The FENCE POST

The Fence Post

The Fence Post page of this website will be where we are going to share some photos of some of our fences, some unique ideas and special uses of our products. It always amazes us when we are at customers farms and ranches, in that we see products being used in many different ways. Many of them make a lot of sense. So, this page is for sharing IDEAS about fencing and different ways of doing things on the fence line. We encourage you also to send us photos and descriptions of any unique ways of doing things. Send them to gary@powerflexfence.com. Thanks

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CLICK HERE FOR INFO ON POWERFLEX POSTS IN IRELAND

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From the back of my truck to yours !

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Lightning strikes

on Powerflex Posts

We have had a couple of calls lately about direct lightning strikes on Powerflex Posts. I have read that lightning bolts have been measured in excess of 5000 joules of power. Wow. Thats amazing, considering that the largest agricultural fence charger available in the US is only 36 joules in power. Below are a couple of photos of one post that I got to take some pictures of on Roger Jackson's farm near St. Joe Missouri. This strike happened earlier in the summer and the wire has been replaced, but Roger said that the coating on the hi-tensile wire was burned off for about 12 feet each side of the post. Additionally he said there was about 12 feet of wire completely missing as if it had been vaporized. He also said that there was a large burn mark on the ground at the base of the post and along where the wire was down. He said that he replaced the wire and did not see a need to replace the post. Not all such instances have happy endings.........but i was impressed with this one. gd

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Fence Voltage

Steve shared an observation with me the other day regarding voltage on his fences. He thinks that he is getting much less voltage drop during times of heavy vegitation or high moisture now that he is using insulated Powerflex Posts. He, like most of us, used to have a lot of steel t-posts with insulators on them. His observation was that when the grass, weeds and vines are in contact with the steel post - they are much more grounded than when in contact with an insulated post - thus less drain on the system. I thought that was an interesting observation and one that I hadn't considered in depth.

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Energizer Testing

A "real world" Woven Wire Fence

in our Demonstration Area

We have been doing some pretty intense "real world" evaluations on energizers lately. In our demonstration areas we have many miles of hi-tensile woven wire electrified on Powerflex posts. We intentionally leave them in a "real world" state - vegitation is controlled primarily by grazing only. No chemicals or weed eating. David has been testing a wide range of energizers to see which ones work best on this system. He has a panel set up in which we can switch leads to evaluate different energizers - side by side on the same real world fence. Recently we had opportunity to have an engineer here from one of the top 3 US energizer manufacturers. He, as well as ourselves, wanted to see how his units performed in our grouping of energizers. He came equipped with oscilloscopes, meters and etc. Now, this can get confusing real quick - what are the most important factors to evaluate. From a livestock producers stand point, and to keep it remotely simple ......we, look at voltage. Where is the voltage in late afternoon when the grass is dry and where is it early in the morning with very heavy dew, or where is the fence voltage during a heavy rain ???

Some things we learned:

There is no international standard to compare energizers that are made in different countries. For example, we are told that in New Zealand they perform most of their testing with a 500 ohm fence load (which would be an average fence with some loading). However in Europe they use a 5000 ohm load (which is more of a laboratory setting with no vegetation load). The engineer took some readings with his meters and estimated that our demo fence had about a 200 ohm load, which is pretty heavy with the woven wire down in the grass. Really heavy loads can sometimes be in the 100 or 50 ohm area. (Note:The higher the number = less load, and the smaller the number = greater load and resistance.)
So, we learned that the joule ratings can be misleading, depending on the criteria that they were tested upon.
We also learned that most manufacturers send their units to Underwriters Laboratories to get a "UL Listing" for most of the smaller units that you will find on most farm store shelves. In order to get this UL stamp of approval the pulses have to be designed to meet certain criteria that UL deems important. That criteria seems to us, to relate more directly to safety and insurance rather than performance on the farm. We as livestock producers however are more concerned with performance on our fence.
We learned that some put out a constant amount of power. And, we learned that some of the more hi tech energizers work on a "Power on Demand" or "Ramping" design. With these units, the energizer may have a series of capacitates in which when the fence load increases, the energizer senses this and kicks in another capacitator (and so on), thus putting out more power and increasing the joules it puts out. This is helpful for those wet dewy mornings.
Joules: This will be a forever debatable subject depending upon the testing that was done and under what criteria. A debate about joules usually is a no win argument resulting in confusion. Then, additionally, there are stored joules and output joules. You need both, but the labeling on most energizer boxes can be misleading to the consumer.
We have discovered that if you put 4 different brands of energizers of the same joule rating on the same fence - that your actual effective voltage readings may vary as much as 4000 volts from one brand to another.
Conclusion: No matter how we look at it – voltage is important to us. Disregarding joules and brand, we feel comfortable with 6000 to 9000 volts; 10,000 volts make us smile; 5000 volts we can live with; but 4000 or less gets us worried. We feel, from our testing, that output joules are important – it is the power that pushes the pulse down the fence-line and through the vegetation. We are not going to publish a list of brands and our findings, however, if you call us we will be happy to share and discuss our test results and help you choose an energizer that we feel you will be happy with. You may notice that we have changed our offerings of energizers. The ones that we now offer are the ones that we have high confidence in.

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I've had a lot of calls the past couple of months about fence voltage - how much should we have. Here in the midwest we have had a pretty wet spring (and we are grateful), so an average fence has a fairly healthy load of vegetation on it. We have talked about voltage many times and there is no cut and dry answer, but I have just posted a new article about Fence Voltage in our How To section.

CLICK HERE

TO READ ABOUT "FENCE VOLTAGE - HOW MUCH DO WE NEED"

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MATERIAL PRICES ?!xO#@

Say what ? How much ? Are you serious ? Hey, we are just like everyone else. Seems like everything we need or want has gone up in price drastically, especially over the past year. Groceries, fuel, taxes, freight, steel, plastics.....about everything. Its been hard just to keep up with current prices. There's an election in the near horizon - making things even more uncertain. Some sectors of agriculture and more specificately livestock production have preached some doom and gloom. I think I am happy that we are involved in the grass & grazing sector of agriculture. It is an area, in which you may still have some control of your input costs. By better managing your grass/forage and becoming a better utilizer of your resources you WILL weather the storm and be all that much better off once the storm has passed. And, even though, the cost of fencing has gone up in cost - we feel that hi-tensile fencing is the best money you can spend when you consider all the alternatives. You can still put up a single strand of hi-tensile wire on Powerflex Posts for around 15 cents per foot - thats $198 per quarter mile and compares to around $850+ for 4 strands of barbed wire on steel t-posts. If you are from the old school and havent yet discovered hi-tensile electric wire and Powerflex Posts - you need to do the math............

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Hanging Reels on PowerFlex Posts

This picture comes from Micheal Bottom near Cuba, MO. This is how he hangs his O'Brien Geared Reels on a Powerflex Post for temporary cross fencing or strip grazing. He uses a simple U-bolt that you can buy at any hardware store for $1 or less. His system is in a river bottom with lots of deer traffic. He uses Coated HotCote wire for the top strand with 1 strand of hi-tensile wire below. The HotCote gives this fence a lot of visibility. He notes that he is getting along great with the O'Brien Reels and 9 strand SS Polybraid.

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A few more uses for Powerflex Posts

It seems that the prime times for me to be working on my own fence is before work, after work or on the weekends. One thing that I usually have with me are a few extra Powerflex Posts. I have experimented with these posts as much out of neccesity as anything else but I have come across several ways to use this product for lots of different needs and/or repair situations.

In this photo below, I needed an insulator for attaching some 12.5 gauge hi-tensile wire to a tree. I personally don't like to screw an insulator to a tree, as we all know the insulator will eventually become grown into the tree. Normally I screw on a board, then mount an insulator to the board. Well, I didn't have any boards. But, I did have some powerflex posts. So, I cut off a 12" piece of post (which is an insulator itself) screwed that to the tree at top and bottom. I cut a "V" notch in the post, then drove a barbed staple over that. I am going to watch this over the years, but dont see why it won't last longer than an insulator. I have used this idea many times, and none have failed yet.

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Man, we have a lot of trees here in Missouri ! Pictured below is a Powerflex Post used at another tree. This fence has 7 strands of hi-tensile wire on it for goats. It was a quick job to drive a post and attach the wire. I used a short length of post at the top to space it out from the tree, and give me room to bend the cotter pins back to the front of the post.

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Below is an illustration of using a PowerFlex post for a corner. I am "NOT" recommending that you do this. I just want to let you know that I am experimenting with the idea. Some day I think we may have a larger diameter post that will be stiff enough to pull wire off of. (and when we do - I will let the world know) What I needed, in the photo below, was of a temporary nature and has actually worked extremely well. I do love the idea of an insulated end post ! I needed an end post for 1 strand of HT wire, with a gateway to the left at 90 degrees. What I did was drive a 1-5/8" x 60" post into the ground then cut a couple of 1-1/4" posts for braces. I used some metal utility straping ( the kind you can get at most good hardware stores) that had holes pre-punched in it. I used that to attach the angle braces to the upright end post. I secured it with some galvanized deck screws. I placed the bottom of the braces on some composite boards ( or a flat rock would work), to keep them from pulling down into the ground. I ran a piece of HT wire from the end post to the bottom of the braces and secured that with a Gripple. The brace piece was positioned where the single strand fence wire connected to the end post, so the bracing kept the end post from bending. I then tensioned the Gripple which plumed the upright post. This is the same principle as any floating brace assembly. It works on a single strand fence but would not with multiple strands unless you used a brace post at each wire pressure point. If you over tension you will also begin to bend the angle braces. A 1-5/8" angle brace would be better for this. So, if you have a short term need for this - give it a try. If it is permanent or long term - then a traditional wood post would be recommended. Note that the gateway is of Bungy Rope. I have three gateways here and can direct animal traffic three ways from this post.

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Removing PowerFlex Posts ?

I have had reason lately to remove some PowerFlex Posts that had been in the ground for about a year. These were mainly 60" posts that were in the ground about 12" to 16". There were also a few 1-5/8" X 72" posts that were in the ground about 22". They were used in a semi-permanent fence that I expected to be moving at a latter date. The bulk of the line posts were 1/2" fiberglass and they pulled easily, one handed. But the PowerFlex Posts were a different story. There were all 3 diameters used and they can be pulled, but they held the ground good. If you have a post puller it may be just as easy as the way I did it (heaven forbid that I have the right tool with me at all times), but I thought I would pass this on to you. What I have discovered that works well is to use a good pair of channel locks. Get a good bite on the post - down near the base, and give it a few turns. I guess that a pipe wrench would work well also. Once you break it loose from the sidewall of the hole, then you can turn it - while pulling upward.

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Got rock or hard soil and having a hard time

getting your line posts installed ?

I just put in over 200 of our 1-5/8" x 72" Powerflex posts this past year on some leased land. The owner of the property wanted 7 strands of hi-tensile wire with the top one being 48" above ground and goat proof. I traded out the fencing & labor for 5 years of grass. The job came out great and looks wonderful, but I gotta admit - that at 56 years old, I don't enjoy banging on post drivers as much as I used to. On that project I used one of our pilot drivers. We encountered plenty of Ozark rock in several places but got a full depth of 20" on most all posts. By the time I got to the last quarter mile, I was out of friends and relatives and my wife was even avoiding me !

Anyway, as a result of sore shoulders, aching wrists and lost relatives, it got me to thinking of a better and easier way to do this. We have installed our Powerflex posts in many ways and have gotten great feedback from our customers on how they are installing our posts. Generally they can be driven with a standard manual post driver however, some people have rigged up all sorts of apparatus to push them in with loaders and hydraulic drivers. Most involve a pipe sleeve to keep the posts straight and from flexing. I always say - what works best for YOU is the best way. I was at the Missouri Livestock Symposium in Kirksville, MO this past weekend and one of my customers, Albert Zentz from Herdland MO, brought in a neat driver he had made for putting in his posts. It involved a sleeve with a solid steel ramrod on top that he used to push in posts with his loader bucket. He said it worked great. It had an extended long side handle on it. He has his wife help him and she holds the handle, keeping the post straight. He operates the bucket. Wow, his wife helps him !

Anyway back to my original story here.......pictured above is me with a Bosch Rotary Hammer Drill. I spent quite a bit of effort deciding on which drill would work best and be most reliable for drilling pilot holes for our Powerflex post. After locating the Bosch rep in St Louis he was most helpful in bringing some tools and doing some demo's with me. After talking to several large construction rental business's it seemed that Bosch made the best and most durable of all rotary hammer tools and with less maintenance. Bosch also set us up with the bit sizes we needed for our post sizes. I've been using it and evaluating it. I loaned out a couple to customers and contractors to give me feedback on them. They are now buying them ! One had a creek crossing to build a fence across that was solid slab rock. He doubted that he could drill this particular type of rock - I wagered that he could - he just called back yesterday, saying that it had worked great and that he will be buying one. My original intention was to find a tool that would help out in extremely dry and hard ground. To be able to drill solid rock is just a plus. I think this tool can cut your line post time down to 1/2 - and be much less fatiquing on your body ! To read more about this tool CLICK HERE I think he price is right on this, but if you would like to try one out, they can be rented from most larger construction rental businesses for around $40 a day. For local people we will be happy to rent you one at our store, but I havent decided if we want to be shipping tool rentals all over the country. If you get your corners & guide wires in place and ready to start installing line posts - this tool will allow you to put a lot of posts up in a day ! We also have a ground rod driver attachment. The tool will operate in two modes - Rotate & Hammer or Hammer only. To install ground rods, just snap in the ground rod driver attachment - switch to Hammer Only, and drive your rods.

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Hi-tensile in-line splices

This above photo is an in-line splice of two pieces of 12.5 gauge hi-tensile wire. One of our fence contractors, Terry Maughan from New Zealand, showed me this. I've started using it and it really makes a lot of sense. It is smooth and snag free and looks great, plus so easy to do. You should use a C2L or long crimp, and leave about a foot of wire past the crimp. Go ahead and take two crimp bites on the sleeve, then leave the crimp tool attached to the crimp in the closed position. This give you the leverage to hand tie (twist) the wire. Start the twist, then bend a handle in the wire and wrap with a reverse twist to break the wire off.

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It's not the size of the dog in the fight –

it's the size of the fight in the dog. (Mark Twain)

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I was at a customer's place a while back and saw this

Cedar tree. Quite impressive. Its on the farm of

Don (left) and Lee Ford near Afton, Oklahoma.

(Note: I was sorry to hear that this tree has been struck by

lightning. I will be deliverying an 8' tire tank to Don this week.

So, I will try to get a picture of it.

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Twitch sticks & Stand offs

Using a cut piece of a PowerFlex Post for a twitch stick on your brace wire for your "H" braces makes a lot of sense for electric fencing. For one thing it is insulated, so you won't have a problem with your electric wires shorting out against it. It is easy to handle and will never rot or rust.

When using a standoff Bracket insulator - that puts the hot wire out about 10" from the fence - you usually have to accommodate the transition from center of the end post to your first stand off bracket. It usually puts a lot of pressure on the first bracket. If you have an "H" brace corner, you can cut off an 8" to 10" length of PowerFlex Post and mount it to your brace post. Take a spade bit or auger bit and drill a hole the size of your post material, and drive it into the hole. Cut a kerf in the end for the wire to rest into. Its insulated and very rigid in short lengths. You could use a cotter pin to attach the wire, but the saw kerf seems to work quite well for us. I noticed the other day that a neighbor is using this idea on trees that are in his fence-line. He says it is working very well and makes dealing with the trees easy.

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Crimping 101

I was at a customer's farm recently looking at some of the fencing he had put up. It looked great with the exception of his crimps. It was his first adventure with hi-tensile wire and he just didn't know better. So here is a basic illustration of how to load the crimp into the tool. In the photo above, this is a C2L crimp. The crimp sleeve needs to stand upright in the slot as shown - not flat. You use the corresponding slot in the tool. ie: a C23 or C2L uses the 2-3 slot. The photo below shows the crimp sleeve after it has been crimped.

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Using Hi-Tensile wire on "H" Braces

Pictured below is a standard H brace set up. This one is a 7 strand hi-tensile - goat proof fence. The H bracing is probably the most common brace system that you see as you drive down the road. Usually they are done right, sometimes you notice that the brace wire was put in wrong or not twitched up tight enough. Typically most people buy 8,9 or 10 gauge brace wire, that is somewhat of a soft steel nature. It stretches and some think that it continues to stretch through out its life. Why not use 12.5 ga hi-tensile wire for your cross brace. You can install a good tensioner and crank it up tight enough to creak the wood, which is what you want.

Use one length of 12.5 gauge hi-tensile wire. Either cut a groove in your post for the wire rest in or attach a barbed staple to run the wire through. (don't drive the staple in all the way.) Then as pictured below, install a tensioner.

After you crank up the tensioner, you may feel like you would like to get it just a fuzz tighter. I have a couple ideas below for that final tensioning. It will also bring your wires together in the center of the posts and keep it away from your electrified hot wires

In the photo above (and preferred) is a simple chain repair link, that you can purchase at most hardware stores. These are quite strong and available in several different sizes. You don't really need a large one. They usually cost less than 50 cents. You attach this by your tensioner just prior to tensioning the tensioner. Turn it flat and pass it through both wires, then turn it upright to capture the second wire. This may make you scratch your head the first time, but it works well. Now tension up the tensioner as much as you can. The last step is to push the link out towards the post. You can do this by squeezing the wires together up to a point, then you can get just a little more with a screwdriver between the wires and tap it out snug. It will be like a banjo string. The picture below illustrates how to make a similar one out of hi-tensile wire and a crimp. Just bend the wire into a U and cut it long enough to get a crimp sleeve on it. You will end up with a V on the crimp side, and it wants to grasp the wire, but still works if you don't have any chain links.

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Corner & End Braces

Floating Braces have been around a long time and are very useful and strong for electric fencing. In a corner situation it means that you dig one hole rather than 3 for an "H" brace. The only problem that we have seen with them is when people use too short of an angle brace. On a 5 strand fence, an 8' angle brace seems to work really well. It should be attached to the upright post at about the 2/3rd point and pinned. The bottom of the angle brace should be set on a paver or flat rock to make sure it isn't pulled into the ground over the years. Use hi-tensile wire and a tensioner at the bottom to pull it tight to the post. If it ever does want to lean, you can re-tension and straighten up your corner or end. Insulators can be used on the hot wires where they pass by the brace member.

For a step by step guide about building a floating brace

by Jim Gerrish, in our How-2 Section

CLICK HERE

In this photo we have lots of things going on. Its a work in progress. There is a pond on the left that is getting fenced out of a native grass planting. We are using hair sheep this spring to strip graze this area to help control the weeds. There are about 160 acres of new native grass in this planting. The sheep will come off when the natives start to grow.

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Netting

Polynetting works great for portable fencing needs for sheep and goats. We are moving the sheep about 20 feet twice daily - each morning and evening. We are hopeful that the competition from weeds to the native grass is being helpful - plus it's great grazing for the sheep.

Yep, one got thru in the moving process. Of course, David is not a fast as he once was !

Call us about Portable Netting 1-417-741-1230

Our new 5-39-24 hi-tensile woven wire on Black PowerFlex Posts.

A good cattle fence choice.

This photo shows a Goat Gate, using Hi-tensile woven wire and Powerflex Posts. Its a homemade arrangement in the fashion of the old time gap gate with wire hoops to hold the gate end posts in position. Since the PowerFlex end posts are insulated, we are electrifing the woven wire with a jumper lead from the adjacent power fence. Just disconnect the jumper and your gate is neutral and easy to handle. We have also made some similar gates using multiple strands of bungy rope for goat & sheep gates.

In-Line tensioners for Hi-Tensile woven wire ? We have tried many different ways to tension woven wire. This one works quite well. The traditional way is with bar clamps with wedges and chain grab tensioners. But, sometimes for a small producer its hard to justify the price of the tools. So, this is just an option if you only have a few rolls to put up. We have also used Gripples and daisy tensioners successfully. Note: you may have to remove some vertical stays.

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Say hello to "Clifford". He is the lead steer for Steve & Judy Freeman in their grazing system. He is a huge steer that has been through the grazing paddock system many times.......he takes the time to teach new calves where to go. He's the boss and all the other calves just naturally trust and follow him. Where Clifford goes - so go's the herd.

Steve & Clifford

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Below are a couple photos of the 1-5/8" Bull Post on the Allen Williman Farm. Allen is a fence contractor and customer. This fence follows a curvey country road. Allen used wood Hedge posts for all the transitions and about 30' line post spacings. It makes for a nice looking fence system. There are 4 strands of 180K hi-tensile wire and the system is powered by a Stafix M20R with a remote control.

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Sometimes the best use of a fence post

is something to lean on

while watching a pretty sunset & cattle grazing.

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