Picket fence angles

Adam · 5 Sep 2017 at 11:07

I've decided to try and improve my front garden. It's been a mess with a load of hedges since I moved in but at the weekend I decided enough was enough so I chopped them all down. That was the easy part, I now need to remove the roots!

My house is on a corner which people walk past to get to the station so I want to avoid people cutting across my garden and also have some privacy. It looks 10x better without the bushes already and just planting some small plants with some stone chips would have been my preferred route, but my mrs is very conscious of being taking short cuts across our garden.

I therefore decided to look at picket fences. Large enough to not be able to step over so around 1m tall. The problem is my garden curves around, what's the technique to join the railings to the post to ensure there is a nice join?

I've tried to draw out a plan (very rough and not to scale):

I don't want to loose too much of my garden with this but I also want to follow the contour of the path edge. I'm confident I could do a good job with the straight runs but it's the corners where I have to turn at an angle I'm not confident about. I haven't been able to find much information online, everything seems to work with perfect straight runs or 90 degree corners.

Mercenary Keyboard Warrior · 5 Sep 2017 at 11:25

i think they angle the posts a lot more to split the difference between the gaps, you have yours all in the same orientation, rotate them to sit in between the straight lines

Mercenary Keyboard Warrior · 5 Sep 2017 at 11:26

Oh and taper the post if needed, so the front is wider than the back, depends how much angle your having to deal with, but suspect you will probably need to with that few to work around the corner

Mercenary Keyboard Warrior · 5 Sep 2017 at 11:53

Just to add, I assume your talking wooden?

If its the metal ones they bolt together, so you have some wiggle room in that the bolts will join the pieces but the alignment can be out.

Adam · 5 Sep 2017 at 12:58

Thanks for your suggestions.

Here is an image of what I had in mind:

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/e6/8b/4b/e68b4b74c47fa14b6d2da735b6e01215.jpg
http://www.homedepot.com/hdus/en_US...to-install-wood-fence-rails-HT-PG-BM-hero.jpg

Could I mitre the edge of the rail to make the correct angle or is angling the post the way to go?

Mercenary Keyboard Warrior · 5 Sep 2017 at 16:18

They are quite an open angle so they wouldn't bother at all I suspect, just nail them on and have some small gaps.
Yours looks like it would require quite a sharp angle. Easiest is to just chisel a groove into the front edge of the post, as you see the post is already balancing the angle on their picture, you may need to just help that a bit, its hard to say, or maybe mitre the end of the rails to join at the front of the post, but that sounds tricker
I had assumed you were going with the runs going into the posts at the sides as thats what you showed, that way on the face of the post makes it easier for sure, but maybe they just go this way mainly on the preformed ones.

Some people seem to achieve round looking edges, I guess they must do this with more posts (probably narrower) and more cuts to smooth the angle

Siliconslave · 6 Sep 2017 at 08:31

I've done something similar recently and just put the post in at a middle angle and screwed the fence panels in at an angle. On the really open angles i used a metal fixing plate bent to the angle.

a1ex2001 · 6 Sep 2017 at 08:43

I've seen both the post and the bar angled personally for the tighter corners in your fence I'd cut the posts as it will be easier to do and I think give a neater finish once painted.