Fence unroller

[GaltsGulch]

I didn't want to spend any more money than I had to to unroll the 1k feet of fence my wife and I are doing this week/weekend and maybe next also depending how slow the posts drive in my rocky soil. Those 300 foot rolls of goat and sheep fence are rather heavy.
I rigged this up for the boom pole on my tractor to hopefully make life a little easier and not spend 400 on the unroller from TS.



I only have about 15 bucks in it as I ran out of chain and had to pick up a small piece. I made it from an old piece of heavy wall galv conduit and some scrap plate I had in the yard.
The large bottom plate rotates and the main pole is held by a chain at the bottom to keep it from spinning with the fence.
Sorry for the sideways picture.

 

[GaltsGulch]

Here is the bottom.




I'll post how it works if it works.

 

[skeets]

I would say that would work pretty ok, if you go slow and steady though I have to ask how your going to pull the fence tight?

 

[nickelplated5s]

Fence stretcher. I didn't have a tractor when I did mine. The top wire was not fun.

 

[D2Cat]

I had a 3-pt. bale spike with a long spike. I attached the spike to the tractor (Deutz 6206) and rotate the spike vertical. Since it was a long spike I put a steel wheel over it and cut a hole in a 1/2" plywood and set on the wheel.

All this was to act as a bearing to unroll the wire easier.

I took a piece of 2" pipe about 1ft long and welded an eye on one end. I could back up to the spool of wire with the spike horizontal to the ground and slide the wire on it. Insert the 2" sleeve over the end. Attach a come-a-long to the eye (the other end to the ROPS) sand crank the wire spool vertical.

Hook the end of the wire to the corner post. Unreel a few feet of fence, then drive at slow speed.

Would unroll a 330' spool in about 15 minutes, with me getting off the tractor a few times to wire the fence to a post to keep it from flopping to the ground.

Pretty easy to do by myself. Only challenge was to get the spool up to about the 30deg. mark to get leverage with the come-a-long!

 

[North Idaho Wolfman]

IMHO, you would have been better off attaching the wire holder base and pipe directly onto the bucket that way it would not flop around so much.

 

[Tooljunkie]

As wolfman said.
A swinging rotating mass can get dangerous.
Laying fence roll horizontal and two chains on either end would make it easier to manage.

As an added measure to what you have, run two chains on bottom end, fasten to loader or tractor frame. Would keep it from swinging.

We made up a fence tensioner with a pipe and a bunch of hooks made from rebar, and used a come-along to an anchor point.

Steel bar threaded through end of fence and a couple ratchet straps works too.
I know fencing isnt fun, did a bunch of chain link for ostrich ranch.

 

[GaltsGulch]

Started my fence today after 2 days of removing the old fence and the junk that the previous owner let grow through it. Thank goodness for the mini x with a hydro thumb I borrowed from a job we are doing.

The unroller actually worked pretty well. I will probably make a few changes to it mostly replacing the bottom chain with a piece a small tube. The chain didn't quite keep the whole thing from spinning like I was trying to avoid. I prefer not to unroll fence with just a chain through as I have had a roll get all tangled up in a chain once. Took forever to get it all unraveled. The fence roll doesn't swing hardly at all. I was running it with the bottom of the fence roll only a few inches off the ground and had the tractor in low.

For stretching the fence I have a home rigged stretcher that I can hook to the draw bar and stretch the fence with the roll still hanging. However, today I put the new winch to work and just stretched the fence with it. More tension control with the winch than just pulling it with the tractor like I have done in the past.