# Making homemade fence posts.



## TheTennesseeJew (Aug 17, 2015)

I'm new here so forgive me for being zealous. I've been posting everywhere.

Just a few tips I've learnt making fence posts. 

Cedar is ideally the best. It is naturally a bug repellent, which means less damage to the posts due to bugs and what not. 

However, on our property we do not have but two small cedars. So we use a lot of oaks. We lay them down and pretty much straddle it. Most people use a specific tool, I've now forgot the name, to shave off the bark. However, I use a Bowie Knife and it gets the job down. 

After the bark is shaved off, we set them up to dry. After a few weeks the are good to start setting up. 

The advantages of making your own posts is that the only thing you are paying for is the chainsaw oil and gas. Which is little to nothing. Also, you can use these posts for fence posts, or to build the shelters for you animals, we have even used them to build the four corners of our hunting blind. Plus the fact that you did it and after cutting you have made new lots available for fences for more animals. 

Most people after they have dried use various things to protect the wood from rotting. When we use products it is usually diesel to smear on to the post and a 45 degree cut at the top. 

I will post pics in the comments.


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## TheTennesseeJew (Aug 17, 2015)

This was the shaving process


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## Darren (May 10, 2002)

The best wood for posts bar none is osage orange also called hedge apple. In actual fence post tests, after 50 years when creosoted posts were showing the first signs of rot, the osage orange showed no signs of rot.


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## TnAndy (Sep 15, 2005)

Your posts will rot off in 5-10 years. Even locust isn't all that great. 

I pulled up some locust and some CCA treated 4x4's changing a section of fence around just yesterday. They had been in the ground since about 1990. The locust was pretty much gone, the wire was basically holding them in place..... the 4x4s looked like you'd planted them yesterday.


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## Snowfan (Nov 6, 2011)

Oak may not be the best wood for your fence posts, but I admire your ambition and enthusiasm. What you don't know, you'll learn. Nothing wrong with that. Keep going.
As far as osage orange goes, it makes great bows.


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## mtwolf (Jul 23, 2015)

TnAndy said:


> Your posts will rot off in 5-10 years. Even locust isn't all that great.
> 
> I pulled up some locust and some CCA treated 4x4's changing a section of fence around just yesterday. They had been in the ground since about 1990. The locust was pretty much gone, the wire was basically holding them in place..... the 4x4s looked like you'd planted them yesterday.


It really depends on the soil and the climate. On sandy soil with good drainage, you could get 20-30 years with the cedar, 15-20 with locust, 30-50 with the osage, 10-20 with oak. On heavy clay soils, your 5-10 may be accurate.

Some data to back this up: http://www.caes.uga.edu/departments/bae/extension/handbook/documents/fence post life.pdf


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## TheTennesseeJew (Aug 17, 2015)

Locust was what I was forgetting. We do not have much clay or sand on our property. And 5-10 years is great time when it's free? Worst thing that can happen is it rot and we replace it. Either way saved us money. Thank you for your input tho. It was very much appreciated and noted


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## jwal10 (Jun 5, 2010)

Oak lasts a long time here if you let it dry for 2 years and are cut from bigger trees. The sap wood can rot fairly quickly on small trees, used whole. There are a lot of old oak posts here 60-70 years old. I made a lot of them with a chainsaw, cut in 1/4s 50 years ago now, many need the wire reattached as the staples fell out, or baling wire has rusted away. Short 1" staples were hard to drive into the heart wood of the cut side, the wood has weathered and cracked. We found using short nails about the dia of a 16d common nail, driven under the wire, in a far as possible and bent up worked the best....James


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## TnAndy (Sep 15, 2005)

TheTennesseeJew said:


> Locust was what I was forgetting. We do not have much clay or sand on our property. And 5-10 years is great time when it's free? Worst thing that can happen is it rot and we replace it. Either way saved us money. Thank you for your input tho. It was very much appreciated and noted


All depends on your perspective, and what you are building. A hunting blind....sure...replace as needed, not a big deal.

I guess I look at a fence as a more long term deal. I don't want to have to be replacing it in 5-10 years, as they are a lot of work initially, and I'd hope for more like 'lifetime', even though repairs are needed from time to time. 

CCA treated posts are virtually lifetime in my experience, having pulled some to move fences when objectives/uses changed that have been in the ground 30 years, and look pretty much like the day they went in the ground. The top part tends to weather more than the inground part !

And being 'free' sometimes is false economy. Right now, you're spending your time, which seems free, but actually ISN'T as you have a limited amount of it (hard to believe that in your 20's, huh ?  ) on something you may have to spend more time doing again. 

I look back over the 33 years I've spent on this place at how many things I've done....and then re-done. Most of them were a case of an actual improvement, because at the time the former did the job, and later my needs changed, and so I re-did something. OR, often I simply didn't have the money, or time to invest at that period of my life, in 'doing it right'.....what I did would have to do for that time.

Case in point....my shop building. It was the first building on the place, built before we even moved onto the land. The idea was a dual purpose building, the lower level to be used as a shop for all the coming projects, the upper level was for storage. We'd be moving from a house in town to small trailer on the property while we built the new house, and needed a place to store stuff that simply wouldn't fit in the trailer for the year or two it took to build the house.

I poured a 24x36 slab, used the yellow pine cleared from the building site to make 6x6 posts using a chainsaw and Alaskan mill, and also cut my main beam, floor joists and rafters with the saw. Siding was 1x white pine I did buy at a local mill. Then entire building was built with a chainsaw as we didn't have power up there yet, and I didn't own a generator. 

The building worked well for it's purpose, but as my skills and needs grew, I realized it's limitations. One one thing, I'd put a normal 8' ceiling in it. Hard to work with a sheet of plywood or any length of lumber in that....I was forever knocking out a light ! And the space simply wasn't big enough.

SO, the time came (about 12 years down the road) when I tore much of the original building down, added 50 more feet to the slab, turned the roof 90 degrees to the original, and built a 35 (lost a foot in the end wall due to the new cinder block wall) x 75' building that is my present shop.....with 13' ceilings in the center part. And have grown to use almost every sq inch of it !

New shop about 1997:










Inside views:




















So I can certainly understand doing things you later hope to re-do better. Just watch you don't do TOO much of it, or you'll find yourself later not being able to add new things to your place because you're having to go back and fix too many old things. It's a balancing act, for sure.


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## wy_white_wolf (Oct 14, 2004)

There's enough fire burned areas around here that I cut 2 to 3 y.o. burned standing pine for posts. Barks burned off so don't need to peel and it's had a couple years to dry. Soak them in a barrel containing a copper naphthenate solution for about a week and then let dry before using. Haven't had one rot out on me yet.

WWW


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## fordy (Sep 13, 2003)

TheTennesseeJew said:


> I'm new here so forgive me for being zealous. I've been posting everywhere.
> 
> Just a few tips I've learnt making fence posts.
> 
> ...


 ..............IF , you want your fence to last longer than the life of the rotting wood posts , Build ALL your corner's and H-braces out of Steel pipe ! Most farm animals like to scratch their Butts on your fence , and will , over time , push it over . Unless you have enough sense to run a hot wire , INset about 6 feet to keep them off the fence . This also allows you to mow and\or do clean up to keep tree's and such out of your fence . , fordy


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## termite76 (Apr 3, 2015)

We capped the top of our oak posts with aluminum from pop cans cut at top and bottom. Laid flat over the top and overlapped in a t , fence stapled on the side.


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## kycrawler (Sep 18, 2011)

costs less to do the job once and be done with it . I use hedge posts I cut for free but we also drive new reject oil well pipe for posts . some of my cross fence I did use 10-12 inch dia cedar posts they are spaced 75 ft apart and would be easy to replace if one did rot off as they only hold up 2 strands of high tensile. around her your bare oak posts would last 5 years a hedge post will last 100.


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## bobp (Mar 4, 2014)

I've seen oak post and what they look like after 20 years. You would be advised to split them into halves or quarters and dry them first.

In our area you can generally find someone willing to give cedar away if you'll clean the brush up with it. Pile and burn as you go. You should split the cedar as well. 

And look up the Osage orange you should have some near you, also free mostly.


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## Snow Leopard (Oct 18, 2011)

Some of you mention driving posts (as opposed to auger and tamp, I guess). I'm wondering what you use for post drivers. 

The few post drivers I've seen are expensive and prone to breakdown, especially those that might work here. I'd love to rent a King Hitter with a hydraulic spike, but no one rents such things here and I cannot afford to buy.

My soil is usually wet half or more of the year in most places, rocky almost everywhere and has patches of clay. I'm currently thinking about hard steel galvanized t posts with the corners in concrete. I've several thousand feet of fence ahead of me and would rather not have to dig and tamp.


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## Evons hubby (Oct 3, 2005)

When we first bought the farm where we live now it needed new fencing around the whole place. I went to a local steel supply outfit and bought enough "salvage" steel (odd lengths new) at scrap price to build my own pounder. I spent about a week in the shop putting it together but it saved me a lot of back breaking work digging holes for the wood posts and driving the steel posts by hand. I used wood posts for all the corners then five steel and then another wood post for the straight sections. Hung 48" inch woven wire on that with a strand of barbed wire at the top. Never had any cows get out unless the neighbor kids left a gate open on their way to the swimming hole once in a while. That was early nineties and it's still a good fence.


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## fishhead (Jul 19, 2006)

It's more productive and easier on your back if you put the post on some kind of sawhorse or sawbuck to raise it to a more comfortable level.


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## 1911 (Dec 16, 2015)

I don't have any money, but I do have hundreds of locust and cedar. I only shave the bark where they go into the ground. After a year in the elements, the rest will peel right off. They may not last forever, but I don't mind doing the work.


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## mreynolds (Jan 1, 2015)

That's one nice shop Andy.


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## fishhead (Jul 19, 2006)

1911 said:


> I don't have any money, but I do have hundreds of locust and cedar. I only shave the bark where they go into the ground. After a year in the elements, the rest will peel right off. They may not last forever, but I don't mind doing the work.


I'm starting to take a different perspective. If I do something that will last 10 years it will mean that when it comes time to redo the project I will be 10 years older.

The tool to remove the bark is a draw knife.

One way to extend the life of a post might be to back fill with crushed rock. That would prevent the post being in contact with wet soil unless the hole is in clay and the water just fills the post hole.


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## texican (Oct 4, 2003)

Find yourself some post oak, least a foot thick, and split them.... let them dry for a while, and they'll out live you, even if you're a young pup.

My grandfather split post oak logs for fence posts, and I have a mile or so of fence, with those same posts, put in the ground in the fifties.... that are still hard as steel.


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## 1948CaseVAI (May 12, 2014)

TheTennesseeJew said:


> Locust was what I was forgetting. We do not have much clay or sand on our property. And 5-10 years is great time when it's free? Worst thing that can happen is it rot and we replace it. Either way saved us money. Thank you for your input tho. It was very much appreciated and noted


I wouldn't bother with a fence if it was only going to last 10 years. That's just me, but I would spend a bit more and get something that will last as long as I do, or pretty close.


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## Darren (May 10, 2002)

Doing fence posts and then forgetting about them for 50+ years has a lot going for it. The substance that renders osage orange rot proof by warding off fungi is tetrahydroxystilbene. An interesting fact is that it may also be an anti-cancer agent.


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## lindaharden (Jan 13, 2016)

TheTennesseeJew said:


> I'm new here so forgive me for being zealous. I've been posting everywhere.
> 
> Just a few tips I've learnt making fence posts.
> 
> ...



That's great making fences of wood is good, even wooden flooring in the house gives a great appearance to the whole interior. I have recently installed wooden planks for my home floors, just it needs to be maintained properly for which I have used a carpet on it, so that the shine is remained for a longer time, you can also check some carpets.


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