Friday, April 26, 2013

Endpost Designs

We're coming to terms with all those little devils that are called the details. We had one design in mind for the endpost, which was to construct an H-brace. We went near and far to locate black locust for the endpost because it is durable, long lasting and does not contain chemicals (i.e. chromated copper arsenate CCA).  First, we had to surmount the difficulty of getting straight black locust posts, it can be very crooked.  Second, it is rather expensive, but no more expensive than metal line posts.  But lastly, when it came down to it, we could not find enough to construct the H-braces for the 36 rows that comprise our vineyard, which came to 144 posts, not including the brace posts.  But the death knell, or let's say reality check came when we priced the H-brace installation at the ends of the vineyard rows---it would cost $250.00 for each H-brace!  That's $18,000.00!
There are three types of endposts (1) H-brace, (2) anchored endpost assembly and (3) slant brace endpost system. The following images are taken from an excellent slide deck provided by Prof. Paul Domoto of the Department of Horticulture, Iowa State University:1
Due to the high cost of installing the H-brace, we are rethinking the anchored endpost assembly option. Dr. Domoto provides step-by-step instructions on how to construct the anchored endpost in this slidedeck, Reference 1 below.

References:
1. Paul Domoto, Constructing a Vineyard Trellis, Iowa State University, January 26, 2002. Prof. Paul Domoto kindly gave me permission to use the sides.
Additional references:
2. Bernd Maier, Trellis End Post Assembly Designs for Vineyards, New Mexico State University.
3. Installing a Vineyard Trellis

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