I need opinions on how to run the hardware cloth

[NancyNurseCxMama]

We covered the whole top of our run with HC. Our ceiling joists are 48" on center and we had rolls of HC that were 50' x 48." We could have gotten 100' rolls for slightly less but decided they were too heavy for us old folks to mess with.
Measured and cut to fit with an overhang. Smacked the overhang with a rubber hammer and it sort of held it on like a lip.
Even when it's cut it wants to roll up. We got on ladders and got on the openings in the joists (next to where we wanted to put the wire) and pulled it into place, one of us holding on to the unrolled part to keep it from kicking up. We played it by ear---some of the wire was easier to unroll but as you got to the end, it wanted to roll up really tightly. In the beginning of the roll we could almost push it across the 10' span from one side to the other.
We resisted the urge to staple one end first---sounds great until you start unrolling and realize you are off by just a teensy little bit that translates to a bigass bit once it gets to the other side.
Pulling out 1.5" compressor-driven staples is not fun and that's what we had to do when we screwed up with that first run.
The run is now entirely enclosed with HC, with HC running down and then out from the perimeter (buried). We will be increasing the ceiling joists to every 24" and adding a polycarbonate panel roof...sometime before the first snow storm (fingers crossed).

 

[paintedChix]

Great post and parts had me laughing hard enuff to tear up !!

 

[dunnmom]

Basically, we ran it whichever way that required the least amount of trimming and produced the least amount of unusable scraps. For us, that meant mostly vertical panels. We also took into consideration the width of the cloth when we framed it, so it would almost perfectly cover the space between the studs without a bunch of overhang.

 

[dunnmom]

We covered the whole top of our run with HC. Our ceiling joists are 48" on center and we had rolls of HC that were 50' x 48." We could have gotten 100' rolls for slightly less but decided they were too heavy for us old folks to mess with.
Measured and cut to fit with an overhang. Smacked the overhang with a rubber hammer and it sort of held it on like a lip.
Even when it's cut it wants to roll up. We got on ladders and got on the openings in the joists (next to where we wanted to put the wire) and pulled it into place, one of us holding on to the unrolled part to keep it from kicking up. We played it by ear---some of the wire was easier to unroll but as you got to the end, it wanted to roll up really tightly. In the beginning of the roll we could almost push it across the 10' span from one side to the other.
We resisted the urge to staple one end first---sounds great until you start unrolling and realize you are off by just a teensy little bit that translates to a bigass bit once it gets to the other side.
Pulling out 1.5" compressor-driven staples is not fun and that's what we had to do when we screwed up with that first run.
The run is now entirely enclosed with HC, with HC running down and then out from the perimeter (buried). We will be increasing the ceiling joists to every 24" and adding a polycarbonate panel roof...sometime before the first snow storm (fingers crossed).

We unrolled the whole roll on the grass, and then walked on it to straighten it out. It helped a lot when we went to measure and make cuts. Then we had cut and straightened panels we could hang, but it still took two sets of hands to get it screwed down straight. I don't recommend working with hardware cloth alone to anyone. Sounds like a setup for cussing-level frustration, and possibly an injury.