White picket fences...

[Spamlet]

It seems that any US TVprog/film outside city centres, features mile upon mile of white picket fence, and from what I recall, always has done.

How did 'cowboys' find time to make and paint these fences, and round up the cows as well? Or are these just figments of the 'Hollywood' imagination?

Currently ~£25 of paint does about 20' of fence and takes me all afternoon (that's after an afternoon with the blast cleaner). Even then, the paint does not really have much 'body' to it for all its cost, and needs doing again 2 years later. [First time around I used Sadolins, and '5 year clear Cuprinol', the first started flaking quickly and attracted the dirt; the second has not stopped lichen colonising the wood so that to remove the black lichen surface 'on the paint' one has to blast away both paint and the top layer of wood. This time around I am using Sandtex. Even this starts with a con, as it says in big letters 'ONE COAT' on the front of the tin, and then in the small print on the back says unpainted surfaces must be primed! I do not have very high expectations that this will fare any better than the Sadolin.]

I have to take my (cowboy) hat off to those Yanks and their mindboggling miles of fence, but what DID they use for paint: it must have been a lot better and cheaper than what we have now?!

Any ideas?

Cheers,

S

[Cicero]

================================== Almost certainly some kind of whitewash / lime wash. Have you read Mark Twain's 'Tom Sawyer'? I doubt if it would work well here (UK) but it might have been to protect against termites.

Cic.

[meow2222]

=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D

with a durable timber presumably?

NT

[The Medway Handyman]

Dunno, but a similar thing in town.

Couple of years ago our Matalan burned down (Police questioned Andy Hall, but he apparently had an alibi).

They used something like 600 sheets of shuttering ply 8' x 4' to fence around the perimiter, plus posts, plus 4" x 1" top & bottom rails.

Two guys spent over a week painting it all white with rollers. Two guys then spent another week applying masking tape & painting the bottom half dark blue.

Two more guys then spent ages masking up & painting a light blue stripe on the dark blue bit. Another guy then spent 4 days putting the construction companys logo on every other board.

Matalan's due to be opened in a week or so, and apparently the whole lot - all 600 sheets will be scrapped.

[Onetap]

I doubt that they did. It might have become a status symbol for the cattle barons, showing they had access to sawn lumber and white paint. I'd guess it became common with the steam driven saw-mill and the log cabin and the split rail fence declined at the same time.

The white paint would have been white lead (lead + Vinegar or some such) mixed with linseed oil. That has been in common use everywhere since at least Ancient Greek times. I'm neither a paintmaker nor chemist, so believe this at your peril.

did spend a lot of time splitting rails for fences until barbed wire came along. As in 'run out of town on a rail'; if anyone can explain that one, I'd be much obliged.

Logs will split along radial lines as they dry out, and can be split easily (relative to sawing) using wedges and a sledge hammer.

Abraham Lincoln had done a lot of it and used it to shown his connection with the average farmer/manual worker; bloody hard work, apparently.

[Spamlet]

I doubt that they did. It might have become a status symbol for the cattle barons, showing they had access to sawn lumber and white paint. I'd guess it became common with the steam driven saw-mill and the log cabin and the split rail fence declined at the same time.

The white paint would have been white lead (lead + Vinegar or some such) mixed with linseed oil. That has been in common use everywhere since at least Ancient Greek times. I'm neither a paintmaker nor chemist, so believe this at your peril.

did spend a lot of time splitting rails for fences until barbed wire came along. As in 'run out of town on a rail'; if anyone can explain that one, I'd be much obliged.

Logs will split along radial lines as they dry out, and can be split easily (relative to sawing) using wedges and a sledge hammer.

Abraham Lincoln had done a lot of it and used it to shown his connection with the average farmer/manual worker; bloody hard work, apparently.

thoughts folks, and well selected links from Onetap. Here's your Wiki extra on the 'run out of...': the bit about it being normal practice to tar and feather Tories. I would extend this to all parties these days!

Sounds to have been a really nasty job making lead pigment too. As a child I watched my dad blowlamping vast thicknesses of lead paint from all the woodwork in the house (had a penchant for biting lead soldiers too...) - probably explains while my mind keeps going blank these days, but that stuff did work pretty well!

Cheers,

S

[Owain]

They're made of plastic now...

Mmmmm. I'm imagining a Really Good Shed could be made out of all that.

Owain

[Onetap]

The wiki page on barbed wire says the cattle in the westerns were free ranging until the arrival of barbed wire in the late 19th century. It looks like the split-rail fences were used to enclose paddocks and crops and white picket fences were ornamental, if there at all.

I've never seen one of those zig-zag split rail fences in any western film, I suppose it'd cost a fortune in labour to make enough to enclose even a small field. ISTR a split-rail fence was in an Aussie film, The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith; when JB , an aboriginal had nearly killed himself building it, the rancher wouldn't pay him the agreed amount. It looked carp BTW.

The preferred material is cedar, which incidentally is used for beehives 'cos it's very resistant to attack by insects. Using insecticides on beehive wood is not a good plan. I used to keep bees, but became allergic to stings.

[Andy Hall]

Clearly an insurance job....

[terry]

Was that not why painters, back in those days (I can just recall the wartime1940s etc.) took and were allowed to take, frequent 'tea- breaks'. Have also read, somewhere, that drinking milk was also one method for minimizing or removing lead from the human body? Although whether working people could then afford it may have been unlikely. Oh, btw in 1956 my late Newfoundland fisherman/carpenter etc. father in law was still using lime wash to paint fences and his barn; although they managed to afford paint for the house. Fences had to be pretty secure then to keep wandering cattle and horses OUT OF one gardens and vegetable fields. These days, with fewer fences the occasional wild moose can make havoc of more ornamenal trees and flowers etc. in one night. A neighbour has a 'summer place' some 30 miles out of town and has yet to have anything deciduous survive moose cropping any trees he plants! And occasionally a moose gets hit by car or truck; often at night, not good news for either party!

[Matty F]

Each section of my fence hangs on four large horizontal screws. These fit into slots in the fence rails. So I can easily lift all the sections, put them on some old corrugated iron and spray paint them. The whole fence takes half an hour to paint. No paint gets on the footpath!

[Spamlet]

Was that not why painters, back in those days (I can just recall the wartime1940s etc.) took and were allowed to take, frequent 'tea- breaks'. Have also read, somewhere, that drinking milk was also one method for minimizing or removing lead from the human body? Although whether working people could then afford it may have been unlikely. Oh, btw in 1956 my late Newfoundland fisherman/carpenter etc. father in law was still using lime wash to paint fences and his barn; although they managed to afford paint for the house. Fences had to be pretty secure then to keep wandering cattle and horses OUT OF one gardens and vegetable fields. These days, with fewer fences the occasional wild moose can make havoc of more ornamenal trees and flowers etc. in one night. A neighbour has a 'summer place' some 30 miles out of town and has yet to have anything deciduous survive moose cropping any trees he plants! And occasionally a moose gets hit by car or truck; often at night, not good news for either party!

Got any good recipes for limewash? I suppose it's too late for this fence though, as it would not go over the gloss.

[Incidentally, I should add that our fence has to give rather than break, when cars in our narrow lane hit it, despite it being as brilliant white as I can get it. Thin brackets and short stainless screws thus are used to attach panels to posts, so that when a post gets clipped the brackets give instead of the wood. Still a pain having to keep reassembling though!]