Giant Reel Wraps Up Barbed Wire Fast

Giant Reel Wraps Up Barbed Wire Fast FENCING Miscellaneous Loron Skretteberg and his son wanted a faster way to wind up old barbed wire fences on their ranch So they came up with an inexpensive solution - a big 7-ft dia reel that can wrap up miles of 3-strand fence wire at a time “We had an old pto-operated traveling gun irrigation hose winder that we weren’t using any more We dragged it out of the weeds and mounted the reel on top of it to hold the wire ” says Skretteberg “The reel is big enough that we can braid 3 wires together and wind up 2 or more miles of fence at a time ” They welded a series of homemade metal brackets onto one side of the reel which set down over spokes on the hose winder and pin onto it They also added an H-frame on back to guide the wires up onto the spool To operate they put the tractor in neutral and engage the pto to rotate the spool “We’re always trying to keep some tension on the wires so they wind tightly on the spool But if the wire does loosen up it’ll drop onto the H-frame’s crossbar and stay the reel “Once the reel is full we remove the pins and use a loader tractor to lift the big spool of wire off ” says Skretteberg “We had been using a pto-operated wire winder equipped with a small 1 1/2-ft dia reel We were winding all that old wire one strand at a time and couldn’t go more than 300 yards without having to stop and change spools “The reel turns slowly so it isn’t really dangerous but just to be safe we plan to add a shield ” notes Skretteberg Contact: FARM SHOW Followup Loron Skretteberg 5880 54th Ave S W Carson N Dak 58529 ph 701 622-3261; cabin@westriv com

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