I found a use for the wire in the welded wire stock panels. Just the right amount of stiffness and springiness. I spent about a half hour cutting one wire out with the cutting torch and then grinding off the rest of the wire just to do the experiment. It looks like the experiment is going to work, so I would like to get more of those wires without them already being welded up in a stock panel. Anybody know what to ask for or where I would get such a thing?
check out "cold roll pencil rod" Cattle panel is .2 inches, I think .25 inch pencil rod is usually easy to find at metal dealers some metal salvage yards sell new excess
It took me a while, but I found a source. My wife just called to say she picked it up. She says it's covered in grease. Is that normal? I guess I assumed it would be galvanized. If I want to weld with this stuff, I suppose I should clean it first. And since it will end up outside, I guess I'll need to paint it. True?
If you dont mind, tell us what cost for such runs. As to galvanizing, I imagine the panels are galvanized after fabrication so welds would end up galvanized also. Yep, you will need to protect it in some manner.
Jeee, my cattle seperate the wires for me for free, only takes a year or so & I have all kinds of it.... If you buy galvanized, you shouldn't weld it for the fumes, plus the welds will be prone to rust out. If you buy ungalvanized, you will likely need to coat it all to protect it. --->Paul
I'm experimenting with portable chicken pens. I've tried pvc (decomposes in a year), poly pipe (too floppy - gonna reinforce with the pencil rod), cattle panels (too heavy / still trying to resolve drag issues), steel tubing (still working on getting the first one in the field) and now "pencil rod". I wonder if I take a sledge hammer to a cattle panel if I can get cheaper pencil rod ....
I was dreaming up all kinds of luxeries like automatic gate closing springs, trampoline chicken perches, and catapoltes (sp?) to launch rotten apples at the neighbors.
While we are waiting for PAUL to divulge his new craft project, I thought I'd tell what you might do with the cattle panels. I cut them crossways with a small bolt cutter leaving either 2 or three cross wires in each cut off piece. I cut them close to a cross wire which leaves a row of wires that can be pushed into the ground. They are excellent to put around flowers to keep taller ones from falling over and protect any of them from kids and animals taking a shortcut through them.
Did I not divulge enough? Portable chicken pens. For pastured poultry. Like Salatin's. Only I'm shooting for cheaper and lighter. And I don't like moving the pens with the chickens in them, so I want to move a fresh pen in next door to a day old pen and have the chickens move from one to the other. I think I mentioned other experiments above.
you don't need a cutting torch. A heavy boltcutter will work much quicker. When shaping the rod make sure it is warm, or it tends to snap. if you use a fencing pliers, simply use the far notches, grip the rod at the end and push the rod tangentially down aagains a board so it wont slip and pry down the pliers to bend the rod. I use cattle panels for fences and then cut a section for the gate, by cutting off the vertical last rod and leaving the horizontals, bend them into a loop and insert that into the section of fence and then complete the bent loop into an O and that makes a hinge for the gate. For a locking mechanism, bend a short piece of rod into a C put it through a convienient vertical rod. Complete the bend from a C to an oval. Pull the oval attatched to the gate, through the fence and drop a piece of rebar through the oval.
Paul, last year, we picked up several pieces of what I imagine was concrete reinforcement, but it looks like sections cut lengthwise out of cattle panels, just a bit lighter. I bent them in arches in the garden to support beans and peas. They are 8 feet long, and about 10 inches wide. Something like that might work for your project. Jan in Co
