"Pilot Hole" Auger Makes Post Setting East, Solid

"Pilot Hole" Auger Makes Post Setting East, Solid AUGERS Augers (29B) 33-3-33 Gilbert Conn likes using 8 ft. long, 4 in. square, wood landscape timbers for fenceposts, but he doesn't like having to tamp them into a standard 9-in. post auger hole. However, drilling a hole with a 4-in. diameter auger is like drilling a pilot hole. The post can be pushed in tight with a loader and no tamping is needed. "I was able to get some 4-in. augers that had been used to drill holes before dynamiting coal," says Conn. "I put an oil shank on them and a head that would work in my Ford 3-pt. post hole drill. It would work 10 times better if I had a hydraulic drive. Then I could reverse it." Conn drills his pilot holes about 40 in. deep, sets the post in place, and with a few taps by a loader bucket, it's solid in the ground. Driving the post in doesn't push much dirt in, given the size of the hole. "We've pulled a post out and checked," he says. "There isn't more than an inch and a half of loose dirt in the bottom." Conn says his son can place 68 posts in half a day using the auger and a loader bucket weighted with half a load of dirt. Conn's son likes the posts for five-strand electric fences. "It works really well," says Conn. "I've made four of them so far for neighbors and my son." Conn says the posts slide out as easy as they go in. He then fills the hole with gravel. "It doesn't settle like dirt would, and I don't have to worry about an animal stepping in it and breaking a leg." Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Gilbert F. Conn, 1314 Old Meadow Rd., Pittsburgh, Penn. 15241 (ph 412 221-4999).

To read the rest of this story, download this issue below or click here to register with your account number.