I am contemplating if it is feasible to build a post hole auger attachment for the skid loader. Ideas? I am sure this had been accomplished / attempted by others.
In Australia they are an off the shelf item including different size angers. The way the currency is you could almost buy one here, ship it over and still have $$$ in your pocket as against building one
Looks like I can buy one for around $2000 -$2500 USD. I am super cheap and would only be using it for personal use. Planning on fencing my entire lot, but even that doesn't justify the large initial expense. Hello Australia! My wife was just talking about how she wanted to visit someday.
You might find a used auger and then get an appropriate motor and hoses along with a quick attach plate. I looked at this and found there was no way I could buy screw flights and make my own auger. Making flights is a pain. I did a few when I modified our 24” auger, no way I’d want to make more. I found the following costs: QA plate - $150 Motor - 800 - 1000 Hoses - $30 but I make them here , probably $100 if you buy them 12” auger - $200 - 400 depending on what duty you buy. Then you need a valve if your machine doesn’t have one. And more. Then you need to cobble it together . Look for a rental for a few hundred and do all your holes and be done with it maybe..
My dad made one 40 or 50 years ago, ugly thing with a Char-Lynn motor, double chain drive, gear box which was I don't know what, made the spiral flutes himself. They were hand cut and hammered, ugly, but worked. That part and several others have since been replaced by commercially available parts but times are not as tough now as they were back then and if he needed one now he would probably just buy it.
T here's a guy on Youtube made one from a hydraulic winch. This is part 1 of 5. I didn't watch it all to see how it turns out.
I agree a rental unit would be the best approach. Rent it use it and return the unit. I think I come up with home grown ideas to entertain my boredom. The only major issue with the rental is the pace at which I need it. I might put up the fence in sections, not necessarily all at once. I also am building a new front porch it could be handy to have it for. Not that it's a necessity for the front porch. It should only require a couple holes. I watched the first couple episodes of the winch to auger conversion a while ago, but never saw the finish product in action. It looked like he was doing a nice job in the sections I saw. I found this online just randomly searching. Any idea on the power required to twist an auger? See ether link below. Thank you everyone for your comments. I enjoy discussing ideas with others. Cheers, https://www.agrisupply.com/hp-std-g...MI16rL4Mv66gIVUPDACh0TdAQhEAQYAiABEgLjbfD_BwE
I think this is the same guy with the finished product. It does look he did a nice job on it. It seems a little slow and needs a way to keep it plumb on a side slope.
What kind of property and fence do you want? Making a post pounder and pounding fence posts in may be an easier/better option. Cementing wood posts in will make them rot at the surface.
I agree with Dave that the idea of steel posts vs wood needs to be considered. Wood need to be tamped in with dirt and rocks to be done correctly. Concrete is for city slickers. Works good now but rots away later.
World War II my neighbor wanted a bandsaw. It was in the day of Popular Mechanics magazine offering hundreds of build your own projects. His homemade machine looked very cool, but didn't quite ever function. I've seen a few homemade three point hitch augers, including one my former brother in law built for a jeep. Most PTO driven ones use rear axles from autos.
You are right, now I remember he originally made it for a 3 point hitch PTO drive. The gear box is not a normal car axle on this one though. He fenced and cross fenced the entire ranch with it and has made and moved many different fence lines since then. He later converted it to a Bobcat attachment hence the Char-Lynn motor. It was used on jobs for hire for years afterwards with the homemade ugly auger. With something like a couple bucket teeth with shanks attached on the bottom. Somewhere more recently they bought a factory made auger though and the hand hammered thing is gone. I am sure he spent many a day in the shop cutting/welding/improving the thing at first. Things with this much torque and force seldom hold up very long for the first 10 iterations until the kinks get worked out.
This is overkill for a weekend project, but post hammers come in a variety styles. Farmers have been using them mount to on ag tractors for quite a while.
I helped an old family member install a fence around his pasture. He built a homemade fence post ram. It used a fork lift mast with a large weight on the top. They mounted it to the front of a skid steer. It worked great, but scared me. It was violent and sometimes would shatter the post into multiple pieces. Those posts were rock solid! I am a city slicker :/. I plan on installing 4x4's backfilled with gravel. I did think about pouring a concrete perimeter with metal attachment plates formed in for the posts, but that might get a little too pricey. The homemade auger did look like it performed well. The speed was a little slow, but sure beats a manual tool. I don't know if I agree about good fence construction technique. I too contemplated buying a cheap 3 point unit and converting it to a hydro powered unit for the skid steer. Sounded like a solid plan, but they are asking gold prices for those old units. Not for sure why..... Gotta go I might have just bought a broken tractor by accident. Uh oh
You can rent pull type post pounders with their own engine.
Danuser Machine works Fulton MO makes one vicious post pounder, the renters on our place are driving Oil Field pipe sections in for corner post and welding cross bracing to them, afterword's they hand brush rustoleum on the weld points seems to have held up on their farms. The post pounder drove one into essentially solid rock, it will rust off before can drag it out.
Look into a post pounder for your fence project, you can likely rent one for a couple hundred for the weekend. I picked up a Danuser SM40 post driver a couple months back for my skid for a variety of projects I have coming up. Yesterday 2 of us put in 151, 5"&6" round wood posts in about 10hrs including laying the posts out, getting the pasture fence lines laid out (some was open field), etc. The hardest anyone worked was while laying the posts out as the skid steer drove along with the bundle of posts on the forks.
FTH; CA-6 grade limestone around posts will be a rock hard backfill after it has been wet.
I use sack premix, simple fast and 80# bag seems to be a perfect fit!!
I am not overly knowledgeable on the different grades of stone. I commonly get 411 birm mix delivered. How does CA-6 grade limestone compare? I did end up completing the tractor purchase. My wife wasn't too thrilled seeing a big broken tractor thru the kitchen window. I on the other hand am super excited. I will have to waylay the post hole project for a awhile. The trenching project has been moved to the front of the line. I hope to repair this tractor, use it for my trenching then send it on down the road. I like it, but just don't have the space for extra big toys. Check out the video of it's first day home. If you scroll to the end you see me tinkering with the fuel system and ultimately making her pergulate!!!
Where I live, I can get an unlimited supply of used power poles for free. I use them for corner posts and one side of my pastures along our road for looks. Everything else was T posts. 400-500 T posts and most of them were put in by having a helper hold the T post while I pushed it in with the bobcat bucket. I got pretty good at it, but would occasionally hit a rock and it would stop or bend if I didn't back off soon enough. When I was about 95% done, my dad called and said lets split the cost of a Danuser T3 post driver. "Thanks Dad, wish you had called last month!". That thing is awesome. For the power poles, I have a hydraulic auger with a 6" bit. Drill the hole, clean it out with post hole diggers, tamp down the bottom and add about 1-2" of gravel. Drop the post in and dump 1.5 sacks of quickmix and about 3 gallons of water and you are done.