Wood Fences

Article Tools

Image Gallery

Print

E-mail

Comments

RSS

AN EXTRA PRECAUTION

Spacing Pickets

Spacing pickets is an art. Length of rails must equal total width of pickets, plus distance between pickets, multiplied by the number of pickets plus one (to allow for spaces alongside posts at each end of each bay).

Pickets can be spaced anywhere from half their width to their full width apart. The narrower space looks better to my eye, but you be the judge. Just work out the rail length accurately and prove it by "building" a bay to scale on paper.

Your fence tour and books will have suggested possible ornamentation for posts. Square post lumber is rough-sawn; to look finished, it is best boxed in with 1"-thick-finished lumber. Tops (filials) of posts can be arrows, knobs, or tulip-shaped, and either pre-cut separates or sawn into post tops.

Or, square-cut post tops can be capped with three wooden squares of 1" thick lumber—the bottom one an inch larger all around than the post, the middle one the same size as the post and the top one an inch smaller than the post.

A decorative rail of 1" x 1" wood trim nailed on 4" or so below the cap finishes the treatment nicely. As with the stick-and-string mock-up, take your time and try out every idea under the sun that appeals. It's a lot easier to change your mind on paper. Try 4", 6" and 8" line posts in different heights, and boxed and unboxed; also try different rail lengths and infill designs.

Materials

Design your posts from any sturdy wood—round, square or rectangular—that's 5' or 6' long, so that approximately 1/3 of their length can be buried forever. Rails too can be round, square or rectangular, any stock that's long enough to make up into 6' to 10' lengths. Four or 6" rounds or squares are the most common posts and 2 x 4s or 2 x 6s the most common rails, but don't ignore recycled post stock if you can find it.

Two x four studs from house remodeling can be de-nailed and converted into fence rails. Pickets and post-boxing on one gorgeous fence I know are made from strips of naturally weatherproof teak decking removed from an ocean-going yacht that was being scrapped. This 75-year-old wood has been kept looking good as new with nothing but an occasional soaking with boiled linseed oil. A simple, elegant fence that is suitable, as is, for the yard of a farm or ranch house—or that can serve as the framework of a fence of any infill design—is made from 5"-long, 4" or 6"-square posts with their lower two feet buried, and with rails of 6' lengths of 2 x 4s or 2 x 6s. Un-infilled, it looks good stained a woodsy brown, treated with a sealer or sealer/stain to age to a natural aged cedar-gray or painted a crisp clapboard white.

Fence Woods

RSS | Comments | E-mail | Print