Old Ironside black gate handle

Details

The Old Ironsides is the gate handle you buy once you are done replacing plastic ones. Steel cased with a black rubber insulated grip, it takes the abuse an electric fence gate actually gets on a working place: pulled hard, dropped in the mud, driven past, frozen into the ground and yanked out again in the spring. A spring gate handle is the everyday crossing point in a fence line. A hay gate, an access for the quad, a temporary paddock split, a spot where cattle come through twice a day. It goes on the end of the spring or the wire and gives you something to grab that is not the live wire, which is the whole point of the insulation. Set it up so the handle end is the dead end of the gate rather than the hot end, so an open gate does not leave a live handle lying in the grass. Check the insulated grip for cracks each spring, since a split in the rubber is how people get surprised. Keep the hook and the eye clean, because rust and dirt at the connection are behind most poor contact, and a gate that does not conduct lets the fence down without telling you.