For an upcoming fence repair/renewal job I am considering purchasing a powered saw with a blade reach long enough to get between rail and post. A nail wrench tends to damage otherwise reusable rails.
Lots of choice but what are the important considerations? For the limited use, I will avoid battery operation.
Good speed control? Build quality? (somebody once gifted me a Skilsaw circular saw;-(
IME yes pretty much. I don't recall ever "going wrong" on this aspect or even having a choice of mounting to ponder...
I got some excellent Bosch demolition blades - (wood & metal) off ebay. they IIRC about 10 inches long, flexible and very good. Tho suspect if you will be doing same sort of cut in same place on blade each time, then they'll wear...
Umm.. these are 5"x3" posts with 3.75" rails with 2 rusted 4" nails reluctant to pull out. I suppose 2" from the corner to a nail but all those saws seem to have a foot which would get in the way.
I purchased a Makita recip saw when I was fitting my windows, made chopping the old frames out a breeze, have since used it for cutting a few 5-6" diameter tree stumps that I couldn't finish off by hand saw,
I wouldn't necessarily rule out battery, it had sufficient grunt that it was vibrating the whole stump/roots back and forth (and the operator hanging-on doing the same too!) which helped loosen it for final removal, though it *is* the tool I possess from the LXT range which drains batteries fastest, but I have three batteries. They make the same saw in 230V/110V editions too if you're doing a long fence.
Excellent, from under 1 stroke/sec (up to nearly 50/sec according to the plate) if the workpiece needs holding you'll likely need an assistant as pretty much the saw needs two hands to use, one on the trigger the other round its throat where it has a decent rubberish grip.
Seem to be.
Never tried any.
I used toolstation cheapies because they were the longest blades I could find, when they go blunt they seem to lose all cutting power all at once, you just realise you're suddenly making no progress at all an the wood is smoking or steaming rather than getting cut ...
You're not bothered about the bits of nail left in the posts? The bit's in the rail can be punched out. The kerf of the blade will also damage both the rail and post.
Ah. Alternative to trying to saw down between the post and rail, cut post roughly above and below the rail. Then jemmy the bit of post off and knock the whole nails back out of the rails. Having said that if the nails have really rusted the block of post may well have to be split off the nails...
Something like:
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Attach chain or strop so that the lifting force closes the blades onto the post. Under the hinge?
IME its going to be really hard to get the rotten end out due to them seldom being rotten except for the top inch or two.
I usually just get the SDS out and break off some of the concrete, dig out the wood if its easy, drop in a spur and concrete it in. It takes between 20 and 60 minutes depending on how energetic you are.
This is pony paddock, post and rail. No concrete but small rubble included in the original back fill. I have managed a few manually and the generally come out leaving a clean hole.
I may try to fabricate a scissor action grab for those actually broken below ground level.
Those that don't break off at ground level and you leave the stub from below the bottom rail you may have enough to wrap a strop around and pull straight up with the fork lift. Might take a bit of thought on how to wrap the strop so that it tightens on pulling and pulls evenly not just one side.
If the grounds soft you can try hammering the new post onto the stump and push it deeper.
Get a bit of steel tube a bit bigger than the post, knock it in and pull it out post with it. You can use your log splitter to push the stump out ready for the next one.
To pull out concrete posts I used a rope hitch and a farm jack. Worked marv ellously. Assuming the posts can take it, a rope hitch should be easy with the aid of your forklift/skyhook. Failing that, how about whacking a very big coach screw into/near the top of any broken-off posts with an impact dr iver, and using that as tow point?
An easy to implement scissor lift would be a couple of plates of steel[1] with a slightly larger than post cross section sized cutout one end, and a hole for a chain the other. Slide them down onto the post, with the chain holes diametrically opposed, and then connect the chain holes to each other with a yoke of chain that is long enough to clear the top of the post. Now stick your forklift under the chain and lift.
P = post, L = Lift point, C = Chain, S = Steel Plate
The steel plates bite harder into the post the harder you pull them...
(this trick used to be a standard procedure used by a mate when recovering a snapped off auger from the depths of a 20m hole that was being pile driven! He would chuck a plate down on the end of a rope or chain, and jangle about until he got the hole ove the end of the auger, then use the pile driver to pull it upp (with a long auger the asymmetric pull of only a single plate did not matter))
[1] or something welded up from square section etc.
Do-able but it relies on clearing enough soil away to reach a sound part of what is by now a broken off rotted stump. The usual technique here for lifting or withdrawing anything is to *strangle* it with a wire strop and hoist with the fork lift.
The teeth on my scissors might be 15mm or so and able to slide down the stump sides under the weight of the loader forks and carriage assembly.
The shovel mentioned up thread has the wrong pivot action to close the jaws when the handles are lifted but I suppose this could be overcome by lifting arms arranged to cross over. I might have some 6"x3" channel lying about:-)
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