©iStockphoto.com/Gregory Olsen
DCL
In a time when you can go to almost any home improvement store and buy a panel of plastic fencing why would you want to go with the more difficult to install, harder to maintain wood pickets?
I mean, other than it looks better, is more environmentally friendly, and easy to fix?
It wasn't that many years ago that fixing a fence was a simple matter of pulling out the broken picket, cutting a new one and nailing it in. Slap a few coats of paint on there and you were ready to go. Somewhere on the way to the 21st century Americans got the idea that work was evil and free time was what life was about. More and more products were manufactured and fewer and fewer people remembered how to do simple tasks. Now we are scurrying to catch up, glean information from our senior citizens before they are all gone and they take the knowledge with them.
How to Replace a Broken Picket
The first thing you will need to do is to carefully take out an unbroken picket. This will be your pattern for your new picket. I suggest that once you have it out you cut two and keep one for a pattern piece. That way if you need to replace one in the future you can do it without risking breaking a good picket.
Materials
- Hammer (or an orphaned shoe)
- Galvanized finishing nails
- Board the same size and width of the picket
- Pencil
- Jigsaw
- Sander
- Wood putty
- Paint
Instructions
1.Trace the shape of the picket on the new board.
2.Carefully cut around the shape with the jigsaw.
3.Sand it carefully and round the edges slightly.
4.Paint the picket and rails where they join together.
5.Nail the new picket up with the galvanized nails.
6.Set the nail heads below the surface of the wood.
7.Fill indentations with wood putty.
8.Let dry thoroughly and then paint the fence.
That's it. You have a fixed fence for a fraction of what it would have taken you to replace and entire plastic section. This will not work with biocomposite wood, however.
