How to Bend Hog Wire Panels?

[EdgeoftheEarthFarm]

New User, somebody ring a bell. Live in area with shale underlayment which makes pounding, drilling, augering,
of fence posts nearly impossible. Rock boxes and rock "jacks" best. GOT ROCKS! Been making boxes from 50" x 16'
hog panels by clamping to fence post and bending/beating corners. Works but takes hours and this old man needs
reasonably simple mechanical advantage for the 40-50 more I need.....Help?

 

[dun]

I use the front end of the bucket of my tractor between a couple of 6X6 posts. Lay the panle across the posts lift the front of the tractor off the ground with the front edge of the bucket staright down between the posts.

 

[Kingfisher]

New User, somebody ring a bell. Live in area with shale underlayment which makes pounding, drilling, augering,
of fence posts nearly impossible. Rock boxes and rock "jacks" best. GOT ROCKS! Been making boxes from 50" x 16'
hog panels by clamping to fence post and bending/beating corners. Works but takes hours and this old man needs
reasonably simple mechanical advantage for the 40-50 more I need.....Help?

I'm trying but I just can't picture what your making............

 

[dun]

New User, somebody ring a bell. Live in area with shale underlayment which makes pounding, drilling, augering,
of fence posts nearly impossible. Rock boxes and rock "jacks" best. GOT ROCKS! Been making boxes from 50" x 16'
hog panels by clamping to fence post and bending/beating corners. Works but takes hours and this old man needs
reasonably simple mechanical advantage for the 40-50 more I need.....Help?

I'm trying but I just can't picture what your making............

Come up to Missouri and you'll see lots of them.

 

[backhoeboogie]

I bend the panels with hickey bars. Works great for me. A neighbor built all of his "posts" with old chain link fence, filled them with limestone and fragments.

 

[Angus Cowman]

used woven wire or concrete reinforcement wire instead of cattle panels its what has been used for yrs around here and is alot easier to bend than the wire cattle panels
and yes it will last

 

[pdfangus]

I am having a senior moment....

I had cause to bend a few a couple of years ago and figured out an easier way to do it and got em pretty square and now I can remember some of the things I tried but I can not recall exactly what worked best for me now.

I did it by hand and finally figured a way to do it pretty easily. let me stew on it a while and maybe it will come to me.

 

[backhoeboogie]

Most of them seem to get bent up really well all on their own

I had call for precise bending with sheep panels a few times. They are taller and have a 4 inch grid. I laid them across the flat bed with the tangent marked, put the bucket on top to sandwhich them. Then I went down the panel with the hickey bar and came back up with the hickey bar on a final run. I went a little past 90 degrees and then sprung it back. Perfect. The only problem I ran in to is when I had additional bends to make on down the panel and the trailer wasn't tall enough. At that point, just make the precise point of the bend the same way, pull it off the trailer and finalize it with two hickey bars. Perfect again.

 

[tytower]

I like the tractor bucket on two posts method best but if you want to do it by hand ,take a 3 foot section of 1¨ gal or steam pipe .
Weld a 1¨ piece of the same pipe or stronger on one end to make a T piece. Put a slot in the 1¨ piece so you can just get it over the wire you want to bend.

Make another one. Mark where you want to bend the panel wires and then put bothT bars over the wires and work the arms toward each other bending each panel wire a little at a time ,then the next. Might have to bend each wire up to 4 times each to get a right angle but it works OK