tytower":2t1vleyc said:
If you look at the forces here the pull of the wire when strained uses the inner brace post as a fulcrum and with the inner post tied to the corner post properly with a top hat accross and diagonal brace , it tries to lift the corner post up and out of the ground .
Well, the flat stone under the bottom of the diagonal is actually the fulcrum point.. But, yeah, that's pretty much what happens.. Still, the fence would really have to put a lot of mustard on the brace to get the corner to tip plumb over the fulcrum point..
tytower":2t1vleyc said:
Usually this is pretty hard to do but if your corner post is not in properly well . A diagonal brace alone does exactly as above . It places a lot more lifting force on the corner pole and is not as reliable as H braces and when it slackens a bit cattle knock it off by rubbing against it
I could have done an h-brace oriented directly into the corner, but I've not seen that h-braces place any less lifting force on the corner than a single diagonal.. Reason being, there's still a
diagonal brace wire connected to the bottom of the corner which, when stressed, will act to pull the corner up and out of the ground..
Most times with h-braces, we're talking 9ga wire which will stretch first, allowing the brace to lean before pulling out.. However, I use two loops of 12.5ga hi-tensile connected by a strainer.. It doesn't stretch.. It'll either pull through the strap on the strainer, or lift the corner out -- but it won't stretch..
I know this from experience, as I had one that tore through the strainer and caused the h-brace to fail.. When I repaired the brace, I reinforced the new strainer by hanging two fence staples over the back of the strap.. Since it couldn't pull through the strainer, it began lifting the end post out of the ground. Not good..
All this was in a corner which was interrupted by a little-used gate.. In other words, two straight runs which happened to go 90* from one another..
After the one end post began to pull out, I removed both h-braces and the gate, spliced the wire together with square knots, and replaced it all with a single corner post and a diagonal "floating brace." Gave the corner a backward rake for leverage, put a sack and a half of concrete in the hole, let it set up good, then attached the diagonal post and brace wire.. Tensioned the fence, and voila.. It hasn't moved since.
So far as the brace going slack and cows knocking it loose, it never really goes slack if you use 12.5ga hi-t for your brace wire, and you keep your fence properly tensioned.. Plus, I always notch my corner to accept the diagonal and spike it all together. If it getting knocked loose ever becomes a problem, I figure I can run a hot wire or two from one side of the corner to the other and keep them away from it altogether.