Setting Posts with the Tractor

I had some big posts to put up, so I used the tractor...

I was putting up the posts for the deer fence around our new garden in the back field.
Some of the posts were pretty big.

Usually, I use my post hole auger to put in posts. Our land is relatively rock free, mostly sand and clay. So the auger makes a neat hole as deep as I can go with the handle. I can do a little more than 40" with this bar. The bar can be threaded out of the of the head and an extension added. But the hole is only 8 - 12" in diameter. Not big enough for the posts I am working with.

I wanted a tall fence, about 8 feet to keep the deer out. I don't have any cedar on my land but I can get nice 8 foot cedar posts for as little as $6. But posts long enough for an eight foot fence start to get a little pricey, if I can get them at all. But I can cut over sized posts from my own land. And I can get them in any length I want. They might not last as long as cedar, but that's why I cut them over sized. I will use increased girth to make up for inadequate material.
With such big posts, I had to cheat and use the tractor to move them, set them and dig the holes. It was good practice with the backhoe, though. I got good at digging deep without making a wide hole. Some of the holes were as much as seven feet deep. I would get as deep as I could staying narrow with the backhoe and then finish with a shovel. Since I was still making a sizable hole, I put in a footer log at or near the bottom. That and a log buried close to the surface on the opposite side give the post extra resistance to tipping under the tension of the fence.

I like to make corner posts with an outrigger, horizontal and a diagonal brace in each direction the fence goes around the post. This kind of bracing can be done without the diagonal brace using a tension cable instead, but I prefer to use wood under compression.

I notched the posts and used 1/2" rebar to pin them. My goal is to make sure the diagonal brace starts out under compression before I string the fence. After I assembled the diagonal brace and attached the horizontal to the main post I used a crude windlass to winch the outrigger post into the notch of the horizontal. I cut the notch in the horizontal about 2" short so the outrigger is drawn in, putting the diagonal under compression.


It was fun working with these larger timbers. I got a lot of experience making notches with a chainsaw. But they were heavy enough that I had to figure out some mechanical helpers to help during assembly. Things like using the flat webbing to suspend the diagonal brace while I scribed the angle for the end cuts or fitted the pins.





Over all, I am happy with these corner posts. I learned a lot putting them up. They are different and significantly bigger than ones I have put up before. So there are plenty of things I did one way on the first one but learned to do better before I got to the last one. But the are all rock steady. Standing on top of one gives a nice view of the garden area. There is a lot of mass in the posts and I was careful to get them tight. Now I need to string the wire.