Got a fence building question

[Wampuscat]

I'm going to put up a 4' tall 3 or 4 panel (true 1x6 corral board) wood fence around our 3 acres. Its 485' deep and 270' wide along the road. I'm having 2 electric gates installed in the next few weeks and then will start on fencing. I want to use 6x6-8 ($26.50) treated posts along the front (road) side and 4x4 ($7.30) treated posts for the rest. I was thinking about using railroad ties ($22) for the front posts, but got to re-thinking it with concerns about splits in some of the ties, and not getting good nail/screw bites. I like the look though.

That was the lead in, now the question. I'm wanting to have about a 30* angle from the fence that's parallel to the road where it goes in front of the gate posts. How would you attach the 1x6 corral board to the 6x6 post so its got a good bite and no bow? It'll only be a 6' to 8' section of fence. I've thought of chiseling out the 6x6 and setting the corral board into the 6x6. I've also thought about heating some 2" angle iron and hammering it from a 90* to a 30* and lag bolting the corral board through it into the 6x6 post.

I want the road side 30* corner post to be in line with the rest of the fence line posts. There's probably a much easier answer to this that I'm overlooking. Any ideas?

[texan4ut]

You could use heavy duty gate hinges. Attach like you would a gate then angle to 30 degrees and fasten to the other posts. Just a thought.

[dpatterson1976]

I assume you are talking about a square 6x6 post set parallel with the front fence.

You could rip a round post in half and lag it to the 6x6 then tie your corral board to that? Still have the same look and attaches the same as the rest of the fence.

[Wampuscat]

I assume you are talking about a square 6x6 post set parallel with the front fence.

You could rip a round post in half and lag it to the 6x6 then tie your corral board to that? Still have the same look and attaches the same as the rest of the fence.

That's an idea

[TexMax]

Are all these things square or just the gate

[Wampuscat]

All the posts are square. I was just in a hurry drawing the pic

[Chunky]

I don't have an angle answer for you, but will comment on the RR tie part.

I built a bunch of barbed wire fence, and a working cattle pen about with both RR ties and treated lumber. Within about 15 years, give or take, all the RR ties were rotten and you could push them over by hand breaking off at ground level. The treated lumber was still solid. So, I will not use the ties again, even thought 15 years would probably last the rest of my ranch time. I thought that they would last much longer.

I am not sure I would use the 4X4's. I know it would be considerately more expensive, but for look and stability, I would try and swing 4x6's for your side posts. Wide side toward the fence obviously.

Best of luck with your project.

[Hillary]

A treated round post would solve your headache.

[Wampuscat]

Replacing the 4x4-8 with 4x6-8 posts adds $1400 to the cost. Adds $1100 if I replace both 4x4-8 and 6x6-8 with 4x6-8.

[Wampuscat]

A treated round post would solve your headache.

Its all about the appearance.

[txfireguy2003]

Got a table saw? Buy one extra post, same size as the corner post where you want the angle. Set your table saw (a skill saw would work as well, if you have the skills) to the 30 degree angle you want and rip the post all the way down. Unless you have a really big saw, you'll have to flip the post and hit it from the other side to complete the cut. If you do it right, you'll end up with two identical 8 foot posts with that angle on them. Then attach them to the original corners (before setting them in the ground) with whatever method you choose, lags, long deck screws, wood glue, whatever. Then set your custom post and attach your fence boards.

If it were me, I might even run one side of the post and one side of the angle piece through a planer so they were perfectly flat, then use dowels and glue so the finished product looks like one piece of wood. Whatever you do, I'd do everything I could to hide how I attached the two pieces of wood together, just to make it look clean. Like, use lag bolts, but run them in where the fence boards will cover them and countersink the heads into the post.

[txfireguy2003]

Something like this:



Or, if you didn't want it to look so wide, you could adjust your cut so that the top of the angle hits right at the corner of the post, but I'd be afraid of that sharp corner splitting and looking bad, plus it would make you cut it twice (actually 4 times since you'll have to flip it to cut all the way through unless you have a really big saw). You could also cut off part of the original post to make it narrower, do you maintain the strength of both pieces, but you're still making more cuts.