Rail Side Notched

Strong, long-lasting and good-looking

Side-mounted rail fencing is quite common, but most designs have inherent flaws in materials or installation that result in weak fences, sagging or downed rails, and frequent repair. Our approach overcome`s these faults.

The reasons are three-fold: staggering the rails, notching the posts, and using lag bolts with joiner plates:

1- Staggering – By using 16′ rails on 7′ 10″ post spacings, each rail is attached to three posts. This virtually eliminates sag and warpage and enables the rails to “flow” around the contours of the land. The rails are placed staggered, so that each post has only one or two seams, never three. This “woven effect” alone adds greatly to the fence’s overall strength.

2- Notching – Even more important, the posts are lightly notched with a curvature matching that of the rails. This requires a special, customized notching device. By notching, we dramatically increase the wood-to-wood contact area between the rail and post. The fastener no longer has to “hold up” the rail as with traditional designs. Instead, it merely maintains tension between rail and post, the way a fastener should, allowing contact friction to do its job. We can’t emphasize enough that this is a gigantic leap in strength and longevity over all competing designs

3- Bolting – We attach the rails with a 5/16″ lag bolt rather than nails, spikes or screws. Where two rails meet, we place small galvanized metal plates to physically join the adjacent lag bolts. This further ensures the rails will stay in place, and adds to the structure’s strength.

Despite all these benefits and advantages, our side-notched rail fences are still fast and easy to install, making Austech rail packages highly cost-competitive.