My current existential crisis is how to put up these pickets. The old fence was (it appears) installed with no gaps. It is supposed to be a full privacy fence. There is a mixture of old and new posts. Some posts are okay, my posts are plumb, but a few are very much not plumb. The pickets are cedar.
So my options are:
1) install everything tight and cut down the last picket with a table saw on each panel to fill the remainder.
2) take the width from post to post, divide by the width of the picket, take the remainder and divide by pickets minus 1 to determine spacing. This means spacing will vary on each panel, in theory. Even if slightly.
I don’t want the space to be excessive because I expect the pickets to shrink over time. 1) souuuuunds like it’s quicker option because I can just run through with the hammer and no math until I get to the last picket on each panel, but 2) will be probably do the job and not require the table saw. But it will more critical to make sure the pickets are hanging plumb and having to worry about multiple gaps so I gotta make a jig... PER panel! Because every post-to-post measurement is just different enough to be annoying.
Thoughts?