Post driver

LAA

Well-known Member
Anyone ever use a post driver to drive 8'' - 12'' diameter posts? Did you have to sharpen them? how deep did you drive them and did were they good and solid in the ground. I know a lot will depend on the local soil conditions but in general do they stay tight or loosen up after a few years.
 
I"ve never driven anything that big and we always use sharpened posts in this country. They stay tight but in clay soils they can start to tip if the cows are always working on the fence.
 
Never tried anything over about 6". but we normally drive ours without sharpening the ends, and they stay tight. I have done a quick shovel job on a new hole in the summer to get to softer dirt. just down past the hard surface.
 
It takes a pretty good pounder but it is done all day long here in SD. Points make a huge difference but can still be done blunt. Up until two years ago I could push most posts on a rainy day with my WL42 loader with a round bale on it, then we got dry. I've rented the local fence builders Shaver pounder mounted on a 450 IH the last two years. Haven't dug a post in years.

Casey in SD
 
Had a Shaver.....which mounted on the front end of 4020s......way back when; it worked great for building new fences, but was too much trouble when setting posts in existing fences (manual tilt/excessive vegetation, etc). Most posts we drove were 6-8 inch black locust.....not sharpened.....in the silt/clay/loam of West TN and were typically put about 30 inches in the ground (corner posts might be deeper). They were SOLIDLY SET! Never actually tried it, but I usta tell folks that it would drive a crosstie in a blacktop road.
 
I used a shaver post driver throughout much of last summer. Against all conventional wisdom, regarding time of year. In the mtns of south central PA, our soil is shale. Had to drill 4" pilot holes. Sharpened posts and filled holes with water - let it soak in. Only a gallon or so made a difference. They drove well and were extremely tight when I was done. 5-6" 8 foot posts; 6 strand high tensile. Very happy, but can't imagine driving blunt posts without pilot holes in our soil, regardless of soil moisture.
 
I have a Shaver HD-14 driver. I am not sure they make it anymore but it is the largest they made at the time. I routinely drive railroad ties without doing anything to them. Square end right down into the ground.

On large round post like yours I have found that if you sharpen them to a point they will drive crooked. You never get the angles exactly the same on each side. So I have found that if you leave a spot 3-4 inches flat in the center of the post and taper the rest down to that flat spot they will drive easier and go straighter.

They make an attachment to to newer Shaver drivers that swings a small hydraulic drive post hole auger right under the driver. So you drill a small 4 inch hole and then drive the post down into it. This works great.

I usually use a hand twist digger that digs a 6 inch hole on corner post. Then drive the corner post down into the hole. They drive straight that way.
Shaver post drivers
 
I used a neighbors Shaver with pointed posts. As JD said, they don't go int straight, but it's fast and they're solid. I've driven in large cedar corner posts. We try to sink them in spring in our clay. I've had them shatter trying to drive them in summer.
 
I set up a Shaver HD-10 on the back of a rolled over 1968 Ford Bronco. I drove a bunch of 7x9 inch railroad ties for one customer in August when it was really dry. It helped to dump a bucket of water just before driving the posts. It was the slowest I ever drove posts. We did 16 per hour on that job.
 

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