welcome back to Steve Robb reviews today we're going to have an interesting project on what
would you do if you had to stiffen up your fence so in my particular situation I have a 50-foot
long fence that I've just built and it's got a little bit of a wobble to it in the wind now
of course this is what I call a veneer fence which is a fence that was built over top of an
existing wire fence with steel poles concreted in the ground so on a day like today it's not
that windy but I can show you when I go up in the backyard exactly what I'm thinking and I mentioned
before they're gonna put a big vegetable raised bed box on one end to support it and I decided in
the middle I'd go with something and you guys let me know in the comments what you think of
this idea I just thought it myself you know to me and makes logic I'll take you out in the backyard
and I'll show you what I'm thinking and why I'm doing this ok so there we are right there now I
built myself a box out of pressure-treated wood that's a 2 by 10 and I extended the bottom a bit
and you can see I put a slot in there and what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna rig up a support that
goes along the fence there comes in there and then right in here I'm gonna fill it full of concrete
and I'm gonna put some rebar in there well kind of so let's get to it I'll take you back out to
the garage and we'll start building this support up well here we are we're in the shop and we've
got ourselves a piece of 3/16 by one-and-a-half inch square tubing and I made myself a couple
of brackets here two on this side and two will go on the other side and I just got some scrap
pieces here and this is a scrap piece and this will go in the corner I think it's thick enough
and from here to here is going to be buried inside the concrete so you can see how this is going to
go to the end there and there's a couple more brackets there and from here up to about six
inches is going to be buried in concrete and that box out there is twenty two and a half by twelve
inches wide by eleven and a half inches deep so I'm not too sure how many bags of concrete
that's going to take but I got a rig this all up here so it will be standing vertical when I
weld it so I'll bring you back when I got that all rigged up okay I just thought I'd show you
have the rigging I got here I got it all clamped to my joist in the ceiling and it comes down and
that's what it's gonna look like right there so I like to get everything nice and square so there
we go that way and we come around to this side get it all square now I'm gonna do is I'm just
gonna I just left enough room on the backside here to put a bead so I'm just going to put a
tack on all four corners and and then that should be enough so I could next put this gusset in here
for strengthening these guys think that should be easy enough let's get to it okay let's put a
couple of tacks on here and get her done there you go let's put a couple on the other side now
okay let's take a look and see how we are right now well I would say that's not too bad right
there so when I take this gusset and tack it in there next that should be fine I mean we're not
building a rocketship here right let's get to it and let's put that support gusset in there
let's just put a clamp on here cuz I know that pulled a note see if I can get a clamp on here
remember you're working with metal all yeah it it distorts it pulls it everything else
and get you a better shot there show you where we are okay without this clamp on here that was
a good eighth of an inch gap so you got a clamp boom there we go so I'll weld that all up and
then we'll get back okay there she is she's all done it's pretty windy out here so I just put a
clamp at the top to hold it and that's where the one bracket is and the other bracket I don't know
if I'm going to use just screws in there or I might go through with the carriage bolt but you
take a look in here you can see I just put a leg down there just to make sure it's self-sustaining
and what I'll do is I'll screw that or bolt it to the frame there first and then wait for a
nice calm day and pour the cement now that's two cubic feet so I figure about 14 16 bags to cement
easy what do you just guys think okay I'll bring you back when I got this all painted and she's
mounted on the wall while on the fence and then I'll have to wait for a good day to put the bags
of concrete in there guys I'm thinking four bags for two cubic feet maybe four bags we'll see I'll
let you know well that's it right there well it's day two and I'm gonna continue with the project I
just want to show you something first this is what I was planning on using instead of rebar
to pound in the ground I got lots of this gas pipe a buddy of mine is a gas fitter he gives
me this pipe won't fit my pounder so I have to buy some rebar here and you know four pieces
now there are 10-foot lengths so two pieces I cut them in half 40 bucks I could not believe it okay
so the total price of this whole project going in I figure now is going to be about a hundred
and ten bucks so in America that's about sixty seven dollars so what I'm gonna do is I'm going
to take you off the tripod I'm going to show you the painted support brace and then what I'm gonna
do is I'm gonna mount it I got a couple of jigs I got to make up first and put all the rebar in
you know I'll show you how I'm gonna drive in one piece of rebar using this in case a lot of
people are curious how I do this but I'll bring you back after that but let's go take a look at
that support bar and see how it turned out okay she's still windy and rainy and yeah turned out
okay you know you put the paint on her to her and it makes the welds look ten times better
okay if you're wondering about that plug what I do with a lot of these projects is I'll show
you at this end here is this here is just one of them blue shop towels stuffed in there and
then I got some latex caulking I just put in there and that's just to cover it up but this is where
I'm gonna put the rebar in first then I'll mount it to the fence and then I'll come back and show
you what we got okay I decided to only go with two pieces of rebar these are 5/8 rebar and I'm
gonna save the other two pieces for the flower box that I mentioned I'm gonna not flower box
vegetable box I'm gonna make down the end there to support the end of the fence as well so I'll
save them for them but I just gonna show you me putting one of these in so I just kind of stabbed
it in the ground for now and I'll show how easy these go in well hopefully if I don't hit a rock
okay I'll take you off the tripod and show you what we got in there okay so that's it right
there guys I'm figuring numb to pieces come on I don't think that's gonna move anywhere so what I'm
gonna do now is I'll mount the support brace and I'll show you that after well I got it all legs
screwed in I think that should be fine and I'll show you here on the on the fence if I can get it
on here there we go right there okay now the only thing that we have to check for now is how level
the fence is so you could see that right there it's not perfect but I like it to be a lot better
than that so I'm going to put a couple of support braces in to make sure when I pour in the concrete
there that the fence is perfectly level I'll show you what I got going on here I just knocks them
out there like this and if you're wondering where this hunk of wood came from it's the center from
them top rail pieces and will come down on the bottom here yeah I had to shim it up just right
so I got this one and this one and that's holding that fence pretty good and I'll tell you she's
pretty breezy here today and I'll put the level up and we'll take a look and we'll see how level it
is now right there now how does that guys look to you now I had to pull that fence back about
3/4 of an inch so that's not too bad and you could see that this fence is pretty steady now okay so
the next thing I'm going to do is wait till it's nice and calm out probably tomorrow and I'm going
to fill full of concrete these guys think I'm to rebars are good enough I think they are and I'll
bring you back when I have the concrete in there and I just go and tell you something you're never
going to see this post in the first place this is just a support piece but I'm gonna plaid this
with pressure-treated wood and this is going to be one of them standouts that you would have that
you hang a flowerpot off of and I think it's going to look nice so I'll give you one last shot here
what it looks like down here yeah that's going to be one of them brackets you hang a pot off of and
down here well that's just going to be a spot where you can actually just put a pot you know
like some flowers or whatever so I'll bring you back when I got the concrete all poured
and that's it let's go in the garage I want to tell you something ok so that was pretty easy
it took three and a half bags of cement and as you could see I like to put the painters
tape around the outside of the wood so when I'm you know smoothing it all out well it just makes
the wood look a little bit better right so but what is the whole purpose of this is not just
particularly for my veneer fence that I put over top of a wire fence this could work terrific for
anybody that has a regular wooden fence you know you see a lot of fences today you know
I think it older you know they start to get wobbly and you know nice to get another ten
years out of the fence instead of spending ten grand and if you put one of these in or two in
while the fence will will stay up a lot of times in high wind situations yeah you'll
get a fence that starts to lean over this is a good way to prop it back up and then put
a good support in there so it stays there so I hope you like this and the next time I'll take
you out in the backyard and I'll show you the finished product of what its gonna look like
when it's clad with wood and it's got a planter hanging from it later on in the summer and I'm
gonna start working on the vegetable box I have no idea what I'm going to do but it's got to be
good for eating vegetables out of not for just flowers so of course I don't want to have any
contamination from pressure-treated wood or any kind of you know chemicals and that kind
of stuff so I'm gonna have to investigate this a little bit more and I'll bring you back when I'm
doing that so thanks for joining me here today I hope you like this little bit of a project if
you've never seen this channel before well you're welcome to subscribe and come back for more Cheers
you