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Medium Picket Fence |
Years ago (like about seven years ago in May 2002), we built a Little Picket Fence. This fence, now seen in several project shots (Garage, Driveway, Walkways) has been made and remade several times. But the basic design is timeless - timeless enough for me to reuse its design in the Medium Picket Fence. The latter extends from the house's west side to the little shed. Its supposed to keep Buster separated from the real world and replaces the e-Fence (electric fence). |
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| The lay of the land before the fence. You can make out the e-Fence posts that have been there for five or six years. You can also see the roof of an interloper's house. |  |
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Here are a couple of set posts. These are the gate posts next to the house stairs. Another post goes next to the stair post to the left. The flat rocks and trash all go away at some point. | ||
| These are tool used for building fences. There is the EF-3 Backhoe, the International 574 tractor, and the G-Cart with modified rear load deck. Each has their own unique role to play. |  |
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This post is in concrete. I hit rock 10" below the surface. Its an 8' post. So 7'2" is above the ground and 10" is below. So the concrete is about two feet in diameter. It turned out medium (sort of loose). | ||
| Here are some more tools of the trade. These require muscle instead of diesel. They're still pretty handy. Hard to get a gas powered tape measure. Diesel sledges are not only expensive, they are dangerous. |  |
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All the posts stuck in the ground (except for two - had to go get some more). Note the little green level thing. That was handy. Also note the string for setting the line. Finally, note the e-Fence poles behind the new fence. | ||
| Here's the Picket Line (manufacturing line). Its my picket jig. This one cuts them to length - 42". First two at a time come off the dump truck and get the label end cut off. Then they get cut to 42", leaving another 52" or so. They get cut to length, with the excess going into the trash. |  |
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The giant pile of pickets cut to length. Now, I turn the jig around and add a piece to the fence and measure and clamp and test till I screw up a few and then get it right. | ||
| After the whole pile gets cut to length, the jig gets turned around and the points are put on. It took all day to cut the 187 pickets (first to length and then points). A giant storm was coming up and I had to finish so that I wouldn't have to rebuild my jig. Thankfully, the family pitched in. |  |
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Here's how the pickets got home. They started at 1x4 x 8' boards in that back of the dump truck. Note the new tail gate flipped up top. | ||
| Day Final (for me). After renting that little orange nail blaster and going back and forth to get nails, I put those pickets on in about an hour. Hardest part is getting the slope right and trimming the bottoms. |  |
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The G-Cart with the compressor works fine, except I need a long extension corde. Finishing up the gate next to the house. My work is done in May 2009. | ||
| Now, the laborer's work starts. She primed the whole thing, front and back. We tried the sprayer and compressor - there are an awful lot of adjustments for that. Here she uses the tried and true method - brush. Note she's painting the final coat (white) over the primer (white). This was in September 2009, |  |
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