Fence: Part 6a - Staining & Pickets

I hired a Labor Ready guy to come out and spend some time staining the posts and rails last week. He spent four hours and was able to finish the west half of the fence posts and rails. He was about as fast as I was (I stained two posts and three rails a couple of days earlier). It cost $25 an hour.

I'm staining all pieces of the fence prior to assembly so that they are fully covered and there is less chance for rot. I see a lot of fences here in the Pacific Northwest that don't seem to last very long (I'm thinking the rain has something to do with it). The posts warp and break. The rails warp and break at the posts.The pickets warp and fall off the rails.

After the fence is assembled, I'll try to put another coat of stain on the fence as a whole as soon as I can (though, sadly, that may not be until next summer). I'm using a solid stain which is supposed to protect the wood for ten years (though the guy behind the paint desk said that PNW conditions basically cut that in half. 

I used the old fence rails to build the saw horses.

I also decided to add the third screw to the rail brackets. The pickets are soft enough that the screw head pushes into the pickets and everything sits nice and flat.

Since the posts and rails were stained, I started installing the stained pickets as soon as they were dry. The top rail is set at 71" so I have to cut the pickets. Plus, each span from post to post gets shorter from east to west. This means that I have to cut the pickets progressively shorter as I install them (from left to right). This is because I've set the top rail level. If I had set it parallel to the ground (and therefore sloped) all the pickets would be the same length.

I'm installing a 5/4" x 4" cedar top cap along the top of the fence to protect the pickets since if I didn't their end grain would just soak up water for the rest of their existence. And I'm installing a 1" x 4" fascia board to make everything look pretty. The fascia board stock I have is actually 1" x 6" and I tried installing it uncut to see if I liked the look. I didn't so I cut it down, stained the cut, and installed it.

The pickets are spaced 1/16" apart.

Here's the fence from the inside of the yard.

Here's the fence from the outside along the private road.

I'm super excited to have one span done. Only fourteen more to go. And two swing gates. I have someone coming by on Monday to give me a quote on staining the stack of 500 pickets.

Fence: Materials

Home Depot called and told me I needed to pick up the rest of my fence materials ASAP. I was hoping to use them as my offsite storage yard a while longer, but they want to close the will call ticket. I bought all the materials at once to get a zero interest deal and was told it was okay if I didn't pick up all the materials right away. I guess they expected weeks not months between pick ups. 

It took me most of  Sunday to get the remaining materials. It took two trips and the 500+ pickets maxed out the truck's suspension. I had the Home Depot guys drive a pallet (the pallet held 648 pickets) out to the truck so I didn't have to touch every picket twice. That was awesome. 

Now it's time to stain.

Fence: Part 5c - Rails

I finished installing the last of the rails (or stringers) on the new fence on Monday. I'll put on a coat of stain on the posts and rails next. Then I'll stain the pickets before i install them.

I could have just screwed or nailed the rails to the posts, but i chose (as most people do) to use 2x4 stringer brackets. I installed three rails between each pair of posts because of all the warped pickets I've seen on all the fences (in the Pacific NW) with only two rails. I'm hoping the extra rail will help minimize the warping. At the very least, the extra rail will make it easier for my kids to climb the fence.

Here's the screw that I'm using for attaching the brackets to the posts and that I will be using to attach the pickets to the rails. I bought a box of 5000 for a about $100 (about $0.02 per screw). It's pretty awesome! It self-drills, has a really small head, and has a square drive. Plus it's a deck screw so it's weather resistant.

I attached the brackets to the posts allowing for the thickness of the pickets, facia board, and top cap (1/2" from the inside of the fence).

Then I measured and cut the three rails to fit between the posts. the rails were all the same length because the posts were plumb, but I measured anyway. I didn't use screws on the outside of the bracket, only the bottom and inside, because I don't want the pickets to rise as they pass over the bracket. I'm pretty sure the connection is strong enough. I also brushed on some stain on the cut end of the 2x4 to give it additional weather protection.

There was anywhere from 1" to 2.5" of rise from post to post. The total rise along the run of fence is 26.5".

Here are some photos of the return where the big swing gate will eventually be.

Here's a photo of the little fence section that I'm putting at the end of the driveway to receive the address numbers. I'll be cutting the tall post to match the height of the shorter post.

And here's a photo of the garbage can area. I added diagonal braces to stiffen up the posts where the gates will hang. The braces make a HUGE difference!

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Here's a photo of the shed my neighbors built last week. They bought a kit and didn't have to cut hardly any of the wood. It's about 8'x12' and about 9' high. The green that they painted it seems to really make it invisible. They cut down the (weed) locust trees that used to be there and that really let a lot more light into the area. I suspect our blueberry bushes will be happier until we move them over to the fence where there is tons of light.