I am doing some landscaping work. I want to open up my wood fence for easy movement of bricks and other materials. To facilitate this I would like to remove several boards from my privacy fence. I will be reusing these boards after finishing my landscaping work. I tried to hammer the boards out with a rubber mallet, but they are not budging. What else can I do?

Answer

Bear Claw Nail Puller

There is a special nail removing tool called Bear Claw Nail Puller found at Sears, Home Depot, Lowes, Menards etc. It has a ‘V’, like end similar to that of the claw end on a hammer but smaller. It also has a long shaft at 90 degrees to the claw, for leverage when you pry out the nails.

You can use a hammer to slip the the ‘V’ under the nail. Then grab and pry out the nails by their heads. Often the damage to the board is slight enough that you can reuse the boards on applications like framing and fencing. See the picture below to get an idea for what to look for when you go to Lowes or Home depot.

Accent Gates for Your Garden

Many of you may or may not have fences, but many of you like to have accent gates.   Accent gates can give your garden the beauty that would otherwise be missing without them.   Furthermore, you may have a split-rail fence that specifically serve as a decorative additive to your front yard, yet you want an area for your small dog to run freely in.   Here, an accent gate can serve a functional purpose as well as an additional decorative accent to your front yard.

There are all kinds of different types of gates that you can build for your front yard.   Many of these gates often have a pergola or arch above them to give some extra beauty.   Pergolas are great, because you can hang potted plants on the side or train flowering vines to grow all over the pergola to give that extra floral beauty in the summer.   One other great idea for accent gates for your garden is building them with natural wood.

Natural wood gates can give that special rustic look to your yard and work great with split-rail fences.   There are all kinds of wood you can use for natural wood gates.   In the Midwest, sassafras wood is often used for natural wood gates.   Sassafras trees grow like weeds and they can get quite large in a short period of time.   Some specialty stores also sell pretreated sassafras or other natural woods which already have the bark shaved off of them.

To build a natural wood gate, it is highly necessary to shave the bark off the tree trunks that you harvest.   Sassafras works best, because it naturally grows in a gnarled fashion, giving you that unique natural or rustic cottage look.   Shaving the bark is imperative to keep the wood from rotting.  The one problem with sassafras wood is that it has the tendency to rot rather quickly if you don’t remove the bark.   Once the bark is removed, you should let the pieces of sassafras dry.  You can do this by either letting the pieces sit in the sun or a better method is to bake them in your oven for five to ten minutes if the pieces are small enough.  Otherwise, find an area with a wood kiln to dry the larger pieces.   If you can’t find a wood kiln, you can dry the wood in the sun, but it might take five to ten days depending on how humid it is.

Treatment of natural wood can be done in several ways.  There are all kinds of stains and varnishes available at your local home improvement store.   The best type of varnish for not just natural wood, but any wood, is a spar urethane.   This is the type of varnish used on boats and is highly resistant

Continue reading Building a garden gate (wooden accent gate) in your garden