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LD1, I thought that I wasn't going to like the two handed control either, but figured I'd just modify it to one handed if it was a pain, but it isn't. In fact, it doesn't make any difference time wise and it actually forces you to stand in a safer place when splitting. What they don't show you on any of the videos is what can happen sometimes when you split knotty pieces. The majority of the time it will bust the wood like it's nothing, but there are times when it actually flips the log vertically and makes it spin right back into the cradle area. This happens faster than you can get out of the way of. With the positioning of the controls, you are out of the way and aren't getting hit with that flying piece.
As for the table, what ends up happening for me is that when I quarter the log, the bigger chunks are just in the way. The idea of sliding the piece back to you is great, but with the speed that the logs are going through, you don't want anything that is going to get in the way. When they are sitting on the table, half the time they get knocked off the end by the smaller pieces that are being split out of the quarters. Then you're picking them up off the ground at the end of the machine. Or, in our case, we have a hay elevator that the split pieces go onto and the quarters wind up on there and into the truck or on top of the pile they go. I normally have something sitting behind me and to my left that I can put the quarters on and easily bring them back to the machine when ready for them.
IslandTractor, you are right about the inertia splitter not being much of an advantage unless you are splitting commercial quantities of wood. But with the introduction of the Speeco splitter, it is the same or less money than some of the hydraulic splitters. My 35 ton Huskee splitter runs $1700 - 1800 new and can't keep up with my mecahanical one. The only advantage to it now is that it splits vertically and we can break up the big round pieces that we can't pick up to put on the inertia splitter.
You raise some interesting points about the ergonomics of differentiated splitters. Also, if a single person were splitting rounds, would the inertia splitter end up much faster as much time is taken to acquire and feed the splitter the next round. I have seen and used the Husky splitter you have at my bil's house. It is really slow. It seems to be wanting a larger pump. My 20 ton is at least a third faster and takes about 7 seconds to split a 10" round into quarters. It also takes 7 seconds for it to come back which I think is where one makes up the time with an inertia splitter. If one has to stop and get the next piece as opposed to having it handed to him, now I am not so sure of the speed advantage. At any rate, the moral of this story is there seems to be more to it than the round splitting the fastest as far as which splitter is the most beneficial for any given user or users. Thanks for your input.
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