATED CONTENT
How about the "puller" or tension device? Commercially manufactured units incorporate equal lengths of chain that wrap around the top and bottom of the 2x4 clamps and lead to one hook of a block and tackle or winch. Some outfits are even provided with two ratchet and lever arrangements, but you don't really need anything so fancy. You can rig your own substitute from whatever is handy (a one-ton block and tackle will be sufficient in most cases). The winch or tackle can be anchored to a tree, to your tractor or to the corner post itself.
Bill Deavers likes to leave the stretchers on a fence for a day or two, "to make sure my posts are holding and give the wire a chance to lose its wrinkles," he says. "Don't pull the kinks out in hot weather, when the metal's already expanded in the heat. You stretch it too tight, and as soon as it gets cold that wire'll contract and pull corner and brace posts up like straws out of a milk shake."
Once a run of wire is stretched, clip and wrap the strands as you did on the first corner post. If you're applying tension with the corner itself as an anchor, however, first staple each strand (behind a stay) to the brace post. This will hold the fencing taut long enough to let you remove the stretcher altogether while you fasten the mesh around the support, or at least while you retension the fence with the last few feet of wire gripped in the tightener.
STAPLING
After all the hard work that comes first, stapling seems like the gravy bite, until about the 500th U-shaped fastener has been hammered in, anyhow.
Staples are necessary only to hold stretched wire against its supporting posts in case your cow wants to lean on the netting. They are not necessary to maintain tension. Some fence builders fasten every stay on every post, others only every other stay, alternating positions of the fastenings from one upright to the next.
There's really nothing much to stapling apart from two commonsense rules: [1] Don't drive the metal loops in tightly enough to crimp the wire. This may crack the galvanizing and let rust begin its certain destruction. [2] Staple at some distance from a vertical stay, so that as the wire contracts and expands it can move slightly through the fastenings without warping the mesh or twisting the post.
Some post wood gradually dries away from the staples and splits, so that the fasteners loosen and fall out here and there. A possible answer is a new, one-legged Hold-tite staple with false threads. Bang one of these into a loose-holding timber and it'll stay put. The only trouble with these gadgets is their outrageous price. I use them just where necessary, or to replace shaky fastenings.
Page:
<< Previous 1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 | 8 |
9 |
Next >>
