Thought I would share something that I came up with last summer. My sister asked if I could help install some invisible dog fence around her yard.

Not really relishing the idea of spending hours with a hand edging tool cutting a slot I decided to see if I could come up with a mechanized version that would get the job done quickly at the proper depth and most of all meet her only requirement.

Do not destroy my yard !!

Sounded simple enough I thought so I began looking at the inventory of available material in the scrap pile. I had this piece of tool bar and mounting brackets that I got for nothing for just getting out of someones way. That looked like a promising start.  I thought well I can cut a piece down to the approximate width of the tractor tracks for ease of use and not have to worry about catching any obstructions.

Next I considered how to open up a slot. I thought about the swivel of a plow rolling coulter but thought that would create the job of making another mount to fit the 4x4 bar. Then I thought why not use a end coulter off the row crop cultivator. It already has a mounting for a 4x4 bar. That worked really well and even worked to mount directly in the center of the toolbar with it's single u bolt mount.

The next piece I spied was this piece of steel. Holes were already in it and I thought that would make a nice narrow profile knife to follow the coulter. A quick tracing against the coulter and cut with the torch made the curved section the rest I eyeballed to closely resemble the shape of a tile plow boot.

Now I got to thinking I need to spread this trench slightly so a small piece of angle iron was welded onto the back of my knife and then this allowed an ideal place to mount an old fertilizer tube from the planter to feed the wire down into the slot.

Next I needed to make some brackets to pull the knife behind the coulter. I utilized some more scrap pieces and spacers to make that all work.

When I make something like this I always like to design it so that the item can be returned to its intended use un modified as much as possible. So while welding brackets on might have been preferred or easier that would have spoiled my intentions of not permanently modifying things.

Next a couple old 3 point brackets off an old Ferguson rotary hoe and a threaded rod served as as a wishbone structure to hold the spools of wire. 

Okay so far this has been a zero $ build and just a little time spent now lets see if it's going to work.

This is looking pretty good going into a grass lane that goes to the woods. It's leaving a clean slot with minimal tearing or disturbance and just enough space for the wire at approx. the right depth.

Running the tractor tire over the opened slot closes it nicely and meets the "do not tear up my yard" criteria I was ordered not to cross !

Here are a few of the wire going in the ground and the minimal disturbance.

All in all it was a great success and some might fault the way I accomplished this but it worked great to install several thousand feet of wire in less than 30 minutes. It took a little extra time making the corners due to the fact the coulter could not pivot like a plow coulter would have but for placing wire a few inches underground with minimal disturbance it worked great for a farm engineered solution. Part of the make do with what you have attitude I try to use to my advantage. For electrical wire or water line you would want a shank to place those utilities deeper and you would want to call your proper authorities for locating existing services before you begin.

More pictures here

http://imageevent.com/vprb/wireplow

Also a couple videos of the dry run

http://photos.imageevent.com/vprb/wireplow/Wire%20Installer%20num1.wmv

http://photos.imageevent.com/vprb/wireplow/Wire%20Installer%20num2.wmv

Hope someone else might find the idea useful for a similar project