Fabricating GDC Trellis Posts for Muscadines

Posted Jun 16th 2012 | By:  

garymc

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After scouring the countryside looking for something affordable and suitably sturdy enough for Geneva Double Curtain trellis posts for my muscadine vineyard, I found a collection of 2 inch and one inch galvanized iron pipe at a local scrap yard. I sorted through it and bought it from them. They sold it for twice what they pay for it, so $.12 a pound scrap costs $.24 a pound. 
 
I cut the 2 inch pieces into 9 to 11 foot sections using a band saw. If I had a 23 foot piece, it became two 9 foot pieces and a 4 foot piece, for instance. Some of them were threaded and I was able to screw some stubs together. I cut the 1 inch pipe into 4 foot pieces. Then I took a cutting torch and coped out a semicircle in the end of the 2 inch posts to fit the 1 inch cross bars into as illustrated in the picture. Using a protractor and a square to make a right angle, I welded the cross bars into the C shaped cutouts as illustrated. The 2 inch post standing upside down on top of the cross bar is held in a vise (not pictured.) Then I drilled holes a half inch from the ends of the cross bars for the trellis wires to run through. Later, I got access to a plasma cutter and instead of a C shaped cut, I moved down the post a couple of inches and cut a circle out of opposite sides of the upright post for the crossbars. 
 
The posts weigh about 60 pounds more or less, so I have about $15 in each post. This is thick walled pipe, so it will be there long after I'm gone.

Posted in

Technical and DIY

and Tagged with

trellis, pipe, post, Geneva, GDC

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3 COMMENTS

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srcorndog

Posted: 

July 14, 2012  •  07:38 AM

I use fence post that I cut half way through bent in a 45 degree welded to my schedule 80 post. I use the watson method this requires a V shape for my top 60 inches from the ground. Total cost of each post 12 to 15 bucks you have
to go scraping or you will pay retail.
Sr Corndog (Charlie)

 

pg55

Posted: 

February 28, 2013  •  08:23 PM

The 1" pipe is it sch 40 or 80?

 

garymc

Posted: 

March 1, 2013  •  01:29 AM

I don't know. I can grab an end and lift my feet off the ground and it doesn't flex.