I spent a summer working on a farm splitting farmwood hour after hour after hour bent over one of the horizontal splitters. I think its a device made for torture...
One of my thoughts on using the tractor was to get a splitter that the JD could run. I'm having second thoughts about all this. For the last couple of years I have been splitting firewood as I need it with a simple splitt'n wedge on a stick. This seems to work real well. I only have to split a little at a time as I need wood. My father split roughly a third of a cord in an hour or so of work. I really think this wedge on a stick is faster on most logs than a log spliter. Logs that have a bend or fork can be a bit tougher.
The problem with most log splitters is that the operator is bent over all the time and that is real hard on the back. I saw some sort of a timber tool, and I think it was a splitter, in the ad section of Small Sawmill and Woodlot magazine. What caught my eye was that the operator was not bent over.
It kinda of hit me that I could use the FEL to load up a bunch of wood, I do this all the time anyway, and use it to hold the wood at a comfortable level. If the wood spillter was waist high then you could run the thing for along time without having to bend over except to pick up the splits. There just needed to be a way to keep the splitter at the right hight.
Tain't figured that part out since I don't have a splitter and I think this part will be very splitter specific. I suppose you could build a bench to hold splitter and use the FEL to hoist it into place. Then use the FEL to bring in the logs.
I noticed how easy it was to us the FEL to load the truck. I don't dump the wood in but stack it by hand. This is very easy with the FEL at just the right hight. Since I don't have to really lift UP there is very little work.
If I ever get a log splitter I don't think I'll have one to hook up to the rear of the tractor.
Just my thoughts....
Dan McCarty