Erecting a fence

I've mentioned that my land was a kinda shared property before. The neighbour on my right bought this land to his wife formerly. That's why there was no fence on the right side of the land for about 100 meters long. Now, that they are separated his ex-wife has sold her property to us. So, we have had to build a fence on that side.

My mom seen some ads for fence wire and other stuff we needed to the project. She's got some pretty good deals for chain link fence and fence wire. My stepdad brought nails, lashing wire and all the tools we needed. I've been checking out the internet for cheap concrete poles and local building codes. Fortunatelly, we found enough poles in the prolific weed. Some of them are 4x4 treated locust, which is awesome. Some of them are only a rusty U-profile, made of steel. I don't mind that my poles are not identical. They have cost me nothing. :) I just found 'em. Anyway, this fence is good for the present. We bought three rolls of chain link fence. Each roll contains about 25 meters of fence, which is 1,2 meter high. I called my stepdad for help and show me how to erect a traditional chain link fence with timber. We choosen this type of fence, because this is the cheapest in Hungary. If someone is not familiar with the method of erecting a chain link fence, here is the step by step in nutshell:

1. Clean the construction site at least two meters wide and 3 meters high around the line where you willing to erect the fence to make sure nothing obstructs your work.
2. Level the ground evenly all the way long.
3. Measure the distance of your project. This is the distance between two of your end poles or two corners of your land.
4. This will show you how many meters of fence you need.
5. Divide this number by the meters every roll of chain link fence contains. In my case the distance was 72 meters. My roll of fence was a 25 meters. So I needed three of it.
6. Multiply the distance by the number of lines of wire you want to use to tightening your fence to it. I used only two lines, one on the bottom and one on the top, because my fence is not that high. So 72x2=144 meters of wire I needed.
7. Divide the distance by three. This number gives you how many posts you need for the project. Minus one, if you have a partial fence already.
8. Divide distance by three, because there shall be no more than 3 meters between each poles. I cheated a little bit: I divided it by four. So, I got a number of 18. Minus my corner post. It's 17. There were four U profiles erected already in the line. I needed now only 13 posts.
9. Get a hank of PP packing string. Tie it to the two ends of your porject tensely. Now you have a decent line to start marking and digging.
10. Half the whole distance. Mark it. Best to hammer a small lath at that point.
11. This is going to be the place of your first strutted strainer post.
12. Dig a hole to this strainer post first. Hole must be 80-100 cm deep in sand. Otherwise the line of your poles will look like oxpiss in sidewind after a while.
13. Half the distance your corner post and your strutted strainer post again, mark it.
14. Repeat the process till you are only 10-12 meters away from your corner post. This is the place of your last strainer post.
15. Now mark the place of your regular posts between these strainers.
16. Start digging and praying for rain if you have a dry blown sand to dig into.
17. Lift your post with bent knees and straight waist. Put them into their holes. Don't forget to cut off their top in angle and treat it with some kind of paint, varnish, etc. to protecting them.
18. Get a spirit level. Place it to the side of the post and push some of the dirt back to the hole till your post is able to stand alone, without leaning against the side of the hole.
19. Check the pole is in level in both directions. Use a rammer to compact ground around the post. If the soil is too loose, make it wet.
20. When you make a strutted strainer post you have to cut the end of your two struts into 45 degress. Leave their lenght to reach the half of the hight of your strainer. Add a foot to this lenght you can bury.
21. Get a brick, a rock, a piece of pole or anything solid which can provide some kind of pedestal to your struts. Dig a hole and place it in 45 degrees first. Then put the strut in place.
22. When you finished with all your posts get an end cutting pliers, a hammer, the wire and loadsa stainless steel fence staple.
23. When you choosing the staples or U nails go for the hardened ones, because your treated hardwood posts are going to bend your nails and you'll end up nothing but mess.
24. You can strain your wire without a turnbuckle or a straining bolt. No worries. You need help. Meanwhile you pull the straining wire with the end cutting pliers someone has to staple the wire to the post. Just after you taken the wire around the post at least once and hammered the corners flat. Then you have to staple the opposite side too.
25. Finally the chain link wire itself. There are a couple of methods to put everything together. If your corner post is a timber you can staple every chain to it and then strech the roll alongside your straining wire. If you have a piece of thicker wire you can wave it into the chain link fence, as I did it, than attach it to your corner post. If you want some neater looking finish or just happened you have a piece of metal bar you can also use it as a stretcher bar.
26. Get your roll of fence to the site. Open it up. Roll it out beside your posts. Wave your stretcher wire or bar in it. Stand it up. Affix to your corner post.
27. Get a long metal bar. Wave it into the other end of your chain link fence and start stretching your fence manually. Beware overstretching. If your chain link fence moves away from your straining wires more than 5 cm (2 inches) stop stretching. Pitch your bar.
28. Staple your fence to the timber posts at least at three places. If you have concrete or metal posts you can use lashing wire for this process. Just like to tie your next roll of fence to this one.
29. Keep going with your chain link fence till your last post. Tie it up on the same manner as you started.
30. Final step to hook your fence to your straining wire. A damn job. Your thumb and side of your index finger will be f*** up by the end of the day. But you've got a neat chain link fence with timber from scratch. :)

Sorry for the lack of pics. Absolutely lost in work. Here are some photos taken later on.

When the poles are almost in place. The two blue strings are PP packing string

Strutted strainer post with pedestal timber

You can strain your wire simply pulling against the timber and staple it down

You can't use this method on concrete otherwise you will chip your poles

Straining wire stapled in place. Everything is done by hand and you see how tense the wire is?

Straining wire tighten up by hand. Even we did a little overstretching.

Instead of a stretcher bar there is a wire vertically too.

The certain of 72 meters. Oh, don't forget to treat every cut you made during the project. Otherwise weather conditions will ruin your timber very quick.

One of the U profiles as fence post

After three months