welcome back to Steve Robb reviews today it's the beginning of a project and this is my post
hold auger and I've had this since 1986 I'm going to show you the project that I'll be
doing and yeah the the post that I put in in 1986 is deteriorating and I'm going to show you this
project that I have where I'm going to build a new liftoff gate and put a new entrance going
into my backyard and I'll show you that being built but yeah this is the ideal augur I like
now the one thing I like about it is it's all cast this is all cast iron and you can see it's
got an adjustment so you can make it smaller and bigger now I've left mine at 8 inches now it does
go below but I've left at 8 inches and guys take a look at the shape of this from 1986 the thing
I like about it the best is you can just get your small little disc grinder and sharpen it
up because so many times you see people using different type of post to loggers and you can
see the edge I've put on that there yeah I just sharpen it up a bit now I don't know the name of
the manufacturer but there's two styles sold like this one is adjustable and one isn't and another
great feature of this one it's used the normal pipe thread so you can disconnect this from this
cast collar and put extensions on if you want so if you want to go deeper then you know depending
on where you live in the world from the frost line or like some people actually take these and they
make a well so they dig a well with one of these just a small little small well and you can keep on
adding the extensions on a bit at a time now I've never done that maybe in the future but I'm going
to show you why I'm replacing my post well there you go right there you could see that this post is
all starting to deteriorate you know from 1986 it's been a long time but this is the backyard
gate I'm going to replace all that and you can see here on the side where this is a liftoff
fence part down this end and all the way to that end and I just grabbed the handle lift it off so
if you want to bring anything in here that's you know around eight feet wide you can't so I thought
that's a good idea and the first thing we're going to do is we're going to dig this hole and you take
a look right there you can see where I put the the mark where the holes going to go and then
I'll show you me using this auger and how good it actually works well let's put it right on the spot
here okay now I'm only gonna dig for a little bit here and then I'll just show you how easy it is
but I'm gonna keep track of the time and let you know how long it takes to dig this hole so let's
go so you just start pressing down like this and remember this earth hasn't been moved since 1986
for sure yeah yeah it just goes a little bit at the time here now a lot of people would start off
and just dig up a shovel fall in the beginning but as you can see this is how it you digging
in there pretty good and I mean I'll put the dirt here so I could shovel it later there we go
now you can see how she'd really start the digs pretty good here now it's just
moving it back and forth it's not that hard let's take a pile out there we go
now I'm not moving the handles and the 360 I'm just moving
them back and forth about 90 degrees at a time
now you tell me this looks like it's difficult because tell you what I can do this no problem I
mean it take your time and if you hit a rock well of course you got to get a little bit of a pry bar
and pop the rock out but hopefully we don't get no rocks okay so you can see we're down now almost to
eight inches and that's probably a minute so I'll bring you back when the hole is done well here we
go here the holes all done check that out is 36 inches deep from my area that's fine and I will
leave that hole exposed like that for a minimum of three to four days now it's solid clay where
I am so it's not gonna like cave-in or anything and that's just to dry out the hole and in the
meantime I'll put this over top of it to make sure that nobody steps in there got to get rid
of my dirt and there's the stones that I picked up and how do you get them out of the hole well
just use your shopback the end of your shopback will pick them all out and that's as easy as that
and of course I need my pry bar just to move them a bit and there's my digger and I marked
it right there 36 inches I'm going to take you in the garage and I'm gonna explain something to you
about this dig or a good tip to make it go fast so you're not wearing your arms out and let's
get to that next okay so I thought I'd show you on the bottom of this post hole digger you can
see the jaws here so every time you take a load of dirt out you have to clean these out if you
get a little rock in here or if it's packed up like clay like - if you don't take it out of the
jaws you ain't gonna dig nowhere it'll hardly dig at all and you'll wonder what's going on yeah if
you just keep it clean no problem at all half an hour that was it for me and I just thought
I'd show you something else so in the next video I'm going to be showing me putting the post in the
ground and I'm gonna be doing something very special to the post that I've been doing for
the last 30 years I really can't say I've seen anybody on YouTube do this but I do it and it
prevents the the post who's seen the beginning of the video where it was all rotted out at the base
well they always rot rate at the ground level and I'm gonna show you how to prevent that but I want
to show you something right here if you take a good look I hope you can see that can you see
where the center of that block is and the next dark spot is the center of the tree so all these
4x4 posts the ones that I've ever seen they're all cut from the center of the tree and then they're
pressure-treated one like this is fine but if you get that center or the center rings are and
it's way off over here don't buy that post because that post will cure all crooked I've had so many
problems over the years I'm learning from my own experiences when I go and you know I'm looking
at the piece of wood I'm eyeing it up make sure it's nice and straight and everything and then
the next thing I do is where is the growth rings it's got to be pretty close to the center if it's
not in the center I don't buy it so thanks for joining me here today and stay tuned for the
next episode of this fence build and gate and we'll see how it goes I'll put a link down in
the description bowl as the series progresses and I hope you guys can get some tips from this and I
hope you maybe if you're thinking about getting one of these diggers yeah I mean I was born in
the 50s if I can dig this myself in a half an hour I'm sure any of you can too and you'll
save yourself a lot of money by paying somebody else to do it and that's the whole idea of You
Tube is learning some tips and tricks and saving yourself some money so if you just never seen this
channel before well you're welcome to subscribe come back again let's have some more fun Cheers
you