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There are many reasons to hate it. One of the best reasons is the way it is sold now in the box stores and through wholesalers we're competing with guys installing it who have less than a thousand dollars invested in new equipment doing it.
They have a one man auger they bought for a couple of hundred, a 110 volt flux core mig for about twice that, a sawsall, and now they're an ornamental fence installer.
Another reason to hate it is the stuff coming in by the container load from China is as good if not better than the local boys are making if you consider durability.
If you want to see something check out the stuff Ameristar is making to compete with the stuff from China. It's better and it comes with a twenty year warranty on the color. They bring it in on train cars as forty ton coils of galvanized sheet. It leaves finished and coated inside and outside. It's not powder coated. It's actually dipped in a tank of paint twice. It's got color inside and outside, no rust potential anywhere.
But probably the best reason to hate it is the consumer can't tell the difference between stuff made by craftsmen and just stuff.
So I don't do it. If you're a good friend and you want to buy the materials I'll do a better job of installing the prefabbed stuff than the next guy will. But I'll complain the whole time.
I have a bud. He needed some picket ornamental fencing. I got prices from some wholesalers for him and agreed to install it. Looking at what he needed it for and what we were looking at material wise I ended up going to King Metals here in Dallas and doing it my way.
One inch pressed point pickets, one inch 14 ga rails, 1 1/2" fourteen gauge posts. Pickets welded to the faces of the rails.
Now if you've ever welded pickets to the faces of rails you know you get a heckuva bowing problem. If you look at the stuff the wholesalers have you know that it is basically tack welded to cut back on that bowing problem.
I've been to production shops that knocked that stuff out big time and seen a couple of guys jumping up and down on panels to straighten them out before they were sent on to the powder coating process.
I have an old jig thing kind of table that's seen a thing or two. A new project comes along and it gets modified the minimum to get the job done. So it looks, well, like it has been rode hard and put away wet way too many times.
I had a hundred foot of fence to make. I'm old. Because of that and wanting to keep the weight of the panels down for handling I made six foot panels.
The first thing is to eliminate the bowing problem.
They have a one man auger they bought for a couple of hundred, a 110 volt flux core mig for about twice that, a sawsall, and now they're an ornamental fence installer.
Another reason to hate it is the stuff coming in by the container load from China is as good if not better than the local boys are making if you consider durability.
If you want to see something check out the stuff Ameristar is making to compete with the stuff from China. It's better and it comes with a twenty year warranty on the color. They bring it in on train cars as forty ton coils of galvanized sheet. It leaves finished and coated inside and outside. It's not powder coated. It's actually dipped in a tank of paint twice. It's got color inside and outside, no rust potential anywhere.
But probably the best reason to hate it is the consumer can't tell the difference between stuff made by craftsmen and just stuff.
So I don't do it. If you're a good friend and you want to buy the materials I'll do a better job of installing the prefabbed stuff than the next guy will. But I'll complain the whole time.
I have a bud. He needed some picket ornamental fencing. I got prices from some wholesalers for him and agreed to install it. Looking at what he needed it for and what we were looking at material wise I ended up going to King Metals here in Dallas and doing it my way.
One inch pressed point pickets, one inch 14 ga rails, 1 1/2" fourteen gauge posts. Pickets welded to the faces of the rails.
Now if you've ever welded pickets to the faces of rails you know you get a heckuva bowing problem. If you look at the stuff the wholesalers have you know that it is basically tack welded to cut back on that bowing problem.
I've been to production shops that knocked that stuff out big time and seen a couple of guys jumping up and down on panels to straighten them out before they were sent on to the powder coating process.
I have an old jig thing kind of table that's seen a thing or two. A new project comes along and it gets modified the minimum to get the job done. So it looks, well, like it has been rode hard and put away wet way too many times.
I had a hundred foot of fence to make. I'm old. Because of that and wanting to keep the weight of the panels down for handling I made six foot panels.
The first thing is to eliminate the bowing problem.
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