At Home In The Woods

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#3,361  
I've been looking for a used log splitter on craigslist for a few months but have struck out. It looks like I will be buying a new one. I really like the Super Splitter but am hesitant to shell out the bucks. Recently I saw that Tractor Supply Company has a flywheel splitter (Speeco SpeedPro) that is significantly less expensive than the SS. I told my wife to contact TSC and buy one yesterday. When she called them, they told her the SpeedPro has been recalled. They have removed the SpeedPro off of their website. So now I'm back to square one.

Until I get a splitter, I guess I'll be using the maul and wedges. It's getting colder and we don't have much cut and split firewood. I stopped at Northern Tool today after work and got some wedges. I'm not sure I liked them. They are much narrower than the wedges I've used in the past.
 
   / At Home In The Woods #3,362  
The SS sure is nice, but it is overkill ... I like overkill :). Many folks doing their own firewood end up swearing by the Speeco hydraulic units. Overall well made and good bang for the buck. It seemed there were some other design flaws with the Speeco SS clone, too - I read complaints about the low working height for one. That could be a back killer, if true. You can get the Speecos through TSC or possibly other farm type stores in your area. Fleet Farm around here carries them. TSC calls them Huskee or something.

The only thing to watch for is that the teenagers TSC has assembling them don't do a good job, so you need to make a quick pass over it checking all bolts and hose fittings, plus fluid levels prior to using it. Or if you can, get them to sell it unassembled and you can do it right the first time yourself.
 
   / At Home In The Woods #3,363  
I also looked forever on Craigslist for a used splitter and finally decided to give up and buy a new one from Tractor Supply. A day or two before I pulled the TSC trigger a new listing came up on Craigslist for an off brand splitter that I had never heard of called Iron and Oak that was close and cheap so I decided to look at it. It was like new so I bought it and it works pretty good.
 
   / At Home In The Woods #3,364  
I&O isn't off-brand - it is pretty high end. You scored, I'd say... Very rare to see decent splitters on CL around here.
 
   / At Home In The Woods #3,365  
Thanks...it does seem pretty heavy. I'm looking at vids of the Super Splitter right now and they sure are fast. I love that nice straight gain wood they use in these videos. :laughing:
 
   / At Home In The Woods #3,366  
Why not wait and see how much wood you really use?? As the fireplace isn`t really proven yet, you may find the winter is not so long or cold to justify another piece of equipment--particularly when you factor the garden in---Don`t get me wrong, I love a nice fire, but it gets tiring after the newness wears off.....Tony
 
   / At Home In The Woods
  • Thread Starter
#3,367  
tony Cecil said:
Why not wait and see how much wood you really use?? As the fireplace isn`t really proven yet, you may find the winter is not so long or cold to justify another piece of equipment--particularly when you factor the garden in---Don`t get me wrong, I love a nice fire, but it gets tiring after the newness wears off.....Tony
Tony,
There's some wisdom in your comments. I have little doubt that we will regularly use the fireplace. Yes, the FP still has some question marks. Recently it has been burning very dry ashe firewood fine. However, ashe burns a lot like pine. We have to evaluate how it does with mixed hardwoods. If I continue to see problems with getting enough combustion air into the firebox, I do have the option of removing the automated air control mechanism to allow more air into the FP.

I know my wife; she loves a fire. She is at home several days during the week and will keep a fire going. Thus I really expect to go through some firewood. I do believe a splitter is in my future. I'm just waffling on what to get.

Obed
 
   / At Home In The Woods #3,368  
Well Obed---after all this time I know you to be tenacious, but in this case I think with the number of chores you do, this is one you will `tire` of in the not distant future...Now if there is some `magic` I don`t know about, then the fire will take a fairly constant amount of attention, with the additional occasional shot of smoke in the house, and on your hands....I love the fire for it`s ambience, but after an all day one, I am looking for an excuse not to have another one too quickly, as the novelty wears off if it s overdone.....

You certainly deserve whatever you desire after all the trials and tribulations you have gone through, but I would bet a dollar to a penny after the first cord of wood is burned , the novelty of the pioneer will have diminished....It is very nice to have the option with a power failure, to be able to warm the room, but what you really need is a generator--not a splitter :) We`l see if you share your thoughts Tony
 
   / At Home In The Woods
  • Thread Starter
#3,369  
Now that we are frequently burning wood, I've got to get some wood cut and split. I'm way behind the curve. In an ideal world, I would have my firewood cut and split 12 months ahead of time. However, it's been all I could handle building the house and getting grass on the yard. I hope to be in better shape with firewood before next year's winter.

Today I spent a whole day doing just that. I've really been looking forward to cutting and splitting wood today. For the past month I've been working 70 hour weeks for my regular job because of a big deadline. While I really enjoy the work I'm doing at work right now, I've needed a break from sitting at a computer.

My wife cleaned up the natural area in front of our house and made a pile of small trees for me to cut up. So I cut up the pile and we stacked the wood on a pallet. I've seen some threads on TBN where people have used pallets for stacking their firewood. The concept seemed to make lots of sense so I decided to follow suit. I like the idea of minimizing how many times you handle the logs. Now if I could just figure out how to get the pallet of wood into the living room!
 

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   / At Home In The Woods
  • Thread Starter
#3,370  
Today I finally started cutting up this big pile of logs. Some of these logs have been lying here for over 2 years from when we cleared the road and and when we cleared spaces for the house and garden. The logs in the back of the pile are the oldest so I decided to cut a log from the back of the pile.

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I picked a red oak log to cut up because we are still evaluating whether or not our fireplace has burning problems. I wanted some oak to see how well it would burn in our FP. The log I picked was fairly dry in some spots but wet in some others. I pulled the log out of the pile with a chain until one end of the log was sticking out in the air. This position allowed me to saw pieces completely off without needing to roll over the log. The log was about 25 feet long and approximately 15 inches in diameter.

I cut up the log into 18" long pieces. Our fireplace will handle pieces up to 24" but pieces that long are a little clumsey to use in our FP. When the log was down to the last 10 feet, I pulled it completely off the pile so that it was lying on the ground. I made the cuts on the top side of the log, then rolled it over with one of these that I bought from Northern tool two days ago. The one I purchased can be seen in my FEL. It has a wooden unlike the fiberclass handle shown in the picture. Rolling a big log over was a breaze with this tool. I'm very glad I bought it.

After cutting up the log, I started splitting with my maul and axe. The red oak split fairly well with an occasional log that gave me some trouble. I split the logs into 6 to 8 pieces. As the day progressed, my splitting proceedure improved. What worked fairly well was to split the log into 2 halves with my maul. Then I used my axe to split the halves into smaller pieces. Using the heavy maul was a lot of work so I took advantage of the lighter axe for the smaller pieces. I was also much more acurate swinging the lighter axe than the heavy maul. After splitting each 18" log, I stacked the pieces onto the pallet. I didn't have my wife's help on this log. This knotty piece gave me particular troubles. I spent a good 15 minutes or so splitting it with my maul, axe, and wedges. If I had any sense I would have put this piece aside and waited to split it when I get a log splitter.

When I finished cutting up the log, my pallet was looking rather tall. Unfortunately, my tractor couldn't lift that big of a stack. Thus I had to unload some of the wood and stack it onto another pallet. I then delivered the nicely stacked pallet of wood into our garage where it is easily accessible.
 

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