Between the 24 hours of rain, now cold and of course deer, I am in a constant battle with keeping fence rails up. Part of the problem is I’ve got both 12 and 10 foot sections of fence and the fence rails available are either too long or too short to fit in the post real well. I am not trustworthy with a chain saw although I can cut with my pole saw. Although trying to do this with a pole saw doesn’t let me trim the ends so they fit well in the posts. I want to devise something that can extend the rails an inch or 4 where I need them. I’ve thought of adding a piece of wood to the end of the post to make the addition slip in but don’t really want to use screws. Anyone figure out a good solution to this problem? I’d love something that I could cut off the end of the rail, slip some kind of thing over the fence rail end that has an extender on to it fits in the post.
Put up another post next to the first one?
[QUOTE=ToTheNines;7282745]
Put up another post next to the first one?[/QUOTE]
Or even just a block at the height you need to attach the rail to.
I’ve seen it done with split rail fencing, where all the rails end up breaking and getting shorter and shorter, so a square of wood with a hole through it is attached to the existing post where the short rail needs to go. But you could do the same sort of thing with conventional wood fencing, too.
How thick are rails? Posts? The only thing I can think of is a piece of PVC pipe.
Thin enough to go thru post but big enough rail could side in.
Have you tried a battery powered Saw’s All? Google- reciprocating saw, battery powered. Priced from $49.00 to $149.00 depending on quality. You could cut any thing you want safely.
You want to cut them too short, then extend them?
That’s crazy.
You need a tape measure, a pencil and a saw. If you find a chainsaw intimidating, buy a hand saw. A sharp cross cut saw goes through fresh boards easily. You can get really unintimidating stubby ones like this
http://www.amazon.com/Stanley-20-045-15-Inch-Fat-Hand/dp/B00005A1JN/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1385932590&sr=8-2&keywords=cross+cut+saw
Aim to cut them 1/4" too short that way if you are a little off it will be close enough.
You want to cut them too short, then extend them?
That’s crazy.
Let me be a little clearer Tangled…rails taper off at the ends to fit in the posts. Often the ends of the rails break or deer running into a fence can break the wood near the hole making even a good rail slip. A solution I think would work is some kind of sleeve that would resemble a long neck bottle or should I use jug vs bottle so no one actually thinks I would use glass, that you fit the round side on the rail and have the top or skinny end fit into the post hole. To get a standard size gadget to fit on rails you’d probably have to trim off the tapered part for the gadget to fit snugly.
I was told that what I want is out there, I haven’t found it with Google yet, but at a cost of about 7.00 per end. At that price new rails would be a few dollars more making it not worth it.
My apologies, that’s not crazy, but it still sounds harder than doing it the normal way.
I’m guessing you are talking about some sort of rail fence that has rails with tapered ends and tenons cut into the posts?
I can’t picture anything purpose made being significantly cheaper than a fence rail.
You possibly could extend them a few inches if you had some 2"-4" sections of plumbing pipe chopped up and just use a big hammer to smash them onto the ends of the rails. A bolt driven into the end of a rail might do an inch or two as well, but between buying the bolts, predrilling the holes and driving them in it would be easier and not much dearer to buy a new rail.
A circular saw might be a better tool for tapering the ends yourself. It would let you do accurate cuts and moves in a more predicatable way than a chainsaw. Have you tried a small chainsaw though? A light chainsaw with a 12" bar is a reasonably well behaved tool.
