fencing

I suspect mostly one wants the top wire to be tight, the rest just kinda tight. Fence will look good & do it's job.

If you start at the top, as you add the lower wires, the top one will get loose & sag a bit. Not look as good. Works about as well, but looks poorer?

Interesting & good observation tho!

--->Paul

Sooo, I started marking the same distance from the top of post on all the line posts and then strung the top wire to that mark, then used the top wire as a reference for the second wire, etc. Had nothing to do with tension, moving corner posts, etc.. Had everything to do with making it look nice and uniform. Couldn't standing the ribbing I'd have to take from all the neighbors if I didn't have a "good looking fence." Just my two cents.

Here in the sand it's practically a given that your new corner posts are going to move some, especially in the lower areas where the ground's wet. I don't care HOW good your box corners are(well I guess a person could over-engineer something so it was solid, but when you're dealing with as many corners as we are that's not practical).

Tightening the top wire first will put more leverage on the post. But the post will still move some with each additional wire pulling on it. By the time you get to the bottom, if you get each wire as tight as you can pull it, the post might not move much, but 1/4 inch at the bottom is a couple inches at the top, and then the top wire's loose again.

If you tighten the bottom wire first, then you move up, and each wire has more leverage, and when your done the bottom wires are loose again.

What I usually do is get the top wire as tight as I can, "guitar-string" tight, then stretch each lower wire a slight bit less so that hopefully when you release the stretchers the post will spring back enough that the wire above is equally as tight as the one you've just stretched.

Keep a couple things in mind though regarding livestock fencing. First- the fence can only do two things- it'll either work or it won't. If it keeps your critters in, it's working, if they get out, it isn't. Second- if an animal really truly wants to get to the other side of a typical barb-wire fence, it's gonna get there no matter how tight, solid, new, or high it is.

My experience has been to put in the two corner posts, pull your bottom wire and pull it tight, as much as you can pull, (as long as you use RED Brand wire). This gives you: #1 a straight line to put in all the other posts and #2 it pulls the corners pretty good, and then you start building your corner braces. Wire from bottom to top. My theory has been that if you move your corner brace with the top 4 wires, you didn't build a good enough corner brace. ( I have though, occassionally tightened that bottom wire after putting on the top 4)

Rob

I marked my posts as to how much post I wanted above ground. I made a jig and had blocks on it to hold wire at its proper hight. When stringing up wire I would start at the bottom and work up.

steveormary