Maasdam - Fence Stretcher (8060)

I have a 7 Foot Gate I put A wheel on so I did not have to lift it at all when I opened or closed it. I had to cut it back a half inch to get the wheel to fit between the gate and the End Post. I used this tool to take the chain link off and back on when I cut the half inch off the top and bottom rails. It did not have any instructions but after a few tries I figured out how to use it. It worked fine for this small job.

Great price for great quality. Worked exactly like i needed it to for very large chainlink install. Adjustable. Solid buy

Here we have an inexpensive chain link fence stretching tool, which generally works great with one notable limitation. This is most definitely a light to medium duty tool, and does not have the strength of a commercial or professional duty tool. There are several reviews here which state this thing is worthless, which I think is unfair. This tool works great for an otherwise very difficult job, but it has a noticeable design weakness. The tool consists of two parts, a hooked swinging arm, and a main body which connects to the arm with a clevis pin, allowing for considerable adjustment ability. The main body has a bent saddle-like arm welded to the center of it, and here is where the weakness lies. The saddle has one end which sticks out from the tool body, and this is where you start placing the saddle over the post that you are drawing the fence up tight to. This bent end of the saddle cannot take too much pressure, and if you really crank on that handle while pulling fence with that bent end still over the post, it will just bend backwards and the tool will fold up on you. I had this happen to me while my assistant was pulling on the handle, but to be fair, he was sitting on the ground and had one foot against the post to increase his leverage while pulling on the handle to increase his leverage. By the way, this is most definitely a two man job, as you need one man on the puller and one to manipulate the tension band and bolts which secure the fence in place. Don't try this alone, or you will regret it! I was able to bend the saddle back into position with a vise and a heavy pipe wrench, But the design weakness is still there. Two ways to approach this- first, we found that if you pull up some of the slack with the handle, but then work the saddle over the post to the center area where it is welded to the tool, you avoid the weak area and have far more strength. Second, if you pull up as much of the slack as you can without overstressing the saddle area, you can use some heavy wire to wire the chain fence to the post and hold the tension. (Clothes hanger wire works great) Then you remove the puller and readjust it to give you a fresh bite at the fence and post, and reapply it and pull up some more slack. The key is to avoid having the far end of the saddle under too much stress. If you avoid this, the tool works great and I was able to mount the fence section with great success. It may not be quite as tight as the commercially installed sections, but there is absolutely no sag and you can't tell which section is which just by looking at it. In conclusion, this tool works very well if you keep it's limitations in mind, and don't expect it to have the strength of the far more costly professional models. For occasional careful use, this thing is great.

Great tool. Good quality. Makes stretching fence manageable. Don't try installing your fence without this handy tool. Buy it, you will not regret it.

Worked great.

The product does not make it easy to stretch the fence. It gets in the way of making the end of the fence attached to the clamps.

Haven't used yet. But I like the idea behind it. It is well made and for the price you can't beat it. Good buy.

Cheap, basic, did the job. It was good for a small section of fence. It doesn't lock into place, so a 2nd person to secure the tension bar would help. (I did it alone, but it was a struggle).