DEER FENCE INSTALLATION: EARLY STEPS 3
Preparation Middle Steps: Anchors, Supports, and Adjustments Finishing Touches, Gates, and Maintenance
EARLY STEPS, CONTINUED Round 1-5/8 inch steel posts (items items 15-03E thru 15-03M) make very good long-lasting posts for deer fence that are easier and less expensive to install than wooden posts. Should you get these black round posts you should order brace bands with them (item 15-12) to provide a firm fence attachment point on the posts and prevent any possibility of sagging. Posts without Drive Sleeves To set a 9-foot or 10-foot round post (see items 15-03K and 15-03L) into the ground you should prepare the way with a digging bar (item 15-03PB). Put a piece of tape on the digging bar at a height corresponding to the desired depth of the hole. Then take your digging bar and thrust it into the ground where you plan to set a post. With its weight helping you, work the bar downward however far you want the post to go. As you proceed, rotate the bar in the hole enough to open up a space almost wide enough to accommodate the post. If you do that, when you get two feet down you will know there are no rocks or roots in the way. (If you run into a rock or root that the bar cannot navigate, shift the bar to another place and try again.) 
See Video: Installing Round Metal Posts without Drive Sleeves Now pound the post in with a manual post driver (item 15-05). The driver is a weighted metal cylinder open at one end and closed at the other, with handles on the sides. To use it, one takes it up a ladder and slips it over the top of the metal post to be installed. It is then raised and dropped anywhere from a few inches to nearly its full length so as to tap or pound the post into the ground. When you use this tool, be sure no one is ever trying to assist you by holding the upper portion of the post to be driven with their hands, because the heavy descending driver can remove literally inches of flesh from the hands. 
As you drive in the post, stop when you are about a foot down and apply a carpenter's level to make sure it is straight. Keep driving it down until only seven feet two inches remain above the ground. If you have not prepared the way with a digging bar, this pounding is likely to distort the upper inch or two of pipe to a point where it may no longer accept the post cap that goes on top. If this happens, get a pipe cutter (item 15-03G) and cut off the distorted portion of the pipe. |
McGregor Fence Co. 508-888-8305