The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Smallholding => Techniques and skills => Topic started by: Fieldfare on December 11, 2013, 07:53:31 pm
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Hi all- I have a straight 100M stock fence ending at either end at a wall that I have just finished. I have not tightened it yet- is there an easy way? Was going to treat it as two 50M lengths and pull each one towards the middle straining post with my tractor if that makes sense? Or is there a better to way?
Thanks!
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assuming you have strainers at each end, and a bit of room to still wrap wires round the posts you can still strain onto the posts with monkey strainers etc.
but i cant think of any reason not to do the double pull into the middle it will probably be easier...
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We use threaded tensioners here fitted into loops bent at each end of the wires Fieldfare. A 10mm tensioner at each end of the wire takes up about 6" of slack. Our new chicken enclosure uses 40 of them to keep it all in place. You wouldn't need a tractor, other than to pull the wire as tight as possible before fitting a tensioner. Of course it is then very easy to take down or slacken off to replace posts, which may be a big advantage. Perhaps over that length 12mm tensioners would be better.
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If I was in your situation unable to get a pull at either end because of the wall I would do as you suggest and strain it into the middle. I've just done a similar piece of fence here.
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Put gripples in the middle easy to tighten any time
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but if you dont have a gripple tool they are very expensive!!!
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I tighten my stock fences by pulling them with the quadbike. And if I had them ending at walls, I'd pull them from the middle, as you describe. I'm sure that will work.
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You can tweak each horizontal with fencing pliers. Just put a kink in here and there.
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First I'd make sure that you have not 'hard stapled it' to any of the fence posts and that the fence is straight to the sky and not to the floor (ie not up and down attached to the floor, you can fill any gaps under in with stones after) - (its the fence from the stays either end that keeps the posts up in the middle - not the posts in the middle keeping the fence up if you get my meaning).
Tighten the fence in the 100M only ramming the staples in to a point where they 'grip' on posts designed to take/stop movement. No good hard stapling to every fence post , makes adjustment hard at a later date, if the stay post goes it pulls all the fence over etc etc
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there are handheld fence tighteners that are like a bar that pulls the wire tight, but a tractor is good aslong as your strainers are tight.