Speedrite aluminum in-line wire strainer (25 pack)

Details

A wire fence does not stay tight. Temperature swings between minus thirty and plus thirty move a wire a long way, frost lifts posts, and animals leaning on a line stretch it. In-line strainers are how you take that slack back out without pulling the fence apart. These are aluminum, so they do not rust out the way a plated steel strainer does after a few seasons of snowmelt and standing water. They fit into an existing run of steel or aluminum wire — you do not have to cut and rejoin — and you tighten them with the Speedrite in-line strainer handle or a standard 12 mm drive ratchet. A pack of 25 covers a proper fence-tightening round rather than one gate corner. Put one in each wire, roughly mid-span between strainer posts, and leave it there. Then tightening the fence in spring after the frost comes out is a walk down the line with a ratchet instead of a day of splicing. Do not over-tension high tensile wire — it needs to be tight enough to stay off the posts and loose enough to survive the next cold snap, because wire that is cranked drum-tight in July will be pulling on your corners in January. The tightening handle is sold separately.