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The new fence was going to be termite / weather and hopefully animal-proof for a long time to come. So I visited my favourite metal suppliers and bribed .. er rewarded one on the strongest labourers for hacksawing suitable lengths of angle iron from their original 6 metre sizes. After buying 500 metres of fencing wire ( smooth not barbed ), cement, tarred paint, screw-threaded wire tensioners and a bag of cement in the hardware stores in Serrekunda .. Babucar and I set to work.
- We thought that fixing the wires would be much easier if we cut slots in the sides of the angle-iron posts and slotted the wire into them. Three hacksaw blades later and barely a
scratch on the angle-iron, we had to think again ! Drilling holes and running the wires through them .. might work. - There is no mains electricity on site, so having quickly
exhausted my battery powered drill, which was obviously not powerful enough, we loaded all the considerably heavy posts back into our car and headed off to 'civilisation' to try an electric powered drill .. buying some
expensive, but good quality drill bits on the way. After trying 5 minutes of drilling, which had no more effect than the previous hacksawing .. we gave up ! Loading up the car again, we headed down the road to the local
metalsmith who, for a considerable fortune by both local and European standards, agreed to burn five holes in each of the posts with his electric welder. - The price we had to pay
would have kept him and his family in food for a month, but to give him his due .. all the holes in the 30 posts were in the right places when we collected them next morning. - We
worked in gaps between the pouring rain and often soaked to the skin in it. After liberally coating the posts in protective paint, we cemented the end posts in place with right-angled supports, hammered in the intermediate
posts and threaded five strands of wire along its length .. trying our best to keep the fence line straight and level. In typical UK style; "If a job is worth doing, it's worth doing well," I told a smiling Babucar  |