My fence needs some half-round fence rails (not split rails)
I can buy 8' posts but they are treated and the lumberyard doesnt' want to split them.
Can I do it myself without getting sick from arsenic poisoning?
They are 4" in diameter. Will a table saw cut that deep?
What about a recirprocating saw, a Sawzall. Any chance I can cut the whole 8 feet? Without burning out the motor. And splitting down the middle, rather than one half being much thicker than the other. My version is from Harbor Freight but I suppose I can buy a good one if it burns out.
Right now I need to split 2 or 3, but there will be more in the future. I think the fence has about 30 sections, 2 rails for each.
Any other helpful suggestions?
They used to have these in stock at Lowes. I bought a couple and if I'd known they would stop selling them, I would have stocked up. Now it seems no one sells them. 8 foot, half round, 4" diameter fence rails or non-treated posts.
The ones that get plenty of sun still have 20 or 30 more years left in them, but the amount of shade is growing.
I'd use my bandsaw. If you know anyone that has one, that is first choice. Tablesaw won't do it unless you flip it over and make a second pass. Could get tricky handling them though. Recip saw should handle it.
If you want to cut these on a table saw you need to make 2 passes The easiest way is to screw a 1x board, ripped to the diameter of the round on the side of the round piece to stabilize it, run it one way against the fence. Then flip it over and run it again. The "joint"where the saw cuts meet won't be that bad if your guide board is straight. Even though "arsenic" PT lumber is not generally available these days I would still wear a respirator grade mask and wash up well afterward.. Also be aware, "PT" lumber is not treated very deep (depending on the grade) so the center of your posts are not PT.
That chain is not as far as it might be. It's south of Pittsburgh and i live in Baltimore. Maybe I can come up with annother good reason to go there, although if it starts to rain on the way back, I'll have to take all the rails out of my car, put up the top, and wait until it stops raining!
But I was encouraged by your suggestion and I tried more googling, this time on half round 8 feet fence maryland
And I found a sawmill about 30 miles from here that was already on my list of sawmills**, but I wasn't planning to call them because there are closer ones. It says on his Green Lumber Price List Half Round Treated Fence Post 8 foot fence post with a 6 to 7 inch face Price $9.50 each.
I'd much rather have 4 inch face, and maybe he's got that too. Also I've never heard of a half-round wood fence post. So we'll see what he means by that.
He says " If you need lumber that exceeds these limits call us and we will let you know if we can accommodate you?re oversize lumber needs. " So maybe he can accomodate my undersize needs.
He also has Sawdust $ 30.00 per full-size pickup truck load in case anyone needs sawdust. The butcher shop I used to go to had its floor covered with sawdust. Originally used to soak up the blood, but I don't think he had any blood in front of the counter.
**Last fall I made a list of about 6 sawmills within 30 miles west of here, and I've looked everywhere and can't find the list. Darn. So I tried to make it again and i've only found one of the six. I left him a message but he hasn't called me back.
These are trailerable sawmills. They mostly come to your place and saw up your fallen trees into lumber, Enormous automatic bandsaws that will make pieces of any thickness, sometimes to make a coffee table.
And I found another one in Frederick, 50 miles from me, that builds fences iiuc, and mentions in its text: " Rails are usually 8 or 11 feet long and can be round, half-round or even square or diamond-shaped. " So maybe t hey'll sell me some, even though they're not a store, or tell me where they get theirs. OH, oh, those words in quotes are almost identical to words on a Lowes webpage about how to build a fence: " Rails are usually 8 feet or 11 feet long. They're round, half-round or square / diamond-shaped." We'll see if they really have half-round.
It's treated with something. And I may have to go to a friend's house to use his saw. That means I have to sweep up the sawdust.
I don't think my original rails were treated at all. And the ones with sunlight are still good after 35 years. The others are gradually being eaten by something like moss. Green stuff with 1/4" stalks and green heads. I used a 10% solution, as recommended on the container, of clorox to kill the green stuff, and that didnt' work at all, so I used
100% solutoin, and even that killed it slowly, and now it's back. So their diameter has gotten gradually less, and I'm fine with replacing them if I can do it.
Maybe I'll try the recip saw first, since I have it, and I won't have to run around.
I don't know if anyone I know has a bandsaw, I'll check.
The treated posts are not hard to find. There are farm stores around here, but they sell treated, especially if it's called a post, meaning part will be underground.
i put an ad on Craig's list and then I checked last night if anyone was selling them. Got 11 hits on fence rails and by golly one guy was selling used fence fails. He even had a picture and since I only have a convertible (which will carry 6 to 8 at a time) and since they're very dirty he said (algae), he was willing to power wash them and deliver them for only 10 or 20 dollars more. So I went today and they were "split rail", diamond shaped. I looked at the picture last night and saw what I wanted to see.
Last time on Craig's list I wanted to buy a harvest gold stove, and I mentioned mine had a fire, and a guy looking to buy fire wood found my ad when he searched on fire. He had a spare stove from the previous owner that I bought. He was going to buy another spare stove with the money, this time white.
The web is amazing. He even has a picture of a stack of his half-rounds
formatting link
A boring picture for the rest of you but for me it shows that some really are 6" but a few on the bottom look smaller. I don't think treated will look as good as non-treated, but I still havent' found non-treated unsplit and these are half-round
Back in the olden days we made these split rail fences with aromatic red cedar. The parts above ground were untreated and they just weathered to a gray but they did need to be high and dry. If they were in a shady spot where the water was not driven out by the sun, you got that moss. It is just the nature of the beast. PT will get that moss too after a few years. We didn't have CCA in those days and you put the posts in a barrel of creosote up to where the ground level will be. You might be letting them soak for a month or so but that gave you time to split all of those rails and dig the post holes ;-)
I had some sort of summer job for a while about 1968 and I put lumber in a long narrow tub about a foot high which was filled with creosote, I think. But I think I was only to leave it in there 10 minutes or less. I guess that didn't do too much? Not compared to a month!!! The foreman I was working for gave no indication he thought that wasn't enough. I don't know who told him to do it.
I don't know why they had to be treated. I don't know what they were used for. I almost remember where I worked, not far from where I visit if I ever visit Chicago again.
I've read that nowadays more new home construction uses boron for protection from insects and fungus because it's not very toxic to people or pets. It's also easy to treat an existing home that way. I believe you can get 4" of penetration, depending on the concentration. Spray or brush, wait 24 hours, and repeat.
Ten years ago I bought a gallon of Borrada and used half of it on my
19th-century house. A couple of months ago I discovered that a dripping plumbing connection had soaked a wooden beam. I applied Borrada so I wouldn't end up with dry rot.
Borrada has been replaced by Bora-Care. I think the only difference is the vehicle: propylene glycol for Borrada and ethylene glycol for Bora-Care. The active ingredient for both is disodium octaborate tetrahydrate. It's about $70 a gallon. It preserves wood indefinitely unless its submerged a lot.
Craftsmen who use a lot of it can save money by making it on the stove with antifreeze, borax, boric acid, and a candy thermometer.
I may be exaggerating a bit with "a month" but they did leave them in the drum for a long time. I wouldn't be surprised if some of those posts are still out there.
One reason I bought it was that I'd read of tests by a federal agency, maybe the Forest Service. They built plywood or waferboard boxes in Louisiana and applied the glycol-borate treatment in varying concentrations. The wateriest concentration had the least penetration. In the end, those boxes showed a little surface nibbling, but all were sound.
I wish I could find that page to refresh my memory. As I recall, the test was 3 years and the wood was exposed to the weather.
My house has a small cellar for the furnace. The hatch slopes down to the ground. About 1990, 4" of topsoil was added to the yard. That put the bottom of the hatch door underwater in rainy weather. It was soon replaced with pressure-treated wood.
The pressure-treated wood didn't hold up many years. In addition, the pressure-treated frame, screwed to the concrete, was infested with ants that had large, hard heads, unlike carpenter ants I've seen.
I replaced the door in 2008. Pallet planks aren't supposed to last long, but I used them anyway. I made a lattice, brushed the borate treatment onto it and the ant-infested frame. and screwed shingles to the lattice.
I thought the butt ends of the planks, frequently underwater, would soon leech and rot. Instead, everything has held up so far.
I wouldn't depend on that preservative if I were building on wood posts, but it may be adequate for fence posts, especially if they were capped. It wouldn't take much time or money to respray occasionally, and water would carry the borate all the way to the bottom.
Depending how many you need. Lot of work to split(cut) them in half. Did you try to find ones already done? Now most deck railing is shaped like that. So there must be premade ones.
Meruliporia incrassata. Some call it Poria incrassata and others call it Serpula incrasata. It needs a moisture content of 28% or above to get started. After that, it will grow when the moisture content is above
19% and lie dormant when it's 15-19%.
I didn't know if I could get the moisture content below 15% in the crawl space, so I sprayed.
As a matter of fact, they used to sell these, already shaped at the ends, at Lowes. When they stopped selling them there, 4 or 5 years ago, I figured they'd be easy to find online, at fence companies or lumber yards or lumber companies. but they're not there. Except for the place nearby that seems to have 8' treated half-round posts. No time to call them today. Will call them soon.
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