How to Clip Hinged Joint Mesh Properly
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Clip every line wire at every post. On a 7/90/30 run with posts at 4 metres that's about 1,750 clips a kilometre before you've touched the plain top and bottom wires. Add those and most jobs land somewhere between 2,000 and 3,000 clips per kilometre.
Hinged joint is the most common rural mesh in the country, and it's the one people rush. Get the strain right and clip it properly and it'll sit there for twenty years. Get it wrong and it bellies out the first time a mob leans on it.
Read the mesh code first
The numbers stamped on the roll tell you nearly everything you need before you order a clip.
7/90/30 means 7 line wires, 900mm high, 300mm between the vertical stays. 8/90/15 is 8 line wires at the same height with stays every 150mm. The first number is the one that decides your clip count, because that's how many wires you're fixing at each post.
Typical hinged joint runs 2.5mm line wire through the middle with a heavier 2.8mm top and bottom. The hinge knot is a wrap rather than a welded or fixed joint, and that's the whole point of it. When a beast hits the fence the knot lets the mesh flex, then it pulls back into shape instead of tearing.
That flex is also why the clip matters. A hinged joint fence moves. Whatever you use to hold the mesh to the wire has to move with it and still be there afterwards.
Strain the mesh first, clip second
Every fencing job that goes bad goes bad in this order. Somebody clips as they unroll, then finds they can't pull the strain up because the mesh is already pinned.
Run your plain wires first and get them tight. Unroll the mesh, hang it loose off a few temporary ties, then strain it up with a proper spreader bar or mesh strainer so the whole roll comes up evenly. Only then do you walk back down the line clipping.
Two things to watch while you're straining. Hinged joint stretches more at the bottom than the top if your spreader isn't square, so check the line wire spacings against the mesh before you commit. And if the run has a dip or a rise in it, hold the mesh down into the dip with a couple of ties before you strain, or you'll pull a gap under the bottom wire that every pig in the district will find.
Where the clips go
Four jobs on a standard run.
- Mesh to the post. Every line wire at every post is the strong version. Every second wire is the light version, and it's fine on quiet stock on flat ground where you're really just stopping the mesh sliding.
- Mesh to the plain top wire. One clip every 500mm if you want it tight, every metre if the fence is more about containment than exclusion.
- Mesh to the plain bottom wire. Same spacing logic. This one matters more than the top on any fence where something might push underneath.
- Roll to roll where two rolls meet. Overlap a stay or two and clip every line wire through the overlap. Don't rely on a couple of clips in the middle.
On steel posts the clip goes around the post wire or through the hole depending on your post type. On timber you're generally clipping mesh to the strained line wire and stapling the line wire to the timber, not clipping straight into the post.
Setting the closure
A C24 ring is 16 gauge, 1.8mm wire, with a 24mm crown. Closed properly it wraps the mesh wire and the line wire together and holds without biting through the galvanising.
The closure adjustment on a clip gun sets how far the jaws come together. Too loose and the ring spins and works its way off over a season. Too tight and you crush the wire and crack the coating, which is exactly where rust starts. You want the ring snug enough that you can't slide it along the line wire by hand, but not so tight that the wire is flattened.
Set it on a scrap piece before you start the run. Close a few rings, look at them, adjust, then go. Two minutes at the start saves you walking a kilometre back.
There's more detail on ring sizing and what fits what in our guide to C24 clips.
Working out how many clips you'll need
The sum is simple. Line wires clipped, multiplied by posts per kilometre, plus whatever you're putting on the plain wires.
| Post spacing | Posts per kilometre |
|---|---|
| 3m | 334 |
| 4m | 250 |
| 5m | 200 |
| Job | Working | Clips per km |
|---|---|---|
| 7/90/30, 4m posts, every wire | 7 x 250 | 1,750 |
| 7/90/30, 4m posts, every second wire | 4 x 250 | 1,000 |
| 7/90/30, 3m posts, every wire | 7 x 334 | 2,338 |
| 8/90/15, 4m posts, every wire | 8 x 250 | 2,000 |
| Top plain wire clipped every 500mm | 1000 / 0.5 | 2,000 |
| Top plain wire clipped every metre | 1000 / 1 | 1,000 |
So a fairly standard job, 7/90/30 on 4 metre posts with every wire clipped plus a top wire at one metre spacing, comes out around 2,750 per kilometre. A box of 10,000 covers roughly three to four kilometres of that.
If you'd rather not do the arithmetic, the clip calculator does it off your mesh code and post spacing. There's a longer breakdown in how many clips per kilometre of fence too.
Order about 10 per cent over your number. You'll drop some, you'll waste a few setting the closure, and running out at 4pm on a Friday two hours from town is its own kind of education.
Coating: match the clip to the mesh
Galvanised is the standard and the cheapest, and it's fine on most inland country.
Stainless is what you want near the coast, in high rainfall, around dairy sheds or effluent, or anywhere salt gets carried on the wind.
Galfan sits in between. It's a zinc aluminium coating, and it holds up better than plain zinc of the same thickness where there's salt about.
The rule we'd give you at the counter is to match the clip to the mesh. If you've paid for Galfan mesh, don't hang it on galvanised clips, because the clips will go first and you've wasted the upgrade. There's a fuller comparison in stainless vs galvanised fencing clips.
The mistakes that cost you a fence
Clipping before straining. Covered above, and it's the big one.
Clipping the mesh directly to the post on a timber fence instead of to the strained wire. The mesh then carries load it was never meant to carry.
Skipping the bottom wire. Most exclusion failures happen at ground level, not over the top.
Uneven closure. Half your rings tight and half loose means the tight ones take all the load and the loose ones fall off.
Mixing clip coatings on the same fence because you ran out of one box. It works, it just means you'll be back at the weak clips first.
What you need to do it
For a repair or a short run, a decent pair of hog ring pliers and a box of clips is plenty, and we'd tell you that before we'd sell you anything else.
Once you're doing kilometres the arithmetic changes. A cordless gun means no compressor and no hose to drag along the fence line behind you. The Outback ClipGun kit comes with a 4.0Ah battery, a 240V charger, a belt clip and a carry bag. It's 2.75kg without the battery, holds 120 rings in the magazine, and it fires standard C24 clips rather than a proprietary size. Clips aren't in the box, so order them at the same time.
You can see the lot on the fencing clip guns collection. If you're clipping fixed knot rather than hinged joint, that's a different job with different rules, and it's covered in clipping fixed knot fence.
FAQ
Do I have to clip every line wire?
No, but it's the stronger fence. Every wire at every post is what you want under real stock pressure or on a boundary. Every second wire is acceptable on internal fences with quiet stock on flat country.
What size clip suits hinged joint?
C24. That's 16 gauge, 1.8mm wire, 24mm crown. It's an industry size rather than a brand one, so you're not locked into buying from a single supplier.
Can I clip hinged joint straight onto a steel post?
You clip the mesh to the line wire, and the line wire is what's fixed to the post. Clipping mesh directly onto a post concentrates load at a single point, and that's where it'll tear.
How tight should the ring be?
Snug enough that you can't slide it along the wire with your fingers, loose enough that the wire isn't flattened or the coating cracked. Test on a scrap before you start.
How many clips are in a box?
Boxes are 10,000. On a standard hinged joint run that's about three to four kilometres. Send us your mesh code and post spacing and we'll do the sum for you.