Good job Evan and Rebecca, the fencing looks good and the animals will love the extra areas to roam. It’s looking better around there every day.👍👍👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
Nice lookin fence, infrastructure is key to a successful homestead. Enjoyed watching your video, thanks for sharing. I just subscribed to your channel this morning. So thankful to be a part of the homesteading community. Pastor Lon Howle watching from South Carolina 👍🏻👍🏻🇺🇸🇺🇸 Harmony Acres Homestead
Evan, If you have double action cylinders on your front end loader, you may be able to use a home made bucket attachment or chain hook to push in the T posts.
A quick and relatively cheap way to get the post driver to do more of the work is to weld on some weights on the top of the driver. You'd be surprised what an extra 5-10lbs of weight will do to those T posts even in hard ground. Dad built his own in the foundry out of schedule 80 cast pipe and a couple blocks of pig iron. He didn't add any handles, but that pipe was heavy enough to drive the posts without having to throw it down. However, it is harder to lift, especially with your 7' posts. We mostly used them to hold hog fence panels and so used shorter posts that ended up only about 4' out of the ground. We drove those posts in hard enough to curl the tops quite a bit. He also used the same driver to drive in a 2" diameter well pipe for Grandma, but that was before I was tall enough to lift it. To the many commenters below who suggest using the tractor bucket, many smaller tractors only have power to the lift cylinders, and depend on the bucket and arm weight to lower it. If the ground is as hard as described, it may not be any more efficient than the hand powered driver. I don't know if that's the case here, but it is common for both older and smaller loader tractors to have power in only one direction.
Don't know if you had thought of it but, you could drive the tractor down to the far end then roll off a bit of fence and hook it to the post ,then back the tractor back up to the other post unrolling the fence as you go. Saves having to pull it by hand. Also you can push the t-posts into the ground with the bucket on the front end loader. Put the bottom of the bucket on top of the post and just lower the bucket. Also you can remove old post with the loader too.
If you weld some extra weight to your post driver, it will pound the posts faster. We have a homemade one that has been on the farm for 70 years. It has an extra 15 lb weight welded to the top. Can usually drive a post in 3 hits.
The fence looked great , I'm sure you appreciate that gripple tool. Nice to have an extra pair of hands. Thing about it with your wife taking part you both can appreciate the satisfaction of a job well done and the pride!
I'd like to think you may be able to use the tractor bucket to drive posts and when running out the ring-lock wire just tie it off at the beginning and reverse the tractor along the line, would save you dragging the wire by hand..love the show and think you are doing a great job..best wishes
Best way to join 2 pieces of fence together is with a 1/2 inch piece of galvanized pipe. It's a lot stronger than just tying the fence onto itself. Plus if the fence is tight those gripple things wont hold it.
Lol I often use the front loader bucket to drive the metal Tposts. I start the post in the ground enough to hold itself in place. I then place a cap on top of the post that I made to spread the surface area of applied pressure so the post wont press through my bucket. The cap is just a metal pipe cap with a piece of flat steel welded on top, It's aprox 8x8 inches. It was just a piece of scrap I found lying around. You can start several post so you can push alot at one time before stopping. Hope this helps
If you have a bucket on your tractor secure a big block of wood to the underside of it and drill out a shallow 2" hole so you can lift the bucket and bring it down on top of the "T" post and center it in the hole so you can push the post into the ground. They hace a machine that does it but the tractor might work and save your muscles.
JudithB I used to put in steel posts like that, but now my son has to do it! I can put them in and pound them, but I cant get the pounder off the post anymore or have to get a ladder!! Oh well, I can still do part of it at least!! LOL Looks good except for the joint which is big enough for a goat to get through.
I like your idea with the conduit and chain through the roll of fence. I was trying to think of a cheap solution and now I believe I’ll just borrow yours.
Fantastic looking job. You guys never cease to amaze me with the projects you take on. Before you take on a bigger fence project, I suggest a hand-held T-post driver that attaches to the hydraulic lines on your tractor. They are several hundreds of dollars, but you could get so much more done. You may even be able to rent something in your area. Keep up the great videos.
I am finally caught up. Excellent work! One tip that I use, when wrapping the ends of the field fence around a pole, use a small boxed end wrench to help wrap it. I keep a couple 8mm wrenches for just that purpose, it saves your fingers and hands from wearing out too fast.
Great job on the fences. Love that spool dispenser thingy that you and Rebecca used tp roll our the barb wire. That was a great way to handle the scratchy stuff. The goats seemed to be happy with their expanded surroundings. Have a Blessed day. Hope the next set of posts won't be so difficult'
Why not try using the tractor bucket to push the t-posts into the ground. It would be cheaper than renting a powered one and you wouldn't have so much physical work with your hands hurting from the blisters. My brother use to do it all the time. It works really well. You have to go slow as the post can be tricky to keep straight sometimes, but it is a whole lot better than pounding them in by hand. Thanks for the great video. I have really enjoyed all your videos. I am really glad that I found your channel.
Tighter please More cost but tornado high tensile fence is king. The fixed knot it %100 better than the hinge joint. And will shine with the dips you have coming. If your all ready using gripples it's less work. But it's gotta be way tighter.
Nice Job Evan and Rebecca! That fencing looks like fun lol. We are getting ready to start fencing 10 acres separated into 2 acre paddocks for the horses it’s gonna be interesting!
Last time we made a new fence at the farm, it was after a lot of rain, it took 2 bands with the donger and the pegs were in too LOW. had TO LFT THEM UP A BIT
Couple of things I would recommend for you; First thing would save your Gripples on that splice by simply connecting the fencing together before hand with a hand splice and then stretching from there. It controls the gap, would save the cost of the Gripples and probably reduce a little waste. I would also recommend a fence twisting tool. Doesn't sound all the necessary, but besides how tightly they can twist a wire (looks good!) they can help save your hands when you get a few more miles under your belt and start getting arthritis in your hands. They are cheap too. My first thought when you started with the t-posts was wondering how much things had softened up. I guess not much. Lol. Looks good.
@@corydriver7634 My stretcher consists of two 48" long 2x4's, a half doz. bolts, a couple of chains, a come-along and my tractor bumper. I am not sure what I would do if I had a dedicated stretcher for field fencing. Lol
@@chrism.2231 if you had a steel fence stretcher bar with the drive in wedges to hold the wire in place you would throw those 2x4's in the scrap pile.....thats what i done when i got mine, one of the best investments for fencing i have made...
Those clips on the bottom needed to be clamped on tighter. Do you tie off each corner? Thats not really necessary - you can roll fence around the outside, then come back to the inside for the rest of the fence. Thats how we did ours. I had to teach the crew how to do that- they had never seen it before, but it saves time and splicing.
Tip: put a broom handle through the centre of your field fence roll and then the two of you can walk with it, one on each end of the broom handle, to unroll it.
I am going to try to rig up my T post driver to my loader attachment on my tractor to try and push the T post into the ground. Mine is hard as well. We will see.
Yes if you have down pressure you could take a piece of pipe, bolt it to the bucket so post won't slip around. Or slot it on one side to put the post in , make it the length you want out of ground . Weld a strap to bolt to the loader bucket.it should hang straight down and give you a consistent depth .or just use the bottom of the bucket. My brother N law picked up a pneumatic driver at auction ,has to have a gas powered air compressor (rent one) but one person can use it just get it started straight then step back till correct depth!!! Slick !!. Posts are the hardest.
Pushing in posts with the tractor bucket bends them. The ground is too resistant to steady pressure. Impacting drivers overcome that resistance with sudden, rapid applications of force. It's like a magician pulling a tablecloth out from under a dinner setting, a steady pull (or push) ruins things but a rapid snatch (or impact) is like magic.
@@mwilliamshs yes but you don’t “push” them in if there is any resistance. You then use the bucket as a driver and tap them with the loader bucket. Sometimes they go in easy. Sometimes you get 1-2 inches each hit.
Look up Redbrand videos on fence installs. Those Gripples are nice, but Redbrand shows you how to dead head the H brace to build tension in the fence run. Resist the urge to stretch runs with the tractor. This does not build tension in one of your H braces and the fence will be loose . Of course that was learned on my farm the hard way😁! Great video. Oh and goats are tough on ANY fence!!😁
Have you tried to push posts into the ground with bucket of your loader? I do it everytime and it works fine, but I use wooden posts. Just an idea. Btw I love your videos. Greetings from Slovakia :D
Hello. We enjoy watching your channel very much. We are in the process of buying a small farm. I was wondering where you bought or ordered that fence stretching tool?
Most definitely. We usually have a few thousand feet to do when we put down post so that is soooo much faster and easier. We also run our top strand of wire so you have the top to keep the post level (sight wise)
