For ‘Call A Farmer’ fencing contractor Nick Beets, regular cleaning and maintenance is all part of ensuring his Stockade tools are performing at their best and delivering a quality job. Based in Mangawhai on the boundary between Auckland and Northland, Nick is often fencing seven wire batten boundary fences for subdivisions, putting in rail fences, or flash top-end entrance ways and interlock fencing.
What cleaning and maintenance regime do you have for your Stockade tools?
For the ST315i, at the end of every battening session I pull out and clean the filter. That’s the first thing dust goes through. The more you keep that filter clean the longer you can go. At the end of a busy day, a quick clean of the filter, magazine and muzzle takes me about two minutes, then I give it a quick spray over.
I’ll do a full strip down and clean for every five to six boxes of staples. Some jobs are so dirty and dusty that you just have to call it. I am pretty quick at it. A strip down and a proper clean would take me 15 minutes. I have also trained myself at being efficient with on-job repairs. I carry spare parts. The way I look at it, I don’t have time to be without the Stockade tools because they save us so much time.
If there was a newbie coming into the industry or a new staff member, what is the one ‘must do’?
“Keep it clean!” Avoid putting your tools in a dirty situation or putting it on the ground. Stockade power staplers have a clip. Hang it on the fence. They are heavy to hang on your tool belt but you can do it as a temporary measure. Another thing – make use of the plastic carry case so your tools aren’t sliding around in the tray of the ute. If you treat your Stockade tools well it will guarantee you a longer life of the tool.
When did you first start using Stockade tools?
When we first started fencing, we were hammering by hand. Eventually bought a batten bracket to hold the battens, then a year later we bought an ST315i. The time we saved compared to doing it by hand was just incredible. I don’t know why we didn’t do it earlier.
Again, it was the same thing with the post staplers. We did it by hand for years until eventually one of our Carter’s reps saw us doing a deer netting job and he said, you know Stockade do a post stapler tool don’t you. He brought it out to try – and we never gave it back! We bought it and have had them ever since.
What do you like the best about the Stockade tools?
Portability! And they’re just so much quicker. I think I did 500m with the ST315i in about 4-5 hours the other day. I love the tools and the staff love them. When people first start we make them start on the hand stapling because it is still an important skill to know how to hammer – and then they move to the Stockade power tools.
