What is the best fence post depth? That depends (of course) on what type of fence you are building and which post you are putting in the ground. We’ll cover a few here with some general fence builder rules.

Privacy Fence Post Depth — 1/3 of Height

The general rule of thumb for privacy fence posts is to bury them 1/3 the depth of the height of the post. This is easy for your typical privacy fence. Use 8′ posts, bury 2′ in the ground, and you’re left with a 6′ post on which to build a fence.

Concrete is still a good idea (I recommend it), especially if you live in an area with high winds or occasional hurricanes. I’ve even drilled a 9/16″ x 8″ hole in the bottoms of the posts and driven a piece of re-bar in with about 12″ sticking out. The result is a post buried 2 feet in the ground, with re-bar another 12″ (driven into the clay soil), surrounded by concrete — very strong posts. Overkill? Whatever, dude.

Farm & Ranch Fence

Your typical farm or ranch fence, especially one with wire stretched, has 2 types of posts — line posts and corner posts.

Use the 1/3 of height rule for the line posts depths. With 6 foot posts, you will probably bury 1.5 to 2 feet and end up with a 4 to 4.5 foot post. For corner posts, you might want to use a rule of 1/2 the height for the fence post depth. So, a 5 foot tall corner post would probably be buried 2.5 feet in the ground — probably more like 3 feet buried of an 8′ post.

Most (ok, nearly all) of LumberTalk.com discusses larger projects but the more detailed wood working arts like furniture making and wood turning are interesting, too. The scope of wood working is immense so I thought an introduction to wood working schools would be the best way to show some of the variety – stuff you’ve surely seen but might not think much about.

So, we put together a list of relevant wood working schools in America…

Homestead Woodworking Institution

Homestead offers an impressive variety of courses for beginners to advanced students. From turning bowls to making furniture, Homestead Woodworking Institution has a well rounded set of classes to teach you everything you need to know. Located in Newmarket, NH, Homestead’s classes are affordable and you can even sign up online.

Lohr School For Woodworking

This popular wood working school is situated in Schwenksville, PA. The Lohr School for Woodworking is filled with exceptionally trained teachers that offer a comprehensive course level in wood working. You can learn all types of wood working techniques here but, most notably, Lohr teaches live edge free form wood working. Wood technology and joinery methods are covered in this school. This might be the school for the more artistic of you.

Connecticut Valley School

This wood working institution offers you a comprehensive learning program in every course level. Located in Manchester, CT, the Connecticut Valley School teaches traditional wood working skills such as wood turning and finishing but also offers course in such unique and [painstaking] skills as relief carving and boat building. The breadth of wood working techniques taught here is kind of amazing.

So, these are some of the wood working schools in United States that struck me as ones where you could get some great – and maybe unique – lessons.

I was going to make this a really big and comprehensive list and then I found this list of wood working schools and decided to stop writing more.

Happy Wood Working