Skid Steer stick chopper

[Craig Clayton]

I watched your vid about the splitting head. There was a similiar product in North America about 25 years ago called a vega matic. As it was advertised to slice dice or julian fries potatoes. It was a vertical hand powered potatoe slicer. It died on the marketing end and never made it big.
Your splitting head has the same design concept except to use wood. I think you need to let the wood as it exists the head be able to go all directions so that it does not become a HP hog aka jam up.
That is all I can think of a the moment, I hope there is no offence taken.

Craig Clayton

 

[Rgillard]

We found that the blades were a little tight on the first setup. So we cut it up and temporarily welded in the blades in a three blade setup. This seemed to work a lot better and didnt block up at all. The kindling is not just as small. The biggest problem with it was keeping wood in it. The ram is pretty quick. Next step is to make a set of legs for it and add the valve so it can be operated outside the skid steer. A bag holding/filling device is also needed.

YouTube - log splitter blade 2

We also worked on the log splitter side of the blade. It consisted of a piece of box section with a cross shaped blade welded to it. Thinking about it now it was stupid as the video shows. The log splits ok but then gets stuck on the flat surface of the box.... So we are going to redesign this aswell so that its just a solid blade and no box section.


YouTube - Bad log splitting blade

We actually learnt more from getting it wrong a few times than getting it right first time...


Ron

 

[Rgillard]

I watched your vid about the splitting head. There was a similiar product in North America about 25 years ago called a vega matic. As it was advertised to slice dice or julian fries potatoes. It was a vertical hand powered potatoe slicer. It died on the marketing end and never made it big.
Your splitting head has the same design concept except to use wood. I think you need to let the wood as it exists the head be able to go all directions so that it does not become a HP hog aka jam up.
That is all I can think of a the moment, I hope there is no offence taken.

Craig Clayton

No offence taken Craig.. All part of the learning. As you can see we did redesign the blade after 3-4 times of having to unblock it.... It shows that what looks lovely on a computer CAD system doesn't always work in reality. With regards to my oil I will check the cap on the tank. The machine doesn't seem to have any leaks on it where water could be entering. When I changed the oil the last time I didnt get the oil that was in the loader arms so there was probably enough to contaminate the new oil that was replaced.. I put about 25 litres of oil into it and capacity is about 29 so 4 litres was the milky white oil...

 

[jimmysisson]

I'm interested in the parallel-blade/wedge idea, never thought of that. One thing I notice is that the sled that rides on the beam is shorter than most of the ones I've seen - may rock a bit more and wear quicker than a longer one? The speed is very nice - wish mine went that fast!
Nice.
Jim

 

[jimmyj]

I really like this idea. On my splitter the ram pushes the wedge so I'm scared to try different wedge heads for fear of twisting the cylinder. Any comments from the crew on that happening? (Sorry, mini hijack but I love your idea and promise not to take it too far off track).

 

[Rgillard]

latest vid

YouTube - P3050339

 

[Rgillard]

pics o0f latest

 

[crash325]

pics o0f latest

Like your machine, very strong looking & well built. Wish I had seen it before building mine.

2 Thoughts, you may want to thicken the top rail, If you plan on splitting real hard & nasty wood. Also think a little longer slide would combat any binding.

Mine is an ongoing project, wheels, tow hitch and reinforce the rails 1 more time. Teeth will be added to the pusher, very little of the wood here can be cut square and most has a twisted grain, that can change to cross grain.

Have Fun
Jim