cedar or treated post?

[brushcountryman]

what say you and why

I got a lot of fence to build this year and I usually use treated cornerpost and cedar line post with 3 tpost inbetween was wondering if treated linepost were better the quality of cedar nowdays is not as good as it was.

 

[hillbilly beef man]

I cannot vouch for cedar but yellow locust is not worth putting in anymore. I can only get about 15 years out of one now, which I do not understand because I have some locust posts that are 40 plus years old and still good. I have been using the treated round post the past several years and like them so far.

 

[dun]

If I'm going to hang a swinging gate I use the treated peeler core posts or if I don;t have enough aged cedar. Otherwise I use the aged cedar that I've cut from the farm.

 

[backhoeboogie]

I've got some cedar posts well over 50 years old.

Some really nice ones were taking out by wild fire after only 8 years.

 

[Bigfoot]

Got plenty of cedar post on my place, that were set in 1911. They're solid red to the heart though.

 

[brushcountryman]

I think that is the problem mostly I bought 50 cedar post last year and there was no heart in them that's why this time I wanted to try treated post and also I wanted to try and put them in with post driver instead of digging all those holes.

 

[backhoeboogie]

If you're gonna drive them, I would not go cedar. MY cedar would not have the strength.

I've got a few old growth mountain cedars that are over 50 feet. I could sell those and buy posts 10 to 1. For some reason, cedar has gone out of sight in price here. I had some of my own sewn for chests.

 

[D2Cat]

If you want a post that will outlast you and the next owner, use osage orange (hedge).

 

[Rafter S]

If you want a post that will outlast you and the next owner, use osage orange (hedge).

Is that the same thing as bois d' arc? That was extensively used here years ago. It gets so hard you can't drive a staple in it when it gets dry, and lasts 2 days past forever.

 

[TexasBred]

If you want a post that will outlast you and the next owner, use osage orange (hedge).

Is that the same thing as bois d' arc? That was extensively used here years ago. It gets so hard you can't drive a staple in it when it gets dry, and lasts 2 days past forever.

Horse apple tree.

 

[JW IN VA]

Got plenty of cedar post on my place, that were set in 1911. They're solid red to the heart though.

That's the secret with cedar posts -the more red the better they last.

 

[backhoeboogie]

I pushed several when I was clearing brush. It was so thick you couldn't walk. Grape vines were thicker than your leg. When I saw the bright orange wood on the bois d'arc. I got a chain and drug them out.

There's a post you could drive.

 

[Brute 23]

I'd go treated around here. You can walk in and buy good treated posts in most any town and be done.

Its very hard to find solid, straight, cedar posts. Just not worth the hassle of dealing with them IMO. Even if your posts last that long... the wire and T-posts won't. ;-)

 

[Kingfisher]

I haven't found any CGAtreated southern yellow pine around here. It's all "peeler cores".

 

[D2Cat]

Not "Horse apple tree." Hedge apple.

I saw on Ebay someone was selling hedge apple seeds. An envelope of 25 seeds for a dollar. Now how many seed in an "apple" and how many "apples" on a tree?

A couple of generations ago when there was very little fence, farmers would find hedge trees and pick the apples then soak them is a barrel of water to soften them. Plow a furrow where they wanted a fence and then dump the slurry in the furrow. The growth would be so thick cattle couldn't pass through.

 

[Nesikep]

Around here it's impossible to find cedar.. I go with treated pine.. we have a bunch here that are 40 years old, and they'd last a while yet if I could keep that fence tight enough to discourage the cows from pushing through it. I don't use any steel posts, I like having the option of making it hot whenever I want to, and more and more I'm going with High Tensile wire because it doesn't hang up on ever darned staple, which makes it a 5 minute job to retighten a fence, as opposed to barbed that takes an hour per section.

 

[backhoeboogie]

Its very hard to find solid, straight, cedar posts.

That's all I have. Mountain cedar. In a thicket. It is reaching for the sky between the 2nd and upper flood plain. Put 18 of them in a hotel raising 28 feet to the ceiling. They paid dearly for them.

 

[Brute 23]

Its very hard to find solid, straight, cedar posts.

That's all I have. Mountain cedar. In a thicket. It is reaching for the sky between the 2nd and upper flood plain. Put 18 of them in a hotel raising 28 feet to the ceiling. They paid dearly for them.

That's why I can't afford to put them in a fence ;-)

 

[backhoeboogie]

That's why I can't afford to put them in a fence ;-)

I built the fence from hell back in my 20's. Every post on the west fence could have been a corner post. Almost, there were a few 8 inch. It all went up in smoke.

 

[Brute 23]

Hate to hear that.

We have a lot of old cedar fences. Most were done when my dad was a teen so they are 40-50yrs.

My dad use to tell us stories about having their arms inside the hole with the post hole diggers on corners and how big of a hole they would dig to put a crooked line post in. We pulled a couple corners one time and they were around 6'6" deep. :shock: He wasn't BSing us.