News — Australian rural myth

Spirally-twisted steel posts are widely distributed across Australia, but are not particularly common. They date from the late 1920s, and a persistent rural myth is that they were screwed into the ground. There are both right-hand and left-hand spirals, but left-hand posts are much more common. What’s the story behind them? The post and the patents The Corkscrew Post is a steel post with a distinctive shallow H-shaped cross-section, spirally twisted into a corkscrew over most of its length. Three patents cover the post, and more importantly, the machines to make them: George David Watson (engineer, 14 Mayfair Street, Lower...