Patriot strainer tensioner handle

Details

In-line strainers do the tensioning, but something has to turn them. This handle is that tool. It engages the strainer and gives you the leverage to wind a wire up tight without a vehicle, a come-along, or three people and a lot of shouting. Leverage is the whole point. Getting a long run of high tensile wire up to proper tension takes real force, and trying it with fencing pliers is slow and hard on the wire. With the handle you wind steadily, feel the tension come on, and stop where you want it instead of overshooting and stretching the wire past where it will come back from. One handle serves every strainer on the place, so it belongs in the fence box permanently. In practice it is the tool you reach for twice a year: once in spring when frost has heaved the posts around and everything has gone slack, and once in fall when you tidy the line before winter. In between, it is what you grab when a wire has been hit and needs pulling back up to where it belongs.